The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to satisfy today's claimants in the here-and-now at the expense of long-term concerns. Rules and auditing standards are intended to tame this kind of short-sighted behavior in the private sector. In the public sector, the primary safeguard is the hope that public officials will not be…

The vast majority of public employees--including teachers--are enrolled in defined-benefit pension plans. These plans are usually the product of state legislation that determines eligibility, benefit formulas, employer and employee contributions, and how payments will be calculated when an employee retires or leaves the system. Once an employee…

Declining enrollment and the impact of Proposition 13 are discussed in regard to retrenchment and retention rates. It is suggested that higher education establish meaningful communication and affirmative programming to lessen the effects of retrenchment and cut-backs. (Author/LC)

Practitioner papers and research papers on higher education planning and budgeting are presented. "Before the Roof Caves In: A Predictive Model for Physical Plant Renewal" by Frederick M. Biedenweg and Robert E. Hutson outlines a systematic approach that was used at Stanford University to predict the associated costs of physical plant…