Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the country, is on pace to spend more than half of its annual budget on retirement and health-care costs by the year 2031. By then, it is projected to spend 22.4 percent of its budget on pensions and 28.4 on health-care benefits for current and former workers. The cost of health care is…

Public school districts are facing twin challenges: maintaining a labor supply of qualified teachers while shoring up the deteriorating system that compensates them. Keeping public-school teachers' pensions plans flush is expensive, and it accounts for a growing share of education spending. In some states, public charter schools provide an…

The ongoing global financial crisis is forcing many employers, from General Motors to local general stores, to take a hard look at the costs of the compensation packages they offer employees. For public school systems, this will entail a consideration of fringe benefit costs, which in recent years have become an increasingly important component of…