quote:

Meanwhile Hynes, the state’s three-term comptroller, is announcing the backing of the politically active IFT, which has 103,000 members including the Chicago Teachers Union. Teachers unions were not happy with Quinn’s initial call that they pay more toward their retirement and other benefits.

Story here

How dare Quinn ask someone to fund their own retirement! Hynes is off my list.

They could be po'ed because the State robbed their pension fund many years ago meaning they lost out on the investment return of in retirement fund (which is what it's all about long term, and would have greatly reduced taxpayer liability- look at IMRF or any other responsible retirement plan). So now the State, which took their money, wants them to pay more to make up for the loss. I'd be po'ed also.

Every dollar that could have been made investing their retirement was a dollar+ out of our pockets. Big IOU in State employees retirement fund also.

I hear this over and over again - how the State of Illinois didn't kick into their pension fund. Sorry, but I don't have a lot of empathy there.

Why? Because ALL of the money contributed to these public pension funds is TAX MONEY. OK, what the employee themselves kick in is tax-payroll-money. But how about all of the "matching contributions"? Particularly, from school districts.

That money comes right out of property taxes.

So, what ELSE does the State of Illinois have to contribute? And, as far as "lost investment income" goes?

Join the club and here's your violin. Why should I worry about some stranger's losses in some fat, overly-generous pension fund?

I will not pay for these outrageous pensions. Period. I'll leave this state before I do.

When the Market was doing well, the state put less money in the pension funds. The state money was not from the Teacher contributions or from the school districts but rather from the General revenue fund. The State or rather the Taxpayers of the state are expected to make up the difference.

Seven percent contribution into a pension fund that pays a guaranteed lifetime income starting in your fifties with increases is not going to happen unless additional money comes from someone. And that someone are the taxpayers of the state.

Its a myth or maybe just a lie to believe that the seven percent contribution from the teachers and schools could fund such a generous pension program. Compare that to SS which has roughly the same contributions from employer and employee.

quote:

The state money was not from the Teacher contributions or from the school districts but rather from the General revenue fund.

This is EXACTLY correct and is what I meant by stating that all of this pension money comes from TAX DOLLARS.

Dan Hynes, before the Tribune editorial board with Quinn seated next to him

quote:

Hynes said he doesn't believe the current basic pension benefits are extravagant, and he called them important for attracting a qualified work force.

Oh please Dan. The rest of the world has long moved on to more modest, pay-as-you-go defined contribution style retirement funding.

Ohio is currently going through the process of jettisoning their defined-benefit legacy costs. Michigan did it YEARS ago, under Granholm.

What? Do we have to wait for New Jersey?

quote:

..seven percent contribution from the teachers and schools..

Actually, it is 7% from the employee PLUS a matching 7% from the school district, for a total of 14%.

And, every dollar of the school district match comes straight out of your property taxes. Just look at the "Pension" line-item for every school district on your property tax bill.

And we as taxpayers lost not only the inflation rate of the "borrowed" funds plus the investment income- over decades . Great. We could have greatly reduced our pension liability if we hadn't borrowed that money to spend elsewhere which wold have meant less tax money out of our pockets to fund pensions.

Plus why do some people think teachers and other public employees are any different than us private employees- company screws you and the best move on to a better place to work.

No, not really in order to fully fund the pension program the state would have had to have done a couple of things.

1. Cut spending it other areas. Which it has funny how food pantries and mental health are always cut but those 100K pensions never seem to get touched.

2. Or raise taxes. Which Quinn and Hynes will both want to do. And if either one wins they will most assuredly do.

I'd hardly call being able to retire at 55 a six figure pension and full health care as being screwed.

Actually, the State just needed to fund the employee's retirement instead of leaving an IOU and spending the $ elsewhere, that got us a reduced investment return, and we lost the inflation rate. We could have funded most if not all of the pension obligation.

Your last point depends on what kind of education you want to provide for our children. As I said- what's the diff between private or public if you want quality employees? Don't want to pay and provide benefits like other employers will? - well you get what you pay for.

I don't have a problem with a public employee retiring and receiving a FAIR annual pension. To me, fair would be anywhere between $20,000 and $40,000 per year.

NOT, the ridiculous $115,000, $120,000 per year sweetheart deals that were gamed by giving the employee HUGE pay raises in their last three years. Sorry, I want my taxes to pay for SERVICES, not for people TO NOT WORK.

I would also like to know: How many of these Big Money Public Retirees leave Illinois to a lower-tax state. Seems like many do.

Take the money and run.

By the way, according to research done by the Sun-Times, Illinois is pushing a billion dollars PER MONTH in public pension payments. Now, this includes EVERY single public pension, not just the Big Hawgs, like TRS, SURS and IMRF.

Every little township, mosquito abatement district, town, library, fire district and on and on seems to have their own little pension fund.

The Village of Bolingbrook, which has Home Rule authority and can therefore ignore the tax cap law, dropped a bomb on their residents last year by raising their property tax levy by 16.2%.

When you're paying the likes of retired cop Drew Peterson over $6,000 per month, money must get tight.

Yes- BILLIONS in tax $ because we spent the employees pension $ instead of investing it as we were supposed to do. And every little taxing district does not pay triple digit pensions- though that pales in comparison to the corporate hog trough- which we also pay in bank fees, insurance premiums, etc. It's all $ out of our pockets.

quote:

Originally posted by Biostitute:
Actually, the State just needed to fund the employee's retirement instead of leaving an IOU and spending the $ elsewhere, that got us a reduced investment return, and we lost the inflation rate. We could have funded most if not all of the pension obligation.

Biostitute,
You keep ignoring the facts. Are you saying that all the current pension payouts would be fully funded with only the historical employee and employer contributions of the current retirees but the state borrowed money from the account? Or do you really mean that the state had not been making extra payments, beyond historical employee and employer contributions, to "fully fund" the ever increasing, exorbitant financial burden promised to public unions. What happens when we are supporting more public retirees than public employees actually on the job?

Look at the IMRF situation.

Impact of 2008 Investment Returns on Employer Funding Status, Employer Reserves,

They are basically saying that 2008 did not provide the 7.5% yearly return on their investments needed to "fully fund" their obligations. Does IMRF reduce the pension payout to reflect the lower returns? Not exactly, as quoted from the memo:

"The ongoing cost of the IMRF benefit package for the regular plan covering normal retirement costs, death in service benefits, temporary disability benefits and supplemental retirement benefits, is 8.37% of payroll in 2009. Put another way, for each dollar of service an employee renders, the employer also incurs a pension cost of 8.37 cents. To the extent an employer was overfunded, the 8.37 cents is reduced to amortize its surplus. To the extent an employer was underfunded, the 8.37 cents is increased to collect the shortfall.

The average employer rate for the regular plan was 9.47% for 2008 and is 9.27% for 2009, a decrease of 20 basis points or 2.1%. This reflects the fact that the regular plan was less than 100% funded on an actuarial basis as of December 31, 2007.

The impact of 2008 investment losses on individual employer contribution rates is difficult to forecast, since each employer has a unique rate affected by its own demographics and funded status. Since IMRF’s actuarial return was -10.6% in 2008, significantly less than the 7.5% assumed return, the average employer rate for the regular plan is expected to increase to 16.63% in 2010.

If the Board adopts the new actuarial techniques that are being considered, we estimate the average employer contribution rate for the regular plan will be 14% for 2010, an increase of 51%."

--

Why should public employees be guaranteed a certain return on their retirement "investment" at the expense of everyone else by increasing future employer contributions? By the way, the employer is just Joe Taxpayer. Why didn't the public employee contributions also increase to help defer the losses?

Are not we all dependent on the the same economy for generating a retirement nest egg. Who is going to make up my 2008 retirement investment losses?

quote:

Originally posted by Biostitute:
And every little taxing district does not pay triple digit pensions- though that pales in comparison to the corporate hog trough- which we also pay in bank fees, insurance premiums, etc. It's all $ out of our pockets.

So, you just find the public employee pension hog trough more noble?

Do you feel that anyone that is not a public employee is somehow benefiting from the corporate hog trough?

quote:

Originally posted by Biostitute:
Plus why do some people think teachers and other public employees are any different than us private employees- company screws you and the best move on to a better place to work.

What? Don't you mean the public union employee files a grievance or goes on strike?

quote:

Originally posted by Biostitute:
Yes- BILLIONS in tax $ (lost) because we spent the employees pension $ instead of investing it as we were supposed to do.

Since 2008 produced a -10.6% return, did spending the money actually produce a greater return than putting in the investment fund?

Ackerman: Was that you before who'd mentioned calling candidates to find out certain things about their platforms and campaigns?

BTN: Given that teachers at public school are, in effect, state employees....what's the difference (in your opinion) between the state kicking in to their pension funds and say, the company you work for not kicking in to yours?

Bio: It's different with teaching. If the "company screws you" and you choose to move to a different company, it's making a complete career change as this is a state-wide issue. Would anyof us consider throwing away years of schooling (not to mention the fundage to pay for it) simply because there is a change in the pension? When firms switched over from pensions to 401Ks and such, what was the percentage of employees that made a career change? I don't know myself, but I'm relatively sure it wasn't very large.

BTN (Again): Those pensions are supposed to be part of the deal of teaching. Most teachers (that I'm aware of, anyway) make less than $40,000 per year. Add that to having to supply most of their own school supplies (and many of their students'), and the payoff just isn't that great. That career has always been one of those that if one can provide quality service now and stick it out 'til the end, said person is rewarded AFTER the fact. Would you rather have taxes raised to increase salaries so they get paid for their services now rather than later? It's like the air in the balloon....squeeze one side smaller and the other gets bigger, but the amount of air in the balloon is still the same (barring any leakage or anything).

quote:

BTN: Given that teachers at public school are, in effect, state employees....what's the difference (in your opinion) between the state kicking in to their pension funds and say, the company you work for not kicking in to yours?

No differences at all. I have my own company and maintain a SEP-IRA for myself and some years? I just can't fund it the way I would like. Same with 401K matching for private sector employees. In the flush times, they might get a dollar-for-dollar match [or even better] but in the down times? They might be lucky to get any match.

The games played with these State of Illinois pensions - and it is NOT just teachers - is that they are supposedly "guaranteed" and, according the the Illinois Constitution [again, supposedly] they cannot be "diminished".

So, when a fund like IMRF - Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund - sees a -10.6% annual return, EVERYONE ELSE IN THE STATE IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE UP THIS LOSS.

I have no such backstop. Nor do the VAST majority of non-entitled state public workers.

As to your other comment, first off, I have no problem with teachers making a fair salary. Many are quite handsomely paid though, especially, the ones with over 20 years, a masters degree and working at large suburban high schools. Further, a lot of the REALLY generous pensons come about from flat-out gaming of the system, typically, the infamous 3-year salary bump.

See, these people are under the assumption that whatever they do is guaranteed by the Illinois constitution and cannot be "diminished".

I suggest you go to the Champion Web Site and wander through the "Teacher and Administrator" salary database. Pick: Glenbard District 87, for example.

Now, the Champion is a bit hard-right in their presentation. But, all their database is, is a FOIA-based data dump that they present for all to view.

use the "Find a District" link with no district as a search argument. Locate "Glenbard Twp HSD 87", click it. Finally, click on the "Salary" column header to sort the list in descending sequence [highest-to-lowest].

How far do you have to go to find a $40k per year teacher?

quote:

Originally posted by ByTheNumbers:
I have no such backstop. Nor do the VAST majority of non-entitled state public workers.

Right, because you've chosen to work in the private sector. The public sector has always been a creature all its own and I'm sure it always will be. (IMO probably due to its being funded by taxes).

quote:

Many are quite handsomely paid though, especially, the ones with over 20 years, a masters degree and working at large suburban high schools.

Yes and on the other side of that token, many are NOT handsomely paid. Like I said, it's the ones who can stick it out that get the rewards in the end. And the last time I checked, someone with a Master's SHOULD get paid more than someone without. That person has all that much more education to finance.

quote:

See, these people are under the assumption that whatever they do is guaranteed by the Illinois constitution and cannot be "diminished".

I'm quite sure they're not all under the impression that anything they do cannot be diminished. In fact, I KNOW they're not ALL under that impression. Thank you, I've been to that website multiple times. And like I said, there are many who are paid well....but again there are many who are not. And you also have to consider (again) the extra funds that these teachers use toward their students' educations. So what looks like a $40,000 annual salary actually ends up being more like $30,000 after classroom aids and supplies.

All I'm trying to say is that some things that seem like black and white facts, aren't exactly what they seem. That and that every community is responsible for paying for its childrens' educations. If we want our children to have a better education, we have to pay for it. Just like any other industry out there.

Ackerman: Haha, your comment on McKenna is funny. I was asking because I thought it was you, but I couldn't remember. I find it very admirable that you go the extra step to TRULY be an informed voter. Thank you for taking on the responsibility that each of us should prior to casting our votes. One meaningful vote means a whole lot more than 10 that mean nothing.

Hey, my own daughter is an education major [senior year] and will be student teaching all next semester.

She sure as heck isn't doing it for a "pension", that's for sure.