SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Contributions from local school districts to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System are expected to skyrocket over the next decade, and to stay that way for decades after.

Statewide, school districts must now come up with $74 billion in the coming fiscal year as part of a state mandated rescheduling aimed at replenishing the teachers’ retirement system, which is grossly underfunded, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

District and teacher contributions to the system will triple by 2021, when the system will return to 2007 levels, and will be expected to remain at the higher rate through 2046 in order to pay off liabilities, according to the new site.

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For many school districts the increased contributions equate to tens of millions of dollars this year alone.

“It’s going to hit the fan because you’ll have to make a decision – I have to pay this so you can’t buy that,” said Gary Hamels, superintendent with San Marcos Unified School District, who expects employee retirement contributions to increase 26 percent, or about $8.5 million, this year.

That number is expected to increase to $23.6 million by 2021, he told the Union-Tribune.

“We’ll have a situation where there’s demand for some academic improvement but this is where the money is going first,” Hamels said.

The retirement repayments are part of a school funding law passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this summer. California also voters passed Proposition 30 in November to raise taxes as a means of paying off the state’s $16 billion budget deficit, but those taxes are temporary, and many school officials are worried about what comes after, according to the Union-Tribune.

“This is something we really didn’t plan for when we put our budgets together,” Grossmont Union High School assistant superintendent Scott Patterson said.

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The Grossmont district is expecting retirement costs to jump 128 percent to $16 million by 2021, he said.

In the San Diego Unified School District the repayments will likely increase by “tens of millions” of dollars in the next seven years, school board vice president John Lee Evans told the news site.

“We don’t want money directed to the classroom to be eaten up by a pension fund,” he said. “If that, in fact, is what is going to happen, we are going to need corresponding funding above and beyond the increases we are now looking at.”

Evans also pointed out that new government accountability rules will also require California schools to list unfunded liabilities in their budgets for the first time this year, which could lead some credit rating agencies to lower ratings. That, of course, would cost schools more to borrow money.

“Lenders are going to have to figure out how to address this because it affects every district in California,” he said.

According to the Union-Tribune, “Officials in districts throughout California are talking about forming a coalition to explore ways to fix the teacher retirement system without cutting into their own school programs.”

“I think you will hear moaning and gnashing of teeth from all kinds of people,” Lora Duzyk, assistant superintendent of business for San Diego County’s Office of Education, told the news site.

“The money to pay for this are new costs that come right off the top of anything you get (from the state.)”