Director Ingram has no plans to resign. The TRS
Board of Trustees meets on October
26 and will have an opportunity to
consider the IFT’s statement. Director Ingram understands full well that questions about the long-term
financial health of TRS leads to anxiety and concern among our members. These
issues unavoidably create difficult questions about the future and hard
discussions about solutions. For the sake of our members, we cannot shy away
from these discussions.
Everyone at TRS is focused on our fiduciary duty to
stabilize the System’s finances going forward so that we can fulfill the retirement
promises made to all 362,000 of our members. The Trustees recognized last
spring that the financial problems faced by state government today
could lead to insolvency at TRS in the next few decades unless the situation is
corrected. The Board called on the General Assembly to act now to protect our
members’ retirements without violating the Illinois Constitution’s pension
protection clause.
--Bob Lyons, TRS Trustee
The Illinois Federation of
Teachers Calls on the Teachers Retirement System Director to Resign: http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-illinois-federation-of-teachers.html
TRS Executive Director Dick
Ingram explains comments on pensions, COLA: http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/10/executive-director-dick-ingram-explains.html
“Once again we have a problem”
with TRS Executive Director Dick Ingram: http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/10/once-again-we-have-problem-with-trs.html
Glen, do you have any inkling about whether Bob Lyons has an opinion about whether the COLA reduction would be a violation of the pension clause? He may have been clear on this before; I don't know. The language in this statement makes me think there's a green light from the Board on this issue. Everyone I know has a great deal of respect for Bob Lyons--- it would be good to know if he has a position individually or if the Board has a position collectively.
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't know. If they're talking about not violating the Constitution, I think they need to clarify what they would regard as a violation. In fact, now that I've read the statement a number of times, I fail to see anything but a Board-issued green light on the COLA reduction, not just the discussion of it. It's either Constitutional in someone's opinion or it isn't.
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI cannot speak for Bob Lyons; however, these two posts might be helpful:
http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/03/cola-cost-of-living-adjustment-is-it.html
http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/08/costofliving-adjustments-cola-from.html