Actually, the GOP and Dem idiots UNDERTAXED you for 50 years. You didn't really thing that 3% paid all the bills, did you? That's how long the state hasn't been funding the pension.

MaryfromIL, what 3% are you talking about?
9.5% + .58%+ 6.5% + ?

the 3% state income tax since forever. I thought it way too low in the 1990's. Turns out, I was right. But no politician chanced raising it and losing the election.

We were the teacher's employee. How would we like it if our employer never funded our social security, as they were legally obligated to do for 50 years? Of course it's a huge amount when they wait 50 years.

MaryfromIL, you only included the old income tax. The state was taxing us much more than that, but their incompetency in handling budgets and contracts got us where we are.

Jim R, Per the TOTAL tax burden before Quinn had to raise the income tax rates:

Illinois was #30 in state and local total tax burden per capita in 2009.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/10/pf/taxes/state_tax_rates/index.htm

I had checked the total tax burden back then, and we were in the lower half of the states.

MaryfromIL, your logic does not follow all because you can find states worse than us. We were third in corporate taxes, and an estimate now is that we will be 7th in the country with respect to tax burdens. That does not make me happy. Quinn and Madigan are not responsible and need to be pushed out of office.
http://businesspublicpolicy.com/?p=1202

"Actually, the GOP and Dem idiots UNDERTAXED you for 50 years. "
Undertaxed, no way. We are seen as the next worse state in the nation and that is because of the incompetent and crooked politicians who have lead us, and unions dragging into a deep financial hole.

the downstaters ran the state into the ground for many years. They happily didn't contribute the state's portion to the teacher's pension since the mid 1950's, just as Dems and GOP also haven't since. THAT is why the state is in trouble!

The downstate control is also how Chicago, paying the majority of highway taxes, ended up with the Toll roads. So we pay all of downstate roads, and they pay none of ours.

Also, Chicago taxpayer money goes to pay pensions for downstate and the burbs. Chicago teachers get all of 1.8% of it. End result is the Chicago property owner is screwed.

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/03/pension-imbalance.html

As you said we pay for the toll roads, but we also pay taxes. When Government funds come to this state they are not used on toll roads but used in other locations and yes that includes downstate. The tollroads developed back in the 50's were supposed to be temporary but give the government a way to tax you , do not expect them to take it back.

It is also insane for those of us who are fortunate enough with the option of taking other roads instead of the tollway to pay the criminal charges for using the tollway without an IPASS.

This is nothing short of a lie.
My school district pays ALL of the teachers share of the contribution, the full 9.4% is paid by the school board through labor contract agreements. This doesn't include the usual share of the districts contribution, which is well over 1.4%. The teachers pay 0%. So, my school district pays significantly more than your claimed '1.4%'

Simply requiring teachers to pay their fair share(which they are not), and set the retirement age to a more realistic number, would bring the account to solvency without one extra taxpayer dollar.

Shifting the costs to the local districts to finally be on the hook for their own decisions, is EXACTLY what we are wishing for. It is called accountability. What exactly do you think is going to happen when the union comes to voters for extra money when they have watched the same union and its members have zero interest in reforming a broken system?

Go ahead, check your own district, and see how much of the 'individual' contribution is picked up by the board instead;
http://www.illinoispolicy.org/uploads/files/Playing_Favorites_Supplement_050312_3.pdf

Remember when teachers were 'protesting' about a month ago? Remember just how quickly they stopped protesting when it became obvious how shallow and self-centered it turned out to be? They were actually protesting that they would be getting a smaller raise every year, for doing nothing. Not a pay or benefit CUT, just a smaller expected raise.

Pathetic.

Wow, interesting chart. Looks like my district's school board along with more than 100 others picks up 0% of the employee contribution. Your district must have a pretty effective teachers union. Interesting how the Illinois Policy Institute is a "non-partisan" organization that contributes to Fox News?

Thomas, 2/3'ds of the school districts in IL pay some or all of the individual contribution, on top of the districts contribution as well.

I live in what would be defined a 'rich' district, so yes, they have a very good union. But I also know that I live in a community that is larger than my district. I do not find it equitable that downstate or rural/poor residents are also subsidizing this system through state taxes, when it should be the other way around. My schools do not have A/C or heat problems, but poorer districts in more rural areas do have these problems. Who do you think is going to suffer? The teachers collecting the salaries and complaining they didn't get as big a pension increase as they wanted, or the kids who have to sit at their desk wearing a jacket in the winter because the heat is still broken?

The pension system as a whole needs reform in a major way. It is simply not sustainable.

Tim,
I agree with you the system is not sustainable or equitable. Under the the proposal of the Illinois Policy Institute you have districts like my own who pay 0% of the employee contribution and only 1.4% of the employer contribution who will get socked hard whereas your district ends up with a net benefit. My guess is the state politicians representing districts like mine would be more reluctant to pass legislation that would cause their constituients taxes to go up.

I agree that everyone who is employed should pay into Social Security. You are not quite accurate, though, when you say every other U.S. citizen pays into it. Federal employees, state and some university, school and other public employees in other states also do not. This is not just a Chicago/Illinois issue, although the blatant theft of pension funds probably is.

Two other factors need to be taken into account about social security versus the unions outrageous benefits. The retirement pension is much higher across the board especially those in the upper incime brackets and the retirement age is not limited to those 62 and over since they can receive pensions in their 50's. The second is medical care where most of us pay into medicare and when it comes to using it, we still have to pay for the basic medicare which does not give you sufficient coverage so you also get to pay for supplemental coverage and also pay for prescription coverage unlike those on the public payroll.

"the company of Paul Vallas (former chief of Chicago schools) was just awarded 1 million to "consult" on low performing schools."
Might his former position have anything to do with the contract? Do you suppose he might know some people that he could contact or be contacted about such a contract, but that still ignores the obvious why was the study even necessary. Hmmmm, contacts?????????????

Illinois school districts do not pay a dime, the tax payers do. My point is one of the problems of this state is all of the levels of government we have where you have several bureaucracies covering the same areas. We have towns, school districts, townships, forest preserve districts, precincts, counties, the state and how many others. A good place to start is to get rid of some of these.

If you want quality control in schools give the parents a check to have their child attend the school of their choice. If you want make it only 2/3 of what it costs to teach a child in a public school and we will probably save money. I know I would have saved money but I sent my child to a private school since I wanted my child to be taught religion.

Jim,

Of course you pay less for private religious schools, they don't pay a living wage. Plus the people of the church support it with donations.

The private schools also don't accept learning, physical and behaviorally disabled students, so costs are not comparable, since these are the most expensive students to teach.

With the voucher system, the rich people would have help with their expensive schools, but the poor would get horrible schools.

In my parish donations are made to support others not able to afford it. On the other hand with a voucher system more could afford to go to private schools and teachers salaries could be raised without the greed of the public shool unions and teachers. The public schools show money cannot buy dedication but it comes with the person, something which is much more lacking in the public than the private schools.

The poor have terrible schools now, so they would have a chance for something better. I can remember doing some volunteet tutoring in the inner city where there are many bright students but are not provided a decent education so the group I assisted did tutoring at night for free.

I don't want the government involved in the private schools so they are not destroyed which is the reason for the voucher instead of a subsidy.

No, teachers in SOME districts pay their own 9.4%. The majority of them(64%) do not. The state did not 'underfund', the union overestimated its returns on investment. By law the state makes up the difference. The union never adjusted its 'expectations' from 8.5% return rate on investments, while during the entire period from 2001-now, they have only gotten around 3%. If the union was being honest, they would have adjusted this number to reality, and not have expected the state to have to make up the difference between what they wanted, and what they got.

No matter how much I discuss this with my local board, the state is not going to just stop giving them money collected in income taxes. For the poorer districts, the pension costs could approach 50% of their tax bill. The state has offered solutions to bring the fund closer to solvency, the union has protested each and every attempt at reform. I have no faith left in the teachers union that they are doing what is best for the children in the district.

Income taxes in Wisconsin are higher, IF you make over $225K/yr. Otherwise, they are lower. Wisconsin has 5 tax brackets. So that the higher your income, the higher your taxes. Illinois, has a flat tax, where the poorest pay exactly the same percent as the richest. In illinois, someone at the lower income levels is paying more in taxes than they would in Wisconsin. Only when you get into the highest brackets(over $225K/yr) would someone in Wisconsin be paying more.

You teachers kill me boo who.You pay a whole 9.5% and then get a retirement benefit of 80% off your highest four years working.Do any of you know in the real world now most people put away at least 20% if they can afford it and theres no guarantee to get any of it back if the market crashes.do the math you teachers if you retire making 100k a year the most you put in is 9500 bucks a year but you will get 80k back a year sounds good to me.greed is all this is.P.S keep paying all these administrators well over 150k to work in one school with 6 to 8 other high paid administrators what a waste of taxpayer money..assiant dean...... secretary for assistant dean.... to do what when theres all these other admins in the same building...make them combined to work in more than one school in there district....... and now they get everyone smart phones so they can keep in touch.total b.s. how about a stipend of 10 bucks month for there personal cell phone for the 1 important call a month they might get.no lets hand out smart phones so the district can pay thousands month for nothing.smart phones really.how about a simple tracfone for 10 bucks..it dials and text just as good.

KATIE, you have every right to be upset with your teachers. Clearly you graduated without mastery of spelling, grammar, punctuation, or usage skills. Your anger and lack of English skills have you sounding like an uneducated lunatic. Not to mention a lot of your claims have no basis in fact.

Go for it lettuce - a personal attack on this blog... We can all agree it's broken and needs to be fixed and the leaders who are steering the state don't have a clue.

Deb, the debt per person in Illinois is 35% more than it is in Wisconsin (10945 vesus 8086).

Jim, the debt Illinois owes is because the teacher employer, i.e. the state, i.e. you, didn't pay the employer part of the pension for over 50 years. Social security would be totally under if private employers never put in their portion. It's actually illegal not to, but perhaps not for the state.

Lettuce, you support my point since we are being taxed to support underfunded pensions for a school system that does not work.

MaryfromIL, and they take our SS payments and now SS is the biggest holder of the national debt since the government takes loans from it.
b
But it belabors the point about teachers and unions constantly complaining for more money and they do not bother to monitor how that money is being handled. I once worked for an individual who bounced my paycheck just before Christmas, but I go ahold of the bank and found the money was available when I called. I did not redoposit my check, but went straight to his bank and got cash. Never had another check bounced but made a number of trips to make sure I was covered.

So the teachers and unions just ask for more but are too stupid to make sure the money is in the bank. Sorry I paid my share and I do not wish to make any more contributions all because your employer and your union did not protect you. I do not respect your union nor your employer and I am sick of the taxes passed onto me.

My last realestate tax should have been lower because of the devalue of homes, but some items went up such as a line item for pensions. Sorry I would like to retire and I do not have an ovesized teachers pension nor free medical care.

2 of the 'appointed' positions are not filled(and have not been for some time). Which leaves a grand total of 4 appointed members. Compared to 4 elected by the union, and 2 elected by the recipients

4 appointed positions
6 union controlled positions. (an annuitant is the union person getting the retirement check)

I'm glad that you have the tax numbers. You can now figure EFFECTIVE tax rates. As you surely must know, the first bracket is always taxed at the lowest, then the next bracket is taxed at the next highest, and so on cumulatively. Just like federal taxes. In WI, the first 10K is always taxed at 4.6% no matter how much you make. Feel free to post the effective tax rate for WI, and at what income level taxes finally outpace Illinois' flat tax system.

The simple fact, is that the poor pay 10% more, in income taxes alone, in Illinois than they would in WI.

Which is where the pension issue comes in. After the 66% income tax hike, the already highly taxed lowest income brackets are shouldering the salary decisions for districts nowhere near them that are some of the most affluent in the country.

If the local districts want to pay in extra, they should take an equal reduction of state funds. They don't. In fact, what districts around the state have done is inflate salaries and pension payments without any hint of what the total cost is. With the accountability of the local voters seeing just how much this actually is, some accountability would arrive.

Do you need more evidence of diversion of funds. This is only one instance, the history of fund diversion goes back a long way.

You have to look up your school district by county first on this very informative chart:
http://www.illinoispolicy.org/uploads/file/Playing_Favorites_Supplement_050312_3.pdf

Ruth,
From the chart referenced (above) it looks like the board (that is TAXPAYERS) in Plainfield 202 pick up the entire 9.4% cost. That leaves 0% for the teachers themselves.

Remember just barely a month ago when the D202 board members were frantically writing letters to the editor in every newspaper imaginable?

Mike Kelly, of the school board of D202 was one writing these letters about how the schools are being 'victimized'
http://plainfield.patch.com/articles/letter-schools-victimized-under-quinn-budget-plan

I think they are so far inside of the bubble, that they are unaware of what the outside world actually is like. Under any serious pension reform, taxes woudl go down, and jobs would not be lost. But instead, the board is going full steam with keeping an unsustainable system even with the already existing layoffs that had to be done in order to sustain it.

The taxpayers of D202 already pay ALL of the individual contribution, yet the board thinks they are being 'victimized' from any changes that need to be made. Keep that in mind when you vote.

The state of Illinois is on the hook to pay for the entire Teacher Retirement Service “employer” pension contributions(on average, local districts only pay 0.58% to the fund). Employer contributions are based on how much local school districts pay their teachers. When they say the constitution of Illinois protects them, it is being argued that they are state employees. Therefore, the state(the taxpayers) are who pay the employer contribution.

That is what the whole protest at Tom Cross' office a few weeks ago was about. They wanted to shift this contribution onto the local districts, and away from the state. The teachers did not want this, because it blows away the deal they worked out originally to shift the pension costs to Springfield, where the union could negotiate higher pension and salary rates than they would have been able to do with the burden shifted to be local instead.

The state hasn't been 'shortchanging' the pension fund. The union is just mad that they can't have the state pay for MORE of it.

The State of Illinois is supposed to pay 6.5% of a teacher's salary into the teacher's pension fund. The State of Illinois and the local districts do not pay into Social Security because the IRS has given an exemption to Illinois for qualifying pensions. The teacher's portion that is paid into the pension fund is 9.4%. The teacher portion has always been paid in at 100%, but Tim is wrong, the history of the Illinois Teacher Pension fund is filled with the State of Illinois diverting funds:

An actuarial report released recently by CoGFA shows that under the “best case” scenario, more than $4.8 billion owed the pension systems will be diverted over the next decade. The Governor and his supporters previously acknowledged that the first two years of diversions would underfund the pension system by more than $2.3 billion. But, until the CoGFA report was released, no numbers were available for future years.
Thank you Governor Blago
http://www.senategop.state.il.us/index.php/budget/136-governors-pension-diversion

Funding is not based on Illinois State income, but on teacher salaries. The underfunding history charts back to the 1950's.

Again, the only reason there is a shortfall on the state(or ever has been) is because the pension fund kept its 'expected' rate of return so impractically high(at 8.5%). When the investments in the fund make less than that, the state is on the hook for the difference(in this case, about 5%/yr for the last decade). This is besides its normal employer contributions being made.

The shortfall only exists because the pension system has gamed the laws to justify(and force) the taxpayer being on the hook for sustaining the system.

When the state was making its contributions in the past, it was no more than 45% of the total fund contributions. Now, it is well in excess of 70% funded by taxpayers. The fact that it is being so underfunded is a warning sign to the pension fund that it needs serious reform. It is not a signal to try to raise taxes more to sustain an unsustainable system.

Not one time has the union proposed increasing the contribution of its own members, or making it a mandatory deduction(which would be the correct choice). NOT ONE TIME.

Tim, you have some great talking points, but no facts to back you up. Are you speaking of current negotiations that are occurring right now? I would have no way of knowing any of that information.
At any rate, I am sure you know Tim that at one time the Teacher's pay in for the pension fund was at 7%, it was later moved to 9% and most recently it increased to 9.4%. So please don't tell me that teacher's haven't accommodated by giving more. In the meantime, the State of Illinois funding has wavered:
Consider the funding records of these Illinois governors to the Teachers’ Retirement System since 1949. The following is the total employer’s (the state’s) contribution as a percentage of the actuarial requirement (TRS):
Adlai Stevenson (1949-53): a steady decline to an approximately 40 percent funding;
William Stratton (1953-61): a roller-coaster funding record to approximately 60 percent.
Otto Kerner (1961-68): a roller-coaster funding record to approximately 70 percent (Kerner was imprisoned for conspiracy and perjury);
Sam Shapiro (1968-69): a decline in funding to approximately 65 percent;
Richard Ogilvie (1969-73): a roller-coaster funding record that was as low as 33 percent to as high as 60 percent;
Dan Walker (1973-77): a steady climb of funding to approximately 80 percent (Walker was imprisoned for bank fraud);

Here's some more history, Tim:
James Thompson (1977-91): a roller-coaster funding record from a high of approximately 90 percent then down to 30 percent;
James Edgar (1991-99): a roller-coaster funding record down to approximately 25 percent to as high as 70 percent;
George Ryan (1999-2003): a roller-coaster funding record to approximately 65 percent (Ryan is currently in prison for fraud and racketeering);
Rod Blagojevich (2003-09): a roller-coaster funding record down to approximately 35 percent and then as high as 70 percent (Blagojevich is currently in prison for 18 corruption charges);
Patrick Quinn (2009- ): the state has funded the Teachers’ Retirement System, though it has borrowed the money to do so; thus, the state’s debt service continues to grow.

I'm sure glad the downstate Police and Fire Pensions are not in bad shape like the State pension system is! Plus it's good too know that the State can not touch them, like they threatened in the past!

The word, pick up implies that your school district board, agreed to assume part or all of the teacher portion of the pension payments into the TRS. In the case of your school district, the school district has assumed the entire responsibility for paying the teacher portion of the pension fund. The rest of the pension fund is supposed to be paid by the State of Illinois. So the answer is that in your school district, teachers do not see 9.4% deducted from their paycheck. This policy has been decided by individual school districts. In my school district, the teachers have 9.4% of the teacher portion taken out of their salary, there is no "pick-up".
The document is intended to make a case that if the State of Illinois transferred it's 6.5% obligation to the individual school districts the cost to the school districts would be around 3%.
So Ruth, the Illinois Policy Institute (a conservative think tank) is proposing that the cost of transferring the responsibility back to individual school districts would be negligible. I believe what they are suggesting is that if the school district's push the teacher portion back to the teachers, and then the school district can "pick up" the State of Illinois 6.5% the net effect will be lower costs for most school districts. The far right column shows the "net" gain or loss for each School District. I hope this makes sense.

So in Plano, your school district pick's up 9.4% or 100% of the teacher's portion of the budget. The dollar value of that pick up is $ 844,113 or 2.9% of the school districts total budget. If the school district assumes or "picks up" the States portion of the pension, it would only cost Plano 2.6% of it's entire school budget, thus Plano would be .3% "ahead" according to this document.
However, the document overlooks the fact that some districts have a contractual agreement to honor paying for the teachers portion of the pension for some years. Additionally, 3% in a tight budget will make a difference. Right now every penny counts. Most of the cost of a school district goes into human resources: teachers and staff, less money equals less employees means larger class sizes.
Does this make sense?

Excuse me. I am a Plainfield District 202 teacher. 9.4% is deducted from each every paycheck for my pension. It is stated clear as day on each and every pay stub.

'teacher' is confused, and should actually read the contract agreement that Plainfield D202 has set forth for the 2011-2014 school years.

Pg 22 - Section 11.14

"The board shall contribute to the teachers Retirement Systems of Illinois[the pension fund], on behalf of each teacher, the full teacher contribution due the Teachers Retirement System."

http://www.psd202.org/Departments/BO/APT_Contract.pdf
(the full contract agreement between D202 and the union)

At some point, the union and its members are going to stop lying to the public if they want to be taken seriously. They have played this shell game with the finances for decades, and now want the taxpayers to make up for their mistakes. Mistakes that they have been warned about for just about as long.

Sorry. No.

teacher,
You need to call your HR person and register a complaint if you are having deductions made!
Section 11.12 of the APT contract is titled "Board Contribution to the Illinois Teachers Retirement System". The text states "The Board shall contribute to the Teachers' Retirement System of the State of Illinois, on behalf of each teacher, the full teacher contribution due ..." (the contributions) "are being paid by the Board in lieu of contributions by the teacher".
That's from the 2011-2014 contract. The previous contract had the same wording. After all these years I can't believe the APT hasn't noticed that the board isn't living up to its' part of the contract!

"Teacher" is not necessarily confused. If the district is paying for the teachers 9.4% TRS contribution and the contribution is showing as a payroll deduction, then the salaries are bumped up by 9.4%.

Hi Teacher,
Sorry, but the chart that has a link to it: http://www.illinoispolicy.org/uploads/file/Playing_Favorites_Supplement_050312_3.pdf
claims that Plainfield school district is paying a pick up on your pension. That means the teacher portion of the pension is not being paid by you. I quoted Plano stats, in error. I wonder how many other school districts are listed incorrectly on the chart? The TRS contribution from the district should be quite small: .58%, I believe

Nope.

Pg 22 - Section 11.14

"The board shall contribute to the teachers Retirement Systems of Illinois[the pension fund], on behalf of each teacher, the full teacher contribution due the Teachers Retirement System."

http://www.psd202.org/Departments/BO/APT_Contract.pdf
(the full contract agreement between D202 and the union)

What you see on your paycheck is the contribution. Not a deduction. It's spelled out in the actual contract that this is exactly what is happening. I think that qualifies as 'clear as day', more than a single nameless persons misunderstood evaluation of their paystub.

I welcome anyone into this discussion, but if you are going to talk from a teachers point of view, AT LEAST have a basic understanding of your own contract.

The board pays the 9.4% although it shows it as deducted from your paycheck. However, in reality the percentage for any district up to the 9.4 required by law is bargained. So when school districts pay the 9.4% it comes at the expense of less salary or less insurance. There is one pot of money and it's bargained on how it's used. It's called deferred compensation. So in essence EVERY teacher pays the 9.4% It's ok most don't understand bargaining they are more consumed with their own facts and figures then the truth.

"it comes at the expense of less salary"

Flat out wrong.

The salary is a fixed scale, based on years of experience, and extra certifications. It does not get 'bargained away' to make up for other parts of a pay package.

The actual D202 labor contract is posted here in this thread. I suggest you take the time to read it all the way through to avoid embarrassing yourself in the future.

Tim,
You're wrong again! The fixed scale is part of the negotiations just like the pension pickup. If you read the contract and salary schedules, you would see that they clearly state that the district is picking up the teachers portion of the contribution and that the salary schedule does not change for the duration of the contract.

Yes, Tom.
That is what I said. The salary scale is fixed, and the TRS employee contributions are paid for by the district, not the teacher.

As for the salary being 'bargained' at the expense of contributions. D202 is above the 80th percentile in the STATE for its salary scale.

Less than 20% of districts in the entire state, have a higher salary scale. All of them that do(100%), also pay the contribution on behalf of the employee.

During the writing of the D202 contract that included these added TRS payments, the salary scale included (Appendix A in your contract) was not adjusted downward to make up the difference in TRS contributions being made by the district. In fact, the scale actually increased in the contract when was added.

You have an odd definition of 'bargained'.

Tim,
The salary schedules are the same for the next few years. They are also quite a bit less than other districts in the area.

Were you involved in the contract negotiations? If not, you have no idea what was a bargaining point and what was not.

Do you know if the teachers asked for a wage closer to those in neighboring districts but settled for no increases but their portion being paid for by the district?

And you say I have an odd idea of bargaining.

The 9.4 percent paid absolutately is at the expense of less salary. I know exactly what I talking about. The salary schedule is set at the same time as every other part of the contract including the amount paid by the board for TRS. The board at any point for a district could eliminate this during negotiations but then would have to give up something in return. This is called "good faith' bargaining. Once again there is alot of misinformation going on.

Alex,

You made the claim that it was at the expense of salary.

Now, it is your burden to post the proof of that statement. Post the old salary information before the contributions were paid by the board, and then post the salary information after the contributions were picked up by the board. Pick any cell at all in that table, and show what the difference is between the two.

I honestly think you need to look these things up for yourself, so that you will accept the answer as reality when you do the math on your own. You seem to think that I have a bias that will 'change' these numbers.

Tim,

As I asked before, were you part of the negotiating team? If not, you have no way of knowing what was or wasn't part of the process.

Have you looked at the salary schedules for surrounding districts?

So Mary, Here's what the Chicago Teachers Union has to say about the pension shortfall in Chicago:
The Chicago Board of Education has dodged payment. In 1995 Illinois law placed the responsibility with the Chicago Public Schools to make sure that the CTPF was 90% funded by 2045. The pension fund was already close to 100% funded at the time. The only reason that the CTPF went from nearly 100% funded in 1995 to 58% funded now is because CPS took successive pension holidays and paid nothing for 10 years into the pension and asked for pension relief in April of 2010 in the amounts of $400 million per year until 2013.
So don't you think it is time to make annual payments into pension funds a required law?

Deb, I agree. This is a manufactured crisis by the Board and politicians, exacerbated by the Wall Street plummet of 2008. Also made worse by what Zorn described above, where the pension money is practically totally going to the burbs and downstate.

I'm surprised there isn't already a law to require annual payments into pension funds. The teachers unions have sued before to get the state to put in money, they do it for a year or so, then stop again.

Find this article suspect when I read the following
"Teachers — who don't receive Social Security and whose pensions are not particularly generous, by the way — have very little incentive to sound the alarm over pension-funding schemes because attempts to fix tomorrow's looming problems are likely to curtail salary increases today."
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/03/pension-imbalance.html

Chicago asked for its own setup and now it doesn't like it. Do not start me on Chicago, for I do not like having to pay for your ex mayor Daley's $180,000 pension because of some loopholes used, nor do I like paying a tax on water as you fix your own water pipes as we had to pay our own (I knew we should have worked around Chicago and got our own water supply). Chicago is just so well known for its lack of corruption. Sorry, I lived there and do not care to live there again.

Hi Ruth, You work as a substitute teacher in the school district, but you are not a teacher covered by the school district contract. The school district contract typically covers permanent employees.

I wonder if you are aware that you are not calling me wrong, but you are calling the actual contract that you are working under wrong?

Its still called an employee contribution, but you are not the one paying it. It is right there in your contract.

Your salary is based on a set scale(a broken one, but that is a whole other discussion). Your employee contribution is paid for by the district. Instead of taking it out of your salaried check, it is taken out of the operating budget, which is funded by local property taxes.

Changing who pays for it does not change the name of what it is called.

Tim,
The set salary scale IS part of the negotiated contract. The school board and union members agreed to a the condition of the pension pickup, the salary schedule and everything else included in the contract. As much as you would like to separate them, they are all part of the legal document.

Would you prefer for that clause to be taken out of the contact and increases made to the salary schedule instead?

It's obvious that you don't like what your school board has agreed to. Have you ever ran for office to be a board member of PSD 202?

I looked at the link one of the commentators put, and many school districts don't pay any of the pension contribution. Some the teachers pay all of it. So it varies by district.

"It's obvious that you don't like what your school board has agreed to"

No, what my school board agreed to in the past was fine. What they are doing NOW is where the problem lies.

They have shown absolutely zero interest in reforming their broken pension system. Because of that, we must now look at the rest of the budget to find costs to cut to help stave off the exponential increase in pension costs. It may be layoffs, or salary cuts, or any number of other cuts. The reality is that the residents of the district do not have magical money trees to continue to pay for a broken pension system, so something else will need to be cut to make up for that.

The union has shot themselves in the foot, in trying to get blood from a stone, and they will reap the consequences of that. Since they have demonstrated no interest in reforming this on their own internally, the voters will demand the change instead. I can assure you, the solution that the voters come up with will be much harder to swallow.

How did we end up with unions in the public sector, do you know the history Tim?
Those who don't know their past are condemned to repeat it. It's a fine saga of women working in public schools. Let's start with the founder of AARP: Over 50 years ago, AARP founder Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus found a retired teacher living in a chicken coop. The retired teacher was living in a chicken coop because she only had a meager teacher’s pension –
But more important, all public associations work to improve safety and work conditions for employees. Teachers like all public employees have work condition concerns.

The history is now repeating itself:
.....even as school districts put greater emphasis on "professionalization," teachers everywhere felt left behind. City Boards of Education, increasingly made up of business and professional men, worked to reform teaching. Often their goals were laudable: to root out corruption, to raise the practice and status of teaching, to ensure real student achievement. But they rarely had any first-hand knowledge of what teaching actually was like. They worked according to a business model, with clear hierarchies and chains of command -- which left teachers at the bottom. The "administrative progressives" (as education historian David Tyack has called them) wanted to impose uniformity and efficiency on classrooms of disparate children. They supported the move away from Normal Schools to university departments of education, where theory would rule. They discouraged individual initiative by teachers, whom they considered too limited to enact worthwhile change.
History is repeating itself, this description is from the early 20th century.

"The purpose of unions is to get as much of the profit possible to the workers. "

That is the purpose of the PRIVATE unions. Much of the negotiating with public unions involves issues for children, like max class size, getting textbooks before NOVEMBER (losing 2 months of learning), being fully staffed when class starts, instead of 20 days later when state law kicks in.

There are literally hundreds of issues negotiated you never hear about.

"The purpose of unions is to get as much of the profit possible to the workers. "

Sorry I see them as very similar. As with other unions there are some very good things negotiated, but so much has turned to greed. Smaller class sizes mean more teachers and less work for those teaching and a larger tax for those paying the bills. Personally I think we are at a point that class size needs to be increased, and for students to learn they are being given a great opportunity to learn and should not abuse that opportunity. Sorry but many of the supposed benefits for children are disguised benefits for teachers or they are just items thrown into the the discussion so their greed may not show as much.

Whose prosperity?

Personally they should all receive a pay cut based on their performance and those cuts can be added to the teachers fund along with all of the other politicians who have not done their job and have helped to give us this debt. So also it is time the teachers need to negotiate not for more but to reduce the debt if they want to receive anything.

all depends on the district. Some districts the teachers pay it all, other districts teachers pay anywhere from 0% up.

Hi Ruth, I don't work in your district. Frankly, I was surprised to learn about the "pickup" system. I work in a fairly affluent school district but our contract does not have a "pickup". I am glad that the deduction comes straight off the top of my paycheck. If the chart is correct your district has a "pickup". Why not just call the school district HR? Just because someone made a chart doesn't mean it is accurate.

Ruth,
The simple explanation, is that each school district is not going to use custom check stubs. They are going to use the default that is used across the system. Each system sets its own union contracts.

The facts are that the D202 contract explicitly states that the board is making these contributions in lieu of the teacher making them.

If the members of the actual union are this confused by it, something is very wrong.

Ruth, that's what we have been saying. Some district's pay for the teacher portion. It might show up on your pay stub, but it is paid by the district, not deducted from your paycheck.

Of course taxpayers are making up that $400M. Do you think there is a magic money tree at the board of education?

The difference that the teachers are not paying, is made up from local property taxes, which are used to pay for the compensation package.

This is exactly the point. How is it considered 'normal' to expect everyone but the person collecting the benefits, to be paying into it?

This is why some folks are talking about their W2 forms stating their contributions. The IRS could care less who pays it, as long as it gets paid.

The teacher who has the school district make up the difference, is in fact getting a pension based on including these contributions as income, even though the teacher never sees a single penny of it. So the teacher who 'makes' 90600 (math IS tricky, and yours is wrong). Is actually getting a pension for someone making 100K, and it would indeed be 75,000. Not 68,625 as you think.

The pension system has ALL KINDS of loopholes like this, and each and every one of them is being milked to the point of abuse.

When your teacher pension contribution is paid by the school district, and not by the teacher, it gives the appearance that your district's teacher salaries are lower than comparable school districts. Tax payers in your district will only pay attention to the salary and not the total package. It also gives the appearance that the teachers have no responsibility for paying for their retirements.

Yep, Illinois is underfunded......
Silly thing about the Wisconsin teacher pension fund, it wasn't underfunded.

Good point Deb! The reason the Wisconsin teachers pension plans are not under funded is because the State continually paid into the plan and never stole money from it, without paying it back like the State of Illinois did!

Katie, do you live in a cave? Have you ever heard of major corporations? Do you think only teachers and public employees receive pensions? Do you have any idea the kinds of pensions employees (union and salaried) receive in the private sector -- without making any personal contributions? Do you think people who choose to work in the public sector don't deserve decent salaries and working conditions?

Carol, most people in the private sector do not receive any pension nor are they given free medical insurance. Many of those who do receive pensions receive a flat annuity that does not increase in time.

"While the democrats were shaking your hand promising you everything with their right hand they were raiding the pension fund with their left hand"

So you agree that the money was stolen by the people that the taxpayers elected?

"Us private sector taxpayers don't have bargaining and manage our own benefits."

Not true. There are plenty of people in the private sector that have bargaining power. You are free to try to unionize your place of employment.

Tom - Yes I do....unionize my place of employment? what the heck for so I can increase the amount deducted from my pay and have it diverted to political bodies I don't support? Unions had their time...now it's time for them to go away. My fellow non union employees and entreprenuers have to perform and produce to make more money and save for retirement.

I understand exactly what is going on, because I actually read the contract and know what it means. I even understand, although am saddened by, the absolute confusion among TEACHERS about their own contracts.

One more time;
The D202 board of education is paying your employee TRS contribution. Period.
They are not going to print custom made paystubs, or legally change the descriptive name of the contribution.

Here is the compensation report for D202, that lists every form of compensation GIVEN to employees. You can clearly see that 9.4% is paid by the district. It is included as a line item in the budget, so I'm not sure why you are letting a confusing(to you) pay stub override the multiple documents, financial reports, and union labor agreements that state that the district is paying this for you.
http://www.learningcommunity202.org/Departments/BO/SalaryCompensationReport.pdf

Here is the union contract that clearly explains the district is paying this for you;
http://www.psd202.org/Departments/BO/APT_Contract.pdf
Pg 22 - Section 11.14

"The board shall contribute to the teachers Retirement Systems of Illinois[the pension fund], on behalf of each teacher, the full teacher contribution due the Teachers Retirement System."

And here is the line-by-line budget, that shows (on line item #88)that the district is indeed paying for these contributions, and not the employees;
http://www.learningcommunity202.org/Departments/BO/District202Budget1112.pdf

Tim,
If you look at the title of the document that you provided, http://www.learningcommunity202.org/Departments/BO/SalaryCompensationReport.pdf you will see that this is for administrators. Can you give the link to the same document showing this information for teachers?

And there is Disneyland.

They make that promise, because if the reality of their investments come up short of that number, the state of IL is on the hook to make up the difference to meet that 'goal'.

When the fund performs poorly(as it has for most of the last decade, averaging ~3%), the union then comes out and complains that the state is not paying its 'fair share'.

Welcome to union logic.

Genevieve, I don't know where Tim is getting his numbers. The investment returns for TRS are as follows: * 2011 +24.0%
* 2010 +13.5% * 2009 -22.3% * 2008 - 4.5% * 2007 +19.6% * 2006 +12.2%
* 2005 +11.1% * 2004 +16.8% * 2003 + 5.2% * 2002 - 2.9%
As I have said earlier the State of Illinois in multiple documents admits that they have short funded the Retirement Systems in the State of Illinois. This "fair share" tale that Tim is spinning is fantasy, meanwhile he is claiming the teacher's are misinformed?
TRS actuarial reports show that 66 percent of the unfunded liability over the last 15 years is caused by lower-than-needed contributions from state government; 27 percent is the result of unrealized investment profits due to the lower-than-needed contributions, the cost of issuing pension bonds and other miscellaneous factors. Only 7 percent is the result of benefit increases to members.
http://trs.illinois.gov/subsections/press/FinancialMatters_Investments.htm

Teachers and those that are negotiating on our behalf are looking for a solution that includes assurances that the State of Illinois or other parties who pay into the pension funds actually make the payments and don't divert funds for other purposes.
Here is just one link that comments on this situation. These are facts not fantasies, don't be misled by statements that lack substantiation.
http://www.senategop.state.il.us/index.php/budget/136-governors-pension-diversion

Here is a quote from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-09/illinois-is-pension-basket-case-you-forgot-about.html

"The teachers’ fund is one of the country’s worst-financed statewide pension systems, reporting that it is only 47 percent funded. And that’s if you buy the system’s rosy accounting assumptions, including that it will achieve 8.5 percent annual returns on its assets. This level is tied for the most aggressive investment assumption among state pension funds in the country, and the fund has had to get creative in an effort to meet it. Pensions & Investments magazine says it has the fourth-riskiest pension investment portfolio in the U.S., with less than 17 percent of its investments in fixed income and cash. "

All that is lovely, however the bottom line is that TRS is overpromising the general fund and nobody will address it. They could not possibly generate 8.5% gains, they have not been able to generate 8.5% gains, and they won't in the future. This creates huge shortfalls. Add on top of that the state not paying their share and you have an even hotter mess than originally thought. We must admit ALL of the problems here. Just like at the Federal level, there is no mature adults to tell the truth.

1) Yes, it is. That is the point of posting it. Teachers are covered under the union contract that is also linked.

2)Yes, it does include teachers.

Support service that you mentioned are further broken down into specifics in line items 225-269.
Teachers/union employees are specifically broken down into line items 208-222

For line item 87(salaries), the corresponding column for retirement is blank(column 50). This is because TRS contributions are not paid out of 'salary', they are paid out of the extra benefits the union contract has negotiated(as previously reported on line 208-222), namely the payment of 9.4% of salary into TRS by the board(represented here by line 88-column 50).

3)You can not just randomly make up definitions of words on your own. They already have a defined meaning.
Idiom:
in lieu of
In place of; instead of.

These are the actions of the board. These are not 'meaningless sound bites', they are the certified and audited financial documents of the district, published directly by the district, and directly by the union. Not a think tank. Not an editorial newspaper piece.

You have already demonstrated that do not understand your own contract. Now, you are demonstrating that you are unable to read a complex spreadsheet.

This is not a matter of debate, this is actual fact. Your inability to understand your own contract, does not make what you are saying magically true, or invalidate years of contract language to the contrary.

Tim,
On the link that you provided http://www.learningcommunity202.org/Departments/BO/District202Budget1112.pdf Line 218 is for Gifted Program and 219 is for Drivers Ed. but yet there are no expenses for retirement for these programs. Why is that? Can you explain why the district did not pay TRS for Gifted Program and Drivers Ed teachers?

Tom,

Line 218 and 219 list only benefits paid out above salary. What you meant to ask(I'm sure) are why are lines 15 and 16 blank, as those are the lines for the categories you mentioned that list all disbursements, including salary as well as extra benefits and contributions. As you can see, lines 15 and 16 are also blank on salary. It is no surprise that no contributions were made, as no salaries/benefits were paid.

As you will remember, in Feb 2011, the board scheduled a vote on the cutting and/or restructuring of both the gifted programs, as well as the drivers ed classes. Since 2009, over 300 positions in similar votes have been cut at the expense of sustaining a broken pension system.

There is a long chain of events that the residents have been paying close attention to. Watching the teachers 'protest' last month galvanized the residents resolve. That resolve being, that they will reform the pension system without the teachers unions involvement, as they have shown zero interest in helping and are only fighting to continue a broken system at all costs. The union is more interested in sacrificing their fellow members jobs, than reforming a system that would allow all jobs to be saved. This is not what the residents think of as 'supporting the community'.

TRS is not over promising pensions check the facts for yourself.

It is depressing that so many teachers do not understand their own contract.

I can understand the confusion, as it almost seems designed to be confusing.

What you see on your paycheck, is the contribution being made OUT OF YOUR AGREED COMPENSATION PLAN that was negotiated in the union contract. Your deduction does not come from your 'salary'. Under this situation, 'salary' becomes just a legal definition. It does not represent your entire pay. Your entire pay is actually (salary + 9.4%)

Your paycheck, is divided into 24 equal distributions(unless you elect to take the lump sum at the end of June). This is your 'salary'.
Your contributions, paid by the district(because this is part of the compensation package the union contract explicitly agrees to) come out of the additional money you are paid from the district, ABOVE your salary as it falls on the agreed upon salary schedule. This schedule is based on your years of experience, and your level of education. Your contribution is not coming from here.

This is your compensation package. This is your union contract. If it is confusing to you(and it seems to be), then you need to be honest with yourself about your skill level in reading legal agreements, as well as large complex spreadsheets. I imagine you will eventually come to the conclusion that no, you are not a legal expert, nor working in the finance field on a daily basis to be familiar with the figures and agreements that you are looking at.

".I do not think it is inconceivable for this fund to average 8.5% wouldn't you think?"

Um... Ed, this is why we have invented math. I can know for a fact this is not making 8.5%

Lets take your last 3 years, since you call 2009 an anomaly, and think 2010 and 2011 are a 'nice recovery.

A 22.3% loss on $100 = $77.7 (2009)
A 13.5% gain on $77.5= $88.19 (2010)
A 24.0% gain on $88.2= $109

$109 is 9% more than $100

Over those 3 years, the fund is up an average of 3% (9% divided by 3 years). Keep in mind the immediately previous year to that group, saw a 4% loss, so the initial $100 would have been $104. So over 4 years, the fund saw 5% gain, or an average per year of 1.25%. I will leave it as 'homework' for you to figure out the actual rate of return, given the exact numbers you posted for the entire segment.

Ed, for our kids sake, I hope you do not teach math.

So Tim convienently ignores the compounding interest advantage by looking at just three years. What happens when we calculate the whole 10 year span? From 2002 the 100 dollars looks like this:
$97.10 -2002
$102.14 - 2003
$119.31 -2004
$132.55 -2005
$148.72 - 2006
$177.87 -2007
$169.87 -2008
$131.99 -2009
$149.00 -2010
$185.62 -2011
It is sad to see some people manipulate numbers to create their own version of the truth. The $100.00 has increased in value by 85% over ten years. So if we divide the 85% by ten? Anyone? Anyone? Mr. Bueller?

No, those are the results of the real return category of asset class that TRS invests in. There are 4 Asset classes in the alternative fund that you pulled those numbers out of, and all you have done is averaged the 'real return' category of investments. Did you get confused and think 'real' meant not-fake? Real, in this terminology has a very specific meaning in describing a subclass of a subclass. Real Return is a subclass of the 'Alternative' investments, which is a subclass of the total pension fund.

To explain this for you:
The alternative investment classes are the following;
-Real Estate (land, commercial property, etc)
-Real Return (commodities, and iBonds)
-Absolute Return (hedge funds)
-Private Equity (buying non-traded shares in private sector companies)

You listed one class of investments, and tried to extrapolate the entire funds performance from it? Either you have no idea what you are talking about, or you are being incredibly dishonest with the people reading.

I'm not sure why you can't admit you are over your head here with this level of complexity, and that the union is using this confusion to take advantage not only of the taxpayers, but its employees as well.

Yes Ed, I did read your quote. And when I highlighted it and clicked 'search google for...' I found your statistics coming directly from a union website on a PR release. This is not a financial document, it is a press release.

You can claim this is smoke and mirrors, or whatever other distraction you want to try to use to get off the discussion of the pension system, and onto me personally. But it is simply not going to work, the people who created these spreadsheets and union contracts were not writing down smoke and mirrors, they were writing down the figures that are the reality in D202.

My frustration, is that the majority of the teachers would be better off without the union controlling their employment. The union at one point served an important purpose, for sure. But they have abused their power, and have swung too far into the abuse of a system that was negotiated in good faith. I am not surprised that the teachers are the last to notice what the residents have been seeing for years now.

Your union is resisting reform that your employers(the citizens) want, and the citizens are growing very frustrated with what they see as a world insulated and unaware of the life the citizens have to live on a daily basis. The protest last month was a slap in the face to the residents, but the teachers were not even aware of that. You will notice, that they immediately stopped protesting when the enormous backlash from the community finally caught their attention.

The following is a list of ever single school district in Illinois. It is documented here(and your union contract) what percentage(out of 9.4%) the local board picks up for the employee. Some districts pay 0.0%, requiring the teacher to pay all of the 9.4% contribution. Other districts pay 9.4% of this, leaving 0.0% to be paid by the teacher. In D202, this is picked up by the board, using the negotiated pay package that is in addition to the salary.

Page 45 has Plainfield SD202
http://www.illinoispolicy.org/uploads/files/Playing_Favorites_Supplement_050312_3.pdf

There are piles of audited, and certified documentation to support this reality. From certified budget spreadsheets, to legally binding union contracts, to audited financial reports. While the only contradiction to it is a random post on the internet describing an unaudited, non-certified single pay stub that is obviously written to be as confusing as possible.

Thanks, but I'll keep looking at the certified and independently audited documents.

TRS payments made on behalf of the board are called 'employee benefits' not MR/SS(as per the union contract).

This is 31.5M, or 22% of salary.

And while it is a rough number, this equates to about 12.3M(9.4% of 131.1M) paid by the board in contributions made instead of the employee making them out of salary pay.

The teachers union will either reform their pension plan internally with no extra tax payer monies, or the residents will be reforming it for them.

Tim,
Now you're saying that benefits paid including TRS are 22% of salary and are included in the 'employee benefits' not MR/SS(as per the union contract). Line 8 is SpEd Pre K. Salary is $2,001,161. Benefits are not 22%. They are $247,736. Even if you add in the $69,654 in the MR/SS (line 211), it doesn't total 22%.

Don't forget that 'employee benefits' include insurance.

Interesting that the taxpayers are also paying salaries and benefits to Board of Ed Services. Line 48

Thanks Jim W...like I said before what a confusing mess. This topic is also very inflaming. If Tim claims he's right and Jim W has a contradictory document(s) why is there confusion...no wonder people flee unions when the can! They had their place now workplace laws keep many of us safe from nasty employers... Can't wait for the blogging when the supreme court publicizes their ruling on obamacare...

It is not a 'semantic game'. These are the documents provided by the district.

Are you claiming the district is lying?
Are you claiming the union contract, published by the district is a lie?
Are you claiming the report of all school districts in IL that shows D202 paying the full 9.4% a lie?

I have given you links to back up my claims, directly from the sources that have published them.

You, however, are making personal attacks against me, with no supporting evidence at all to back up your assertions.

It has nothing to do with animosity to educators. As I have clearly stated, the rank and file educators are getting a bad deal in this too. What I am against is the public unions abusing every loophole possible to enrich its members at the expense of its employer(the public). I have exactly the same stance against AFSCME, and their equally abysmal record.

There is a big picture here, and the time has come that it can no longer be ignored, it has nothing to do with you personally.

The numbers add up just fine.

The TRS benefits are paid out of the 'employee benefits' column, exactly like the union contract stipulates.

Line 5 is $80M, as you state, but with $16.8M paid in benefits(this includes TRS payments). That is almost 20% of salary.
Line 8 paid over $2M in salaries, with over $240K paid in 'benefits'. Again, this is over 12% of salary.

Benefits also include stipends, and hourly reimbursements for duties not covered by contract, so this will fluctuate in how much above 9.4% it will be. But it will always be above 9.4%

I hope that clears it up.

Did you take insurance into account as a benefit? Based on the link that you gave earlier for administration, that is close to $24,000 a year per employee.

Your taxes will go up, because the union is not interested in reforming their pension system. It is not 'confusing' that there are 311 districts that do not do that, because that is what it means when it was stated that 36% do not do it.

Here's another example;
In the last 4 years, if a union member notifies the board of their planned retirement, they will automatically get 6% raises annually each year. That ends up being a 26% raise right before retirement.

Coincidently, the pension is based on the last 4 years salary.

If you don't like the idea of taking the responsibility for your own districts salary choices, then you need to let them know that. The current system is not sustainable.

Your property taxes would only go up if your board continues with its existing ways. The whole point of reform, is to get them to change those ways into a more sustainable path. Unfortunately, the union has fought any and all change that has come its way. The union protested last month because they were 'upset' they would only be given a 3% raise every year, instead of a 3.5% raise. If your board reformed its pension internally, there would be no reason to raise your property taxes. Shifting the cost, while not a perfect plan, draws attention to the fact that the largest and fastest rising single expense, is pension payments. It brings it out from all the layers the union has attempted to hide it behind.

Yes a 6% raise over 4 years is 26%

Start at 100;
100 x 6% = 106
106 x 6% = 112.36
112.36 x 6% = 119.10
119.10 x 6% = 126.24

At the end of 4 years, the salary will be 26.24% higher.

The teachers in your district may not be abusing the system, in this particular way, but your IL income taxes are helping to pay for all the other districts that are. Do you remember the 66% income tax increase in state taxes? That was almost exclusively to help pay down what is 'owed' to the pension system.

This has far reaching effects and consequences. What do I propose? Simple;
-Raise the retirement age to match the private sector (69 yrs). The teachers were protesting raising this even to 67 from its currenlty lower value.
-Limit COLA adjustments to be matched to the national average(not the fixed 3.5% it currently is)
-REQUIRE individuals to pay their pension requirements out of total salary, not benefits. This current method skews the calculations to ensure insolvency, as the defined calculation for 9.4% is based not on total pay, but only on 'salary'.
-Enforce a means test. If you have a net worth over $XYZ dollars, payouts are adjusted to meet income brackets at retirement(just like SS). pensions were meant to protect against poverty on retirement, not to be abused.

Yes, you have it right Gen... and so does your husband...everyone is disagreening with with the application of benefit...if it was clear cut then it would be fine...as for corporations... please... at least we know what's being deducted, and what's going in for pension....and I'd like to know what private/ public companies are offering pensions these days.

The latest, is actually 70. I am basing that off the same website you looked at that states that;
"No matter what your full retirement age (also called "normal retirement age") is, you may start receiving benefits as early as age 62 or as late as age 70."

Teachers
"Sec. 16-132 A member who has at least 20 years of creditable service is entitled to a retirement annuity upon or after attainment of age 55"

As for the local district share. I would estimate(based on existing averages in the private sector), that this share should be around 5%.

For the districts that already pay the employee share for the teachers, this would switch from 9.4% being paid by the taxpayers(and shifted to those who collect the benefits), to 5% being paid by the taxpayer. So they would go down a minimum of 4.4% for these districts(in reality much more because of other reforms that are needed).

Now, you may be told that means your taxes will go up since your particular district does not pay these costs. They will only go up if your local union fails to agree to a new contract with the other pension reforms necessary as mentioned above. When they tell you your taxes will go up, they are flat out admitting that they have no intention of reforming their own system.

There is nothing left to threaten though. Either your local property taxes will continue to go up, or your state income taxes will go up under the current pension system. Most likely, both.

Tim, age 66 is now called the full retirement age but delaying to age 70 will increase the base pay by 8% a year. At 62 you are penalized for taking it that early so you would receive a lot less. A benefit of age 66 is that they do not withhold benefits if you have any earnings at age 66. I do not think you have to take it at age 70, but you would only lose money if you did not take it.

I am quite familiar with it. It is another poorly crafted union-sponsored bill. It does not even slightly address the problems the pension system is facing. I also think you are misreading it.

It states that someone who FIRST contributes to TRS after that date is placed into tier II. Someone who has been working for the district longer than Jan 1, 2011( only 18 months ago) is still Tier I, and will not delay retirement. Anyone working before that period, still has the exact same benefits, with the exact same shortfall of funds being paid in. They would have to wait 10 years(until 2021) to retire in Tier II.

It is a band-aid law, that fixes nothing.

I am not interested in articles, or opinion pieces. I am interested in the raw numbers, and reality. The raw numbers clearly demonstrate serious pension reform is needed, for ALL public unions(not just teachers).

As I showed, the plan I outlined would actually decrease your taxes with the included reform. It would also save teacher positions, keeping student/teacher ratios at a higher level. This is a win-win situation for the taxpayers and the students. The only one telling you it will increase your taxes, is the union. They are telling you this to get you to vote against any reform to their gravy train, as they know full well that the voters ultimately have the power to do so.

This is happening all around the country, with small towns being faced with pension costs that are now eating up 50% of the entire budget.

Tim thinks that Tier II was supported by Unions? Another new reality?

So Tim is this proposal yours? And where isare the assurance that money will be paid into the pension fund in the future. (You know the money you claim that has not really been diverted from being paid into our pension fund) You seem to avoid the financial facts that are inconvenient for you. In fact the Teacher's pension fund is just an easy target. Throughout this dialogue, you have declared teachers as uninformed, misled, dumb, incapable of teaching children basic math, so obviously we are easy targets to you. But why have you not targeted the judges fund first? It is in far worse shape than the teachers pension fund. And what of the legislators, they retire with a pension after 8 years of service.

Deb, read upthread at my comment to your claim of an 8.5% 'average'.

It is proven that your numbers are wrong.
You seem to think union pamphlets are 'facts'
You are over your head here.

People have a finite lifetime, Thomas.

If retirement is delayed14 years, that is 14 years longer paying into the fund.(out of their own salary, not this pick-up shell game).
It is also 14 years LESS collecting a pension and not working.

If the average lifespan is lets conservatively say 90, that becomes 21 years of pension payments, instead of 35 years. At a 3.5% COLA, that means the pension payment literally doubles in its payout in just 20 years. The 'second doubling' comes even faster. It is an exponential curve. The largest wave of Tier II retirements will not come for over 40 years.

This comment text box will not let me post the formulas/symbols needed for compound increases for the existing Tier I level, but you can look these up and do the math yourself.

Unfortunately, this change needs to be made to ALL currently employed for the math to correctly work. The tiered system just pushes off the responsibility yet again without enacting the reform that is necessary, it just makes it 'sound like it does'. The problem will just happen again in a few years. That is why it is a band-aid solutions to a gunshot wound.

Yes. insurance is included in benefits.
The union members pay a (small) portion of that total, the rest is paid from benefits.

That is why the benefits are significantly larger(> double) than the 9.4% that gets paid into TRS.

If I was involved in negotiations, a signed NDA(if it existed) would prevent me from telling you anything personally identifiable.

"Tim, You have pointed to the line item on the budget to support your statement that the district is paying all of the TRS for the teachers but that may not be true. Without a breakdown on the cost of insurance and anything else included in the "benefit" line item, you have no idea how much, if any, of the amount is for TRS. Look at line 6 for PreK. The salary is $1,108,845 but the benefit amount is actually MORE at $1,121,021. Assuming that you take out the 9.4% that you say is for TRS, that means that the other benefits (insurance) are equal to more than 90.6% of the teachers salaries. The MR/SS amount for this group of PreK teachers is $111,778 but that doesn't add up either. If this amount is to reflect only the district's portions of TRS (1.4%) of salary, it should be much less than that.

No, as I said this also includes other items such as stipends for continuing education credits earned, and extracurricular activities which are paid at a flat hourly rate.

Some divisions obviously have a higher amount of extracurricular activities than others. Nothing surprising there.

I know you are looking hard for any possible way that this is not true(since it really is hard to believe). But, none of that puts any doubt into the wording of the labor contract which clearly states the board of education is paying the TRS contribution as part of a compensation package that is above 'salary'.

If anything, it would be a good question to direct to the board exactly why it is that they do NOT break out this category further, when other such categories are broken out. I'm sure the reason would be that these financial reports fully meet the legal requirements that need to be followed(and that actually is the reason), but it would speak well to an attitude of transparency if they were to break this particular category down further. It is one of the largest single expenses after all.

Tim,
"Some divisions obviously have a higher amount of extracurricular activities than others. Nothing surprising there."

Really? You think that PreK teachers have more extracurricular activities than others?

You brought the budget in as proof of TRS payments but the numbers are not adding up. How do you know how much of the $1,121,021 is for extracurricular? stipends? insurance? TRS?...

You've avoided the question multiple times but unless you're on the school board or were directly involved in negotiations, you have no idea and are only making assumptions.

Nobody is talking about axing the public pension system, only reforming it.

Had you dug in deeper, you would have found that the expected rate of return within ALL of those pensions is 7% or lower. (TRS is still 8.5%)
You would also find that their contributions are based on their TOTAL pay, not a segment of it called 'salary'.
You would also find that the retirement is well above the unions requirement.

None of the claims here are that the entire public pension system needs to go away, only that it needs to be reformed. HOWEVER, the longer the union blocks any and all attempts at internal reform, and now external reform, they are only increasing the chances that the residents will in fact dismantle the system for them instead.

Ronald Regan broke the air traffic control union in the 80's. The precedent is set, and I honestly think the union is playing a very dangerous game here. There is a 'it wont happen to us' attitude(some of it even in this thread). This gives the outside public a perception that the union is only getting deeper into its own self-created bubble.

Actually ,it is not plenty. The entire private workforce does not work for the companies you mention. You even state yourself that a survey shows that pensions are down.The big difference is that the ones who do offer pensions are not funded by taxpayer dollars like teachers are.

You should be able to find the salary schedule and contract on your school district's website. It is usually listed on the HR page.

The other benefits could be insurance.

I checked the link and compared a few school districts to the Family Taxpayer link that is often sited in discussions about teacher salary. I can say that none of the districts that I compared had numbers that matched between the two "reports". I also looked up a few salaries for specific people that I know and I can say that the amount reported on the ISBE link is nowhere near accurate. In some cases, the "base salary" on the report on the ISBE is almost double what the actual salary was.

Feel free to see your taxes skyrocket while others suffer the same consequence and cannot afford it so teachers can retire and they cannot.

You need to send them a large donation.

I do not know that anyone here asked for them to disappear, but the absurd levels of pensions, start of pensions, and medical coverage were not fair requests made by the teachers and unions. The ploy was that they were so underpaid and they were teaching our children. Unfortunately some of the public bought into that story, but how aware were they of the salaries or the extreme benefits they receive.

With all of this money, the US has fallen to 17th in world ranking regarding education. Apparently you do not necessarily buy good teachers with these bloated benefits but you do buy many greedy ones. Yes there are some very good dedicated teachers and deserve decent benefits, but greed was pushed through the unions and our moronic government gave it to them but these officials also receive absurd benefits. Good case is Daley's $180,000 pension that is not just paid by Chicagoans but all of those in the state.

That sounds very familiar, doesn't it?

-Capping abuses
-An increase in the retirement age
-A recalibration of COLA for everyone(to 2%)

Sounds like a guy I, and a lot of citizens, agree with

Actually, the politicians have a very nice thing going.

They retire with a full pension after only working a few years, often get a second pension from another job, have health insurance for life and get paid overtime when they can't agree so they go into extra sessions.

If you think teachers have a sweat deal, read this.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/04/28/retired-pols-drawing-six-figure-pensions/

Ya, sweet deal. Taught 35 years, never had a summer off, paid into social security for 35 summers. Now retired. Insurance for me and my wife through the state is $1100.00 per month, cannot collect social security or even get what I paid in back because I receive a state pension. And collecting $46,000 a year from TRS. Living large. Get real Ruth!! Look at what the retired politicans are receiving!!

It is a sweat deal, Ruth. Real sweaty.

Do you know any teachers, Ruth? Do you know the amount of schoolwork they bring home every night and on weekends? Do you know that more than 50% of teachers take classes and attend eduational symposiums over the summer to stay abreast of urrent trends, research and educational strategies? (They have to PAY for these things, by the way.) Others teach summer school, work on curriculum, and mentor newer teachers. You know what else, Ruth? There are actually teachers who go into schools and work on the weekends! GASP!!! Some even hold study sessions for their students on Saturdays.

And hey, Ruth, ask a teacher how much money they spend on things for their classrooms and students every year. Ask them how many extra-curricular events they attend . . . How many fundraisers they support . . . How many parents they call every night???

Perhaps education isn't important to you, Ruth. Perhaps we should pay these lazy teachers minimum wage and give them no benefits. Forget that retirement crap altogether - they don;t need a pension OR Social Security!!! Think of the QUALITY teachers you would have then, Ruth. I bet you wouldn't spend your days working with 32 first graders . . . or try and teach 150 high school kids who would rather be playing video games or hanging out with their friends than be in school.

Yeah, Ruth, it's a SWEAT deal indeed. Oh, and by the way, contrary to what you wrote, NOBODY asked you.

Lettuce - #1 Please fix your cranial rectal inversion....#2 Ruth can post whatever she wants. #3 Teachers are not the only ones who take work home, work weekends and attend continuing education classes. #4 Most professionals I know don't get an isntitute day. If I have a week of training, I have make up my work. In fact I don't get paid unless I produce revunue for my company and meet my metrics. #5 - Since you decided to admonish tax paying bloggers voicing their literary opinions via keyboard - let me question my you picked a blogging handle well known for spreading the e.coli bacterium.
#6 - I hope more people like ruth chime in - because I am asking.

Hi Taxpayer Mike,
With regards to your comment, "Most professionals I know don't get an institute day. If I have a week of training, I have make up my work." So in the teaching situation, in order to gather all staff together to analyze data that considers school performance and how to target improvement, we would make our work: ergo, teaching when? Unfortunately, there is some need for administrators to convene district meetings during the school year. It allows for informed instruction. Now you are going to say, do that in the summer, but looking at data trends needs to be done throughout the school year. That is how educators make informed decisions.

Unfortunately many still claim low pay and needed benefits that most of us can only dream about. I am tired of hearing people say teachers are so important so pay them more for the sake of our kids.

I do think they deserve pensions and a good wage but it has gone way to far, and the teachers and unions must learn we cannot afford it any longer. They better compromise or we should just let it go bankrupt which will leave them with nothing as at that point we should not be asked to bail out an unfair system.

I partially agree with you John. I think the pension plan would have been either more sustainable, or would have been scrapped if the state put in the amount they realistically should have.

What "should" have happened, is anything that results in a change to the pension payouts, should have a corresponding and immediate change in the pension funding (every teacher raise, every change in healthcare, changes to life expectancy, changes to expected interest rates... it is all computable - the pension plan would always be funded at 100% based on current data).

Here is why I believe that didn't happen - I'd almost consider it a conspiracy theory. The elected politicians get votes and campaign contributions when they give in to union demands. Giving public union deferred benefits (like pensions) gets them immediate votes and campaign contributions, but since the benefits aren't payable for many years to come (after that politician leaves office) - someone else is left holding the bag.

The unions get better pension benefits for their members - and they know the state is not fully funding the pensions, but instead of adding a constitutional ammendment to fully fund pensions - they get a constitutional ammendment added that the pension benefits can never be diminished. Why? Because there is no way the state can afford to fully fund the pensions, and the unions realize this. Now the state is in a bind - they can't reduce pensions, and the can't afford to fund them.

Not true ,John

Lettuce, I'm not the only one who thinks you have a pretty good thing going on...read this..."Using Illinois government-school teachers as an example, Zettler makes these points:
•The average retired government-school teacher was a part-time employee with a part-time career.
•Teachers work 170 days or 34 weeks a year or less (182 workdays minus 12 sick days or personal days, per the standard teachers’ contract). Teacher pensions that teachers describe as “modest” are four to seven times larger than Social Security.
•The average pension in the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) is $46,000. Average age of retirement is 58, and the average years worked is 25.
•For private-sector employees with college degrees, a career typically begins at age 22 and ends at its earliest after 40 years at age 62 or more likely after 44 years at age 66. For government-school teachers, on the other hand, less than one percent work 40 years or more before they retire, and the average teacher works only 25 years." You can read the rest at http://www.taxpayersunitedofamerica.org/

Oh, cute Katy K, I am an English teacher - capitalizing the E in English, as it is a proper noun and proper adjective. Schools don't have grammar teachers anymore. Actually, there never were. Grammar is a subcomponent of English or language arts. Perhaps you are thinking of the old term "grammar school," a phrase indicating what we now refer to as elementary school.

What pension? Because I taught in a state other than Illinois for the first 12 years of my career, my pension is looking to be about $20,000 a year. And I have to forfeit all my Social Security monies (earned over more than 15 years of full time employment) because I now will have an Illinois state "pension." This is all assuming that by the time I retire when I am 87, any of the pension monies "borrowed" or "redirected" by the state have been replenished.

So I know plenty and I will bash what I wish. Perhaps you are barking up the wrong tree. Go attack someone with a cuter blog name - that apparently is very important to you - and says volumes.

Lettuce, Just because you are a member of the TRS does not prevent you from receiving Social Security.

The TRS has a publication that addresses the issue ... it is not as cut and dried as you imply. I recommend you read:
http://trs.illinois.gov/subsections/members/pubs/booklets/pub20.pdf
which covers the issue.

@Lettuce - english teacher eh! 'nuff said. If you can use your command of the English language to demean others, I will take license and do the same. The irony in all of this is we are all "gonna" get financially skewered in the end. The people making the "big" decisions have their pensions taken care leaving taxpayers and teachers languishing.

We should all agree that means testing is coming and it will affect both TRS and social security recipients.

And lettuce, for my final jab, the real irony bills have to be written using the english language, maybe it's possible that them darn repersentives down yonder springfied dont no what their write-n or read-n.

Kudos to you, Jim, for being a responsible citizen by not buying a home that was out of your financial means, saving, and not filing bankrupcy when the going got tough!!! My husband and I were in the exact same situation and we also went through our cash savings. It sickens me that so many people were allowed to buy homes that were so far out of their financial means with little savings to act as a cushion if they lost a job. Now, WE, the responsible one's, are suffering two-fold. First, because we went through our savings to survive. Second, because the housing market has crashed, our homes are not worth nearly what we paid for them. I doubt we will ever see the day that Quinn and Madigan will take a pay cut to pay for their mistakes, but I like your sentiment on this issue. I also agree that compromises need to be made to clean up the pension mess, but not at the tax payers expense!

Jim,

Majority of politicians that made this mess are long gone. Remember, the state stopped funding the teacher pensions in the mid 1950's. It's only been in the last 10 years that the funding has been pretty decent.

Nice of you to want to walk away from the teacher pension, how would you feel if the government walked away from your social security? Because this is the teacher's social security. And after you profited by paying lower taxes for decades than was needed.

As for buying houses out of their means, back in the day when I bought my first house, most people bought there first house on a wing and a prayer, that was the norm. And people just got by for much of the time their kids were at home, there was no Suze Orman saving of 8 months income. That's because people weren't getting laid off.

MaryfromIL, many of those politicians are retires and yes I am suggesting their abusive pensions be impacted. The problems are not all in the past as it continues with more demands. If you read my whole post I did not say to abandon pensions, unless it goes bankrupt because of greed. Sorry I do not want to support someone in their 50's who already taking their pension. I first suggested pensions, etc. come back inline without the gravy train that is allowed now by compromising with age changes and reducing some pensions. If nobody wants to negotiate, the problem is yours not mine and this is not abandonment. SS age was raised for my generation and it will be raised again, so if you are comparing your situation to SS we have already been impacted and we have much smaller amounts of income from SS and we have to pay for medicare and supplemental insurance and RX insurance to handle our health care. So yes I am complaining about those who asked for too much and those who gave into them which includes many current politicians. I cannot afford what was unfairly negotiated, and it is time some of it be brought back inline.

MaryfromIL, oh I remember very well especially coming from a large family. As mentioned there was a year of unemployment, and we had to rely on credit which was all paid back after years. So there was less than $17, since going into debt we were in negative numbers but earned as we could to keep paying bills. It was years later when everything was paid back. I very well remember that time, since my marriage became even stronger because in sickness and health we were bound and we supported each other.

I am also aware of my mother first losing her mother and going to Europe with her father and then losing him. She was given money to come back to the states where she eventually met my father who cherished their family and emphasized religion, family, hard work, and education. They were not rich in money that they passed onto their children but they were rich in faith and spirit which they gave to their children who helped them to grow up.

I would not have closed on a house with only $17, as it would not be financially sound. Our assumption was at least 20% down, and save until then. Unfortunately too many did buy homes without sufficient funds who should have been stopped. Remember our constitution does not guarantee happiness, but only your pursuit of it. The same may be said about those asking for more and those giving it to them without regard as to who would pay for it. Please do not say the state, since they only tax us to pay for their bills.

Mary, actually The residents of Chicago have it made. They control the state and elect the Governor. The downstate voters and the burbs have been shafted by Chicago for years. The burbs have been paying a portion of your water bill for years.

Mary, 17 dollars left? Thats how people got into trouble.

Mary, actually paying more taxes is a Dem talking point.

A shift at this time would place the burden on homeowners who are already overtaxed. The solution is not a shell game of where to tax but very simply abusive pensions for all those in the future and those receiving it now has to be reduced. This should best be accomplished by those who negotiated this pension burden for us. The public workers, unions, and politicians need to work out a settlement where reasonable pensions are given but not what is being given now. This would possibly call for an amendment to the state constitution, but the amendment should be easy to write, since a marker can be used to strike the guarantees of pensiin benefits out of the constitution.

Lower taxes in Nebraska?
How is 6.84% in Nebraska state income tax, lower than 5%? Illinois income tax?
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/state-taxes-nebraska.aspx
The only way taxes are lower in NE, is if someone makes less than $17K/yr.

Sounds like you should be spending more money on education, especially math.