Political/Government Corruption

From the archive: What happens if agreement is not reached E. IF IT IS IN THE YELLOW PAGES PRIVATIZE IT: This was former FL Gov. Jeb Bush’s rule on reducing state costs and influence….

From the archive: B. ALLOWABLE PENSION BUDGET ADJUSTMENTS – State and University: Once a “Total Compensation” value is arrived at adjustments could be made by the managers annually to fit their budget needs. Currently…

From the archive: Taxpayer Costs Must Be Fixed Not Unlimited. Pension costs must be part of total compensation not separate and apart. The biggest single problem that needs to be addressed as part of…

Unless you have been in a cave the last week or so you have probably heard about Fresno County School Superintendent Larry Powell and his plan to forego his $288,000 salary over the next…

Editor’s note – the following is from Fox News Chicago: Pension expert Bill Zettler said the special provision was slipped into state law decades ago by politicians eager to get union support. In his…

My answer would be absolutely not but unfortunately for us taxpayers 20,603 state retirees do have pensions greater than the total amount they contributed to their pensions when they worked. How does that compare…

As Illinois stares into the pension payment abyss, we have to question the morality of unlimited pensions for part-time employees. Just last week the state announced $1.2 million in cuts to the meals on…

From the archive: If you listen to union representatives and their lackeys in the media you will hear this constant refrain: Illinois pension problems are the direct result of the taxpayers not paying their…

From the archive: The 5% of Illinois workers who are in the state pension systems cannot have an unlimited claim on the 95% who are not. The one huge problem with the current pension…

I often read letters-to-the-editor or get an email from a teacher that says something like: “I worked 30 years as a teacher and …” But when I check the official state records that teacher…

Teachers already retire early – why do they need an option to retire even earlier? Well if you are a public union (IEA – Illinois Education Association) and you give politicians over $50 million…

After reading various news reports recently promoting “Education Week” I decided it would only be fair that I represent the taxpayer for “Taxpayer Week” where we taxpayers would solicit praise from various public employee…

Give ’em a million, save a billion.

That is my answer to Darwin Heide’s letter urging all of us to call Springfield and let them know how upset we are that they are not raising our taxes by $320 billion (or $8 billion a year for the next 40 years) to make millionaires out of public employees when they retire at age 55.

In Part 1 of this two part series we discover that the supposedly “modest” average teacher pension is 4 to 7 times greater than the equivalent Social Security pension for the same years worked and salary earned. In Part 2 we examine the other pension state systems: SURS (State University Retirement System), SERS (State Employees Retirement System), JRS (Judges Retirement System) and GARS (General Assembly Retirement System).

How much pension should be paid to part-time employees with partial careers? Part 1 of 2: Teachers lead the offensive against pension reform. The public relations offensive by the IEA (Illinois Education Association) and…