FOLSOM, Calif. – School districts across California are warning employees of a looming “uncertain economic period” brought on in large part by skyrocketing teacher pension payments in coming years.

Legislation enacted in 2014 forces California schools to increase contributions to the California State Teachers Retirement System and the California Public Employment Retirement System on July 1, and many districts are bracing for the impact, the Sacramento Bee reports.

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The move comes as pension payments in the Folsom Cordova district jumped $3.5 million this year, and are scheduled to increase by another $2.7 million this summer. Sacramento City Unified school district is in the same boat, with an increase of $6.6 million for the current fiscal year with another $12 million increase coming in July.

In four years, Sacramento’s pension payments will hit $27 million a year, according to the news site.

“If you face deficit spending, the longer you don’t take care of it, the more painful the cost,” Sacramento’s chief business officer Gerardo Castillo said. “That happened to us in 2012-13 when we had to reduce custodian staff, close schools.

“We were able to manage. But they were painful cuts. They hurt the students. That’s the bottom line. That’s what we’re trying to avoid. This is the reality.”

Folsom Cordova Unified superintendent Deborah Bettencourt laid out the same argument in an email to staff in April warning employees about two years of expected budget deficits starting July 1, when the district expects to be $3.8 million in the red.

The email explained that the district isn’t planning to give out raises unless Gov. Jerry Brown boosts school funding in his budget, expected in May.

“I feel like we’re coming back into another mini recession, at least for school district,” Bettencourt told the Bee.

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The pension payment increases are designed to help alleviate the CalSTRS’ massive $97 billion unfunded liability for 2017, a figure that increased by $21 billion over the last year. State officials announced in March that they’re reducing the system’s expected rate of return from 7.5 percent to 7 percent over the next two years, and increasing the amount districts pay in to get the system back on track by 2046.

“The increase in unfunded liabilities is part of an actuarial valuation, a snapshot in effect, of the fund’s assets and liabilities. While the snapshot is as of June 30, it is based on the 7.25% rate that goes into effect July 1,” Pensions & Investments reports.

“The $202.1 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System‘s 1.4% investment return for the year ended June 30 and an increase in the mortality rate for teachers after retirement were also contributing factors to the increase in the unfunded liability. CalSTRS’ funding ratio has also dropped to almost 64% as of June 30, from 68% a year earlier, officials said.”

Regardless, the state’s teachers unions don’t seem overly concerned about the looming financial troubles, and successfully lobbied to kill legislation this month that would have eliminated cost-of-living increases and implemented other changes to help fix the retirement system sooner.

State Sen. John Moorlach’s Senate Bill 32 “would have temporarily banned cost-of-living increases that pensioners receive, required local governments to increase their pension contribution rates by 10 percent and compelled public employers to offer 401(K) style defined contribution plans to supplement pensions,” the Bee reports.

“The bill failed by a 3-2 vote in the Senate’s Public Employment and Retirement Committee after a parade of union representatives voiced opposition to it.”

Ironically, union officials are also demanding raises from school districts struggling to come up with the cash for their current payments.

Folsom Cordova Education Association president Angelica Miklos told the news site the union has pushed for a 4.5 percent raise, then a 3.5 percent raise, but “the district has come back zero every time.”

Miklos and Sacramento teachers union boss Nikki Milevsky believe local school officials are simply crying wolf, and actually have plenty of cash to dole out raises despite the steep pension payment increases.

“Sacramento City Unified is like the Chicken Little of school districts,” Milevsky said. “In the last three years the district has underestimated its budget by $71 million.”

The last three years, however, didn’t involve the drastic increases in pension payments, which California School Boards Association President Susan Henry said will be seriously squeezing school budgets across the state with ratcheting pension payments through 2024.

“What we’ve been talking about is a perfect storm,” Henry said.