State shirks its duty on teacher pensions

I read with interest of Gov.Martin O'Malley's efforts to ditch the state's obligation to pay its fair share of teachers' pensions ("Budget to shift pension burden," Jan. 18). The state has failed to make it's contractual contributions to the teachers' pension fund for years.

I pay over $300 every two weeks into the fund and have been contributing to it for years. In all of the discussions, arguments and news accounts of this issue, those facts are hardly ever reported by anyone.

Teachers are mandated to pay into the fund, the state steals the money then calls the system unsustainable. If this were a private sector rip-off some people would be going to jail.

Ron Shriner, Arnold