The pension borrowing bill that just passed the Assembly and got through the Senate last night sparked a good 90 minute debate in the lower house with Republicans and Democrats squaring off over what they alternately termed reckless out-of-control education spending or the need to smooth out pension costs, and whether teachers unions were running roughshod over taxpayers to line their pockets with endless raises or whether they represented hard working middle class people.

The measure would let school borrow money by purchasing 15-year bonds to help pay for the unusually high payments they will be making for the next several years to support a spike in their costs toward pensions of retirees.

Critics, including the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon, say the measure is a bad idea in that it can shackle districts with long term debt over costs they should be absorbing each year. That debt, McMahon argued this morning on the Fred Dicker show, also allows districts to keep doling out generous annual raises to teachers since it puts pension costs off into the future.

Assembly Republicans agreed: The Hudson Valley’s Steve Katz said “that’s like paying for your mortgage with a credit card,” while supporters, such as Senate Democrat Diane Savino, who voted last night, said it’s a way to “spread out the excess (pension) payment that they hadn’t planned for.”

Nobody foresaw the 2008 market crash, said Savino, and that has greatly reduced the investment income available for pensions, and increase the percentages that local schools must pay.

At one point in the Assembly there was some tough back and forth over school spending and the role that teachers union have in that arena.

“It’s never about the kids,” said Republican Joel Miller, “The teachers union (which I’m told wrote the legislation) has no consideration about the kids. They worry about themselves.”

He and others went on to recite a litany of high education costs ranging from $700-per-day fill-in school superintendents in one Hudson Valley District, to 8.5 annual raises for employees in another. The Capitol Region’s Steve McLaughlin mentioned a recent buy-out given the 4,300-student Troy, NY superintendent, consisting of free lifetime health benefits for him and his wife and a $250,000 payment, even as he reportedly starts another job in Georgia.

Democrats responded in kind. Education committee chair Cathy Nolan said “I’m not going to bash teachers. We could bash members of the legislature, couldn’t we?”

“I want to thank all of the wonderful teachers in my life who provided me with the skills and the ability to think things through,” added Deborah Glick.

The bill passed as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2 percent tax cap was literally being printed and distributed to lawmakers for possible passage as soon as tonight. It wasn’t yet known if Cuomo would veto the borrowing bill or sign it.

The length of the debate, however, doesn’t bode particularly well for passage of the tax cap/rent control bill tonight, let along a same sex vote in the Senate.

As of this writing, 5:30 pm, lawmakers have presumably still going over the rent/cap bill AKA The Big Ugly, and they still need to approve a SUNY tuition hike plan.

Shabbos, or the Jewish sabbath, starts in less than four hours, meaning Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will be out of commission starting then, and the Republicans remain locked in their conference room, presumably mulling, debating, fighting over the same sex marriage bill, which also hasn’t been finalized.

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