Once again, Glen does a great job of giving us the facts about the Nekritz bill and the other threats to our pensions.
And John explains Cash Balance Plans.
If these two guys didn’t already exist, I would have to create them in my basement laboratory. When there are these two bloggers at your disposal, nobody has an excuse for not understanding what is happening to our pensions in the Bizarro World of Illinois politics.
Then there is Rhode Island.
There is this from the New York Times yesterday.
Rhode Island, the site of a sweeping pension overhaul last year, has brought in a prominent New York lawyer to litigate the question: David Boies, perhaps best known for representing Al Gore in the fight over the 2000 presidential election and for waging an antitrust battle against Microsoft on behalf of the government in the 1990s.
Rhode Island’s dispute may not reach quite those dramatic heights, but it is being closely watched as a first major test of whether, and how, financially strained states and cities can cut the benefits of their workers and retirees.
Several public employee unions have sued Gov. Lincoln Chafee and other Rhode Island officials, accusing them of acting illegally when they pushed through a package of money-saving pension cuts last year, including suspending annual cost-of-living increases for most retirees. The unions want the richer benefits restored.
There seems to be another Bizarro planet in the Bizarro universe. Democratic lawyer David Boies and liberal Governor Chaffee going after Rhode Island state pension benefits.
Aside from that, keep your eyes on Rhode Island. Pensions protected by state constitutional language will probably hit the courts there before it gets decided in Illinois.
“Unions reject plans for pension overhaul,” said the Tribune yesterday. But did the unions reject the plan?
The We Are One Coalition issued the following statement today in response to the introduction of HB 6258:
“We appreciate lawmakers’ latest attempt to move the pension conversation forward. As we have consistently stated, the We Are One Illinois coalition stands ready to work collaboratively toward a solution.
We were not consulted in the development of this plan, but our preliminary review suggests that there are significant problems with HB 6258 that need to be worked through. The pension debt was caused by the state’s failure to make actuarially adequate pension contributions, not by public employees, but like its predecessors, this proposal essentially balances the pension debt on the backs of teachers, police officers, nurses, caregivers, and other public servants both active and retired. It is also unclear at this juncture whether this proposal is constitutionally or actuarially sound.
We intend to thoroughly analyze this proposal’s elements and provide a more comprehensive response in the coming weeks.”
That doesn’t exactly read like a rejection. Although I wish it did. It reads more like a plea to be allowed at the table.
Yes. It makes the point that the cause of the pension underfunding rests with the failure of the state to meet its obligations. And it makes the point that the proposal wants to solve the problem on the backs of public employees.
So, what’s to appreciate? And how is it unclear as to whether it is constitutional or actuarially sound?
I have to say that the Nekritz proposal sounds like Richard Ingram’s chickens coming home to roost. It was TRS Executive Director Richard Ingram who pushed the COLA cost issue in a Crain’s interview. IFT President Dan Montgomery called for his firing. But the TRS board of directors slapped his wrist and told him not to do it again. He hasn’t. But it seems like Nekritz and the other sponsors of HB6258 were listening.
You can’t unsay what you said, Dick.
Speaking of the Nekritz gang who are sponsoring this piece of crap.
I count at least half a dozen that took IEA campaign money.
Or take someone like Evanston State Representative Robin Gabel.
Please.
When teacher constituents asked her (and not just her, by the way) why she supported Senate Bill 7 which took away seniority and tenure rights, undercut the right to strike and collectively bargain and tied teacher evaluation to student growth scores, she claimed it was because the teacher union’s supported it and she did what the unions asked.
Actually that was true. The two state teacher unions supported Senate Bill 7 and praised it as a national model.
But now we see her name as a sponsor on this legislation which the unions oppose. She doesn’t just support it. She is a sponsor.
A story about Robin Gabel:
When she was first running for state rep I found a youtube video of an interview with Gabel.
This is, like, two or three years ago.
In the interview she supports raising the retirement age of public employees, cutting benefits and increasing employee contributions.
I called her.
She apologized, saying she was new to all this, new to the issue of pensions and hadn’t really looked into it.
What a whopper that was.
If you haven’t made your reservation to get on the bus to Springfield, do it now. We Are One is calling for lobbying and rallied in the Capitol Rotunda on January 3rd and 4th. Because of the strike, many Chicago teachers will be back in classrooms on the 3rd. But many suburban and downstate teachers and, of course, retirees are available on those dates.
We need this big folks.
Fred Klonsky 