The Battle of Springfield.
Is is never easy to fight a war on two fronts. That is exactly what confronts teachers and other state employees this morning.
On one front is the general state funding crisis. Illinois faces billions of dollars in debt. The impact has been widely felt. Community centers, mental health centers, art and music programs and many other programs that serve the people of Illinois have been shut down. 17,000 teachers and other education employees have been fired in the past two weeks. There is even a bill in the state legislature to reduce the school week to four days.
Race to the top, indeed.
Governor Quinn has proposed an emergency 1% surtax that would raise $2 billion dollars this year. That is a start, but not enough.
HB 174 would raise the income tax 3%, raise the corporate income tax and provide relief to local property taxpayers. HB 174 would provide sustainable revenue and would provide, for the first time, equity in school funding across the state regardless of the wealth of the local school community.
The second front is the preservation of state employee pensions. Teachers, excluded from receiving their full social security benefits have and continue to pay roughly 10% of their income into TRS. The state also has a legal obligation to contribute to TRS. It is has not been met. In fact, many years the state borrows from the teachers’ pension account.
Last Friday the first shots were fired in the Battle of Springfield. Egged on by the corporate leaders on the Civic Committee, the state House unanimously passed a bill that created a two-tiered retirement system for future judges and legislators. It extended the retirement age and reduced the benefits.
The bill that passed the state House will only save $22 million dollars of a $4.6 billion state pension obligation.
Still, the action by Democrat Speaker Mike Madigan, acting on behalf of his friends in the Civic Committee, gives us a good sense of what he has planned this week for teachers and other state employees. They want the two-tier system extended to Illinois state employees, university workers as well as suburban and Downstate teachers.
Ironically, in spite of all the debate at last week’s state teacher convention of the IEA about how flexible we should be in lobbying to protect TRS, Madigan is, according to IEA leaders, drafting so-called teacher pension reform with absolutely no discussions at all with the IEA.
However, the Chicago Sun-Times makes this point:
But AFSCME Council 31 and the state’s teachers unions have dug in against any weakening of their benefit packages, and their sway over lawmakers is sure to be enhanced given that this is an election year.
“Those groups are little bit more well-organized than General Assembly members or judges,” McCarthy said, acknowledging the tough road ahead in securing more expansive pension reforms.
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