Torrance school board okays 185 layoffs, including 125 teachers

One word: horrible.

Its about darn time that the union members will share this pain with the rest of us in the private sector..........and this needs to be done and be done today and not tomorrow!!!! Welcome to Obama's economy which trickles down all the way from Washington DC and across the nation and into our backyards and in our lives. How is that "change" doing now friends? Its all of you teachers and teachers union who vote for the liberal candidate each and every election and now you got hit right between the eyes with a good dose of reality of what tax and spend and big regulation does to our economy. Taxes and unions kill jobs. Cutting taxes and regulation stimulates the economy and creates jobs. But I wish the entire union was at stake and the entire union busts in half..........the school districts are the first to deserve the finanical punishment and reality of a bad economy. Welcome to the real world you fools.

As a Torrance resident, I would like to see all the illegal alien children taken out of our schools, taken away from the benefits that are milking our city, county and state dry, and send them and their families back to whereever they came from.
How much of a dent in the deficit would that make!?!? Oh I know, its not politically correct....but its right and true.

Bill C....you post says it all, you are a class act sir. Lets all bash teachers and god forbid the teachers union...My Mother is a dedicated longtime teacher and spend many, many of her own hours on weekends doing what she needs to do to teach her students. She spends her own money and does not complain. Bill, I am sure you benefited from a fine education, don't the Torrance students deserve the same?

On another note? doesn't anyone else find it disturbing that some Hollywood reality star gets 100k to attend a party for just 1 evening? Or a pro baseball player makes 45 million to play baseball?...There is a huge widening gap between the uber rich, and the middle class who are edging towards becoming working poor....

We need to come back to reality a bit here in the US and start spending our money on whats important.

Lets Stop It wrote:

As a Torrance resident, I would like to see all the illegal alien children taken out of our schools, taken away from the benefits that are milking our city, county and state dry, and send them and their families back to whereever they came from.
How much of a dent in the deficit would that make!?!? Oh I know, its not politically correct....but its right and true.

This is exactly what happens when WE make provisions for the "illegals". WE end up not having enough money to help/educate/house our own LEGAL citizens...

It IS NOT "racist" to demand that OUR tax dollars go towards LEGAL citizens ....

On another note the school board voted to hand out raises in Jan 2008 ($4 mil) knowing well in advance that they would be getting less from the state for the year 2009. Now it's 2010 and the fit really hit the shan. So much for planning for the future...

Save OUR money ??? Naw let's just spend it like drunken fools ...

Bill C wrote:

Its about darn time that the union members will share this pain with the rest of us in the private sector..........and this needs to be done and be done today and not tomorrow!!!! Welcome to Obama's economy which trickles down all the way from Washington DC and across the nation and into our backyards and in our lives. How is that "change" doing now friends? Its all of you teachers and teachers union who vote for the liberal candidate each and every election and now you got hit right between the eyes with a good dose of reality of what tax and spend and big regulation does to our economy. Taxes and unions kill jobs. Cutting taxes and regulation stimulates the economy and creates jobs. But I wish the entire union was at stake and the entire union busts in half..........the school districts are the first to deserve the finanical punishment and reality of a bad economy. Welcome to the real world you fools.

Them damn unions!

One of the very best skapegoats.

Even better than illegal immigrants because at least Unions are vocal and can be attacked without risking being labled a racist.

On a side note, I often wonder how many "private industry" jobs 100% dependent on the government.

My wife works for Sylvan Learning Center - a private company - yet she is employed because they have a contract with a local school district to tutor lower performing kids.

My dad has worked in aerospace for the past 30+ years. All of the contracts have been with the government.

Personally, I worked for a telecommunications company for a time that had a contract with a public school district installing internet hardware.

Why should it just be the teachers that take pay cuts? Wouldn't Dr.'s Mannon, Stabler, Love, et al be willing to be pillars of example by voluntarily cutting their paychecks by a few thousand a year?
Teachers are out in the foxholes teaching while the upper management are sitting in their cushy offices manipulating the strings of principals. Let's start from the top and work our way down.......

I will repeat this once more. There are always solutions to consider. Without taxing, take 1.5% of every real estate transaction in Torrance and consider that a fair trade for every single real estate transaction that has been linked to our great schools. There isn't one real estate salesperson who hasn't used the school system as their hook for the last 30 years. Let's be honest, they have all said it when selling Torrance. Well guess what, the goose that has laid the golden egg is about to crack...
It is time to do what is fair, what will work, and not add anymore taxes to the over taxed residents of our city.

Has a 10% pay cut - top to bottom - been considered?
Unions won't like it, but teachers and other employees would. Their jobs get tougher, and morale drops when their fellow employees lose their jobs.

I heard a rumor the Mr. Mannon earns $180k per year, and yes that would be a good place to start ...

In times like this I don't think any public employee should anything above $90k per year. On top of that ALL allowances should be cut to zero, no more bonuses, no more perks, no more nuthin but the bare bones approach.

QueerInMySoup_com wrote:

One word: horrible.

One word: awesome.

Face reality but this is what retirement of 90% on up of salary does to the tax pool. Why in the world should anyway get 90% of their salary when retired..........its not dumb.........its stupid and antiAmerican. The Torrance school district can no longer afford to pay for their sporting programs because they have to redirect monies for union member retirement. You are darn right "blame it on the Unions"..........and yes they should be the "Scapegoats".....bec ause that is the reality of the matter!!!! And "yes"..........send the illegal aliens children and packing quickly. The USA has some serious fiscal problems and we are now starting reality in the eyes. This is no longer a future problem that one day we will have to confront. This is todays problem and the only way to end the bleeding is to stop these hefty union retirement payoffs for life and get this aliens the he*ll out of our districts!!!! I could care less that your wife or family members put in their 40 years into their retirement........its got to stop. 20% retirement may be realistic but 80% and 90% and 100% retirement based on their salaries in down right socialism and it all su*cks.........just the thought of it su*cks. The free ride is over with.

What is wrong with these imbeciles?

Why are you people complaining?

What part of "there is no money" do you not understand?

The state is practically broke forced to pay IOUs for crying out loud?

I am frankly stunned by you jerks. There is no money you idiots!

whatever wrote:

<quoted text>
Them damn unions!
One of the very best skapegoats.
Even better than illegal immigrants because at least Unions are vocal and can be attacked without risking being labled a racist.
On a side note, I often wonder how many "private industry" jobs 100% dependent on the government.
My wife works for Sylvan Learning Center - a private company - yet she is employed because they have a contract with a local school district to tutor lower performing kids.
My dad has worked in aerospace for the past 30+ years. All of the contracts have been with the government.
Personally, I worked for a telecommunications company for a time that had a contract with a public school district installing internet hardware.

Aww, somebody call the whaaaaaambulance.

Hey clueless person, if you don't perform your contract for the government, you don't get paid and you don't get future business.

You want to tell me how you fire a tenured teacher?

People are p1ssed about the corruption; not that their tax dollars are being used for the "purpose" of teaching. If the unions could only begin to understand this, they may have had a shot a long time ago of saving their collective a$$3$. The chickens have come home to roost...

BInformed wrote:

I will repeat this once more. There are always solutions to consider. Without taxing, take 1.5% of every real estate transaction in Torrance and consider that a fair trade for every single real estate transaction that has been linked to our great schools. There isn't one real estate salesperson who hasn't used the school system as their hook for the last 30 years. Let's be honest, they have all said it when selling Torrance. Well guess what, the goose that has laid the golden egg is about to crack...
It is time to do what is fair, what will work, and not add anymore taxes to the over taxed residents of our city.

"Without taxing..." -> yet you go on to describe a 1.5% tax. How about fee for services? I do agree with you, however, that folks are overtaxed and will not be footing the bill any longer...

Bill C wrote:

Face reality but this is what retirement of 90% on up of salary does to the tax pool. Why in the world should anyway get 90% of their salary when retired..........its not dumb.........its stupid and antiAmerican. The Torrance school district can no longer afford to pay for their sporting programs because they have to redirect monies for union member retirement. You are darn right "blame it on the Unions". The free ride is over with.

They are not even talking cutting the retirement benefits. They are talking about early retirement - which means employees start drawing on their wonderful retirement package - at 55 until their death - and WE pay for it.
Even if the unions make the grand concession of taking pay cuts - all the school employees are going to get wonderful wonderful pensions, which the students they are teaching will be paying for.
Pensions need to be cut completely and 401K equivalents be started. Have TUSD publish what employees get when they retire for residents to really see and understand how expensive this is. And it is not like your 401K that goes down when the market goes down, no there is no downside to their pensions - do they get cost of living increases to their pensions too?

On another note - No on Y and Z, you are really pathetic and need to stop your the sky is falling and I am going to have to pay a few more bucks a year. Do you not get it yet, and it has been over a year since Y and Z passed - with humungous support from the tax payers - that bonds are for CAPITAL expenditures. It was shocking and somewhat amusing to see on another comment board that you thought people didn't move to Torrance for schools but came for the police department? My family moved here for the schools and wished we had moved out because Y and Z are not enough to bring the schools up to where they should be. This other mess is another mess, the broken physical schools mess only belongs to Torrance - compliments of people like you.

Mikey. This would not be a new tax. If a property sells for 100K, 1.5% of the transaction fee would go to the school district. The seller would be responsible for the fee off the gross sales price. No new tax added at all. The fee could also be partially paid by the RE agent. This is only fair considering that every agent out there has used the school district's reputation to sell real estate in the city for decades. The way things are going, the great sales pitch, the TUSD reputation, is going downhill quick, and truthfully why not try it for a couple of years...
Seems fair to all concerned to me.

im getting so sick of this, im writing a letter to Sacramento. How are they cheating education like this? i don't want this country to be run by a bunch of dummies becasue they had to cut teachers and increase class sizes. my mother is a 5th grade teacher and they told her she might lose her job and that they were just not going to have six days of school. California government you are truly failing us right now.

This is very sad news. Our children deserve better than this.

Many of the comments on this topic are misguided (especially Bill C). We tried the tax cuts and deregulation with Bush and that is what caused the near total collapse of out financial system and economy. This is not Obama's economy (at least not yet). What this country needs is less concentration of wealth at the top. Unions are a way to balance the power of corporations. Corporations that have become so powerful that our political system works to serve the corporate interest and not the people's. Bill C you are just plain wrong. Don't become so accustomed to being the whipping boy that you are jealous of another people being fairly compensated.

The Union is not primarily to blame for this problem although it has not helped. Teachers deserve to be highly paid, admittedly though, the constant whining and complaining from teacher organizations is annoying. In business, making excuses and avoiding accountability wont cut it and teachers should own their results.

How about spending more on teachers and less on Iraq, Afghanistan, Military programs that does not make us safer, and tax cuts for corporations. At the end of the day, a highly educated population is the best national defense a country can have- smart bombs and nuclear weapons dont build themselves.

Aren't you glad we got smart bombs? It's a damn good thing our bombs are clever. It's a shame that our kids are dumb. But our bombs are smart, what a lucky thing now.

- Danny Elfman, 1994