HJRCA 49: Proposed Amendment 5.1 to Article XIII of the Illinois Constitution

On the November Ballot, Illinois voters will be asked if they believe the Illinois Constitution should be amended to require a three-fifths majority vote in order to increase a benefit under any public pension or retirement system. Please vote NO on Michael Madigan's proposed Constitutional Amendment (HJRCA 49). This Constitutional Amendment would also require that any local collectively-bargained agreement be approved by a three-fifths majority if those agreements had incentives or additional compensation increases beyond salary.

Reasons to VOTE NO:

--It is mostly the legislators’ fault that the pension systems were poorly funded throughout the decades. That diverted pension money was used for other state services and legislators’ “pet” projects instead;

--The constitutional amendment will make public employees’ ability to fight for fair contracts much harder (Illinois Education Association, IEA);

--This constitutional amendment will limit the bargaining power of employers and employees (IEA);

--There is the possibility of disagreement on what constitutes a benefit increase” (Jesse White, Secretary of State). The COLA and other “earned” benefits will most likely be reinterpreted in this regard;

--This constitutional amendment would make it nearly impossible to remedy the Social Security issues with the passage of Senate Bill 1946 in April, 2010 (IEA). This is unfair to any new teachers hired after January 1, 2011;

--This constitutional amendment will make it harder to attract the best possible college candidates for the teaching profession (IEA);

--This constitutional amendment “does not reduce the state’s pension systems’ current $83 billion unfunded liability” (caused primarily by the state’s legislators); “it fails to address the real fiscal issue caused by the state’s outsized pension debt—how to amortize the $83 billion debt owed to the pension systems” (Center for Tax and Budget Accountability);

--Most significantly, as stated by the State Universities Annuitants Association (SUAA), this constitutional amendment “would grant unprecedented powers to government that will undermine protections contained in the pension protection clause [Article XIII, Section 5] and eliminate the uniform laws that now exist for [all] state employee benefits and obligations in the Illinois Pension Code” (Letter from SUAA, April 25, 2012);

Note: if you do not vote at all, your absent vote will make it easier for a majority “Yes” vote.

The question on the November ballot will ask, “…If you believe the Illinois Constitution should not be amended to require a three-fifths majority vote in order to increase a benefit under any public pension or retirement system, you should vote NO… on the question. Three-fifths of those voting on the question or a majority of those voting in the election must vote “Yes” in order for the amendment to become effective on January 9, 2013.” Please join us in voting NO against the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.   

Thank you from Dave Madsen, Glen Brown

For More Information: http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/06/house-joint-resolution-constitutional.html

The Exhaustion of the American Teacher by John Kuhn

With the 2012-2013 American school year still in its infancy, it’s worthwhile to note that the people doing the actual educating are down in the dumps. Many feel more beaten down this year than last. Some are walking into their classrooms unsure if this is still the job for them. Their hearts ache with a quiet anguish that’s peculiarly theirs. They’ve accumulated invisible scars from years of trying to educate the increasingly hobbled American child effectively enough that his international test scores will rival those of children flourishing in wealthy, socially-advanced Scandinavian nations and even wealthier Asian city-states where tiger moms value education like American parents value fast food and reality TV.

The American child has changed, and not necessarily for the better. Many shrill voices argue that teachers must change, too, by simply working harder. The favored lever for achieving this prescribed augmentation of the American schoolteacher’s work ethic is fear, driven by a progressively more precarious employment situation.

But teachers by and large aren’t afraid; they’re just tired.

Meanwhile, no one is demanding American non-teachers change anything. Michelle Rhee wastes none of her vast supply of indignation on American public policies that leave a quarter of our children in poverty while, not coincidentally, the profits of Rhee’s corporate backers reach new heights. And no one but Paul Tough dares to hint at the obvious-but-politically-incorrect reality that a swelling army of kid-whipped or addiction-addled American parents have totally abdicated the job of parenting and have raised the white flag when it comes to disciplining their children or teaching them virtues like honesty, hard work, and self-respect. Americans have explicitly handed off character education to schoolteachers. Such a practice says a great deal about our nation’s expectations of its parents.

The problem with the American student of 2012 isn’t as cartoonishly simple as evil unions protecting bad teachers. Nor is it as abstract and intractable as poverty. The problem is as complex, concrete, and confront-able as the squalor and neglect and abuse and addiction that envelope too many American children from the time they step outside the schoolhouse door at 3:30pm until the moment they return for their free breakfast the next morning. Meanwhile, the campaign to understate the impact of devastating home and neighborhood factors on the education of our children has done little more than curtail any urgency to address those factors. “No excuses” hampers the development of a holistic wraparound approach that would foster education by addressing real needs rather than ideological wants, because it holds that such needs are mere pretexts and not actual challenges worthy of confronting.

Like many educators, I’ve smelled on my students the secondhand drugs that fill too many of their homes with bitterness and want. There is sometimes a literal pungency to low academic performance that remedial classes won’t scrub from our kids. But it isn’t kosher to declare that any parent is failing. And it isn’t okay to note that some families are disasters. So out of courtesy, the liberal says the problem is poverty, and the conservative says it’s unions.

Truth is the problem with the American student is the American adult. Deadbeat dads, pushover moms, vulgar celebrities, self-interested politicians, depraved ministers, tax-sheltering CEOs, steroid-injecting athletes, benefit-collecting retirees who vote down school taxes, and yes, incompetent teachers—all take their turns conspiring to neglect the needs of the young in favor of the wants of the old. The line of malefactors stretches out before our children; they take turns dealing them drugs, unhealthy foods, skewed values messages, consumerist pap, emotional and physical and sexual traumas, racist messages of aspersion for their cultures, and countless other strains of vicious disregard. Nevertheless, many pundits and politicians are happy to train their rhetorical fire uniquely on the teachers, and the damnable hive-feast on the souls of our young continues unabated. We’re told not to worry because good teachers will simply overcome this American psychic cannibalism and drag our hurting children across the finish line ahead of the Finnish lions.

Yeah, right.

Today, teachers across the land dutifully cast their seeds on ever-rockier ground. We were all told that a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and we all became adamant about education; but no one told us not to waste kids’ hearts or weaken their spines or soften their guts, and we long ago abandoned our traditional cultural expectations for children’s formation. I’m not calling for picket fences and Leave it to Beaver; I’m calling for childhoods that aren’t dripping with pain and disenchantment and a huge chasm where there should have been character-building experiences from the age of zero to five; that aren’t marked by an empty space where there should have been a disciplinarian. And a gap where there should have been a rocking chair and a soft lap waiting when the child was hurting. I am referring to missing ingredients that I now recognize as the absolute essentials, things I took for granted when I was too young to realize I had won the parent lottery.

Adults—not merely teachers—have caused these little ones to stumble, but journalists and nonprofits and interloping government experts offer not a hand to the young but rather a cat-of-nine-tails across the backs of their teachers. Injustice for teachers is confused with justice for kids.

“Waiting for ‘Superman’” told teachers they were terrible, callous, and incompetent, that only magnanimous charter school operatives could save victimized children from their rapacious clutches.

NCLB told teachers they would only be considered successful if 100% of their students passed 100% of their tests.

Condoleezza Rice told teachers they were so ineffective that they were a national security threat.

Chris Christie told teachers that when two or more of them gather, they are thugs. Suddenly, the apple-themed knit sweater is a symbol of American menace rivaling the leather biker jacket.

“Won’t Back Down” actors Viola Davis, Maggie Gyllenhall, Ving Rhames, and Holly Hunter used their art to communicate that teachers only want union protections so they can lock poor children in closets, and that the only way to protect children from the plague of heartless unionized miscreants mal-educating them across this land is by letting their parents hand over local schools to wholly benevolent charter school operators led by the friendly Mother Teresas behind Parent Revolution.

Teachers learned from Bobby Jindal that public schools are so lousy that Louisiana is better off paying for its children to attend private schools that no state official has ever visited, that teach any curriculum whatsoever, and that are exempt from any accountability mechanisms at all because, you know, the free market will ensure their quality. (Though choice will allow children to vote with their feet by leaving public schools too, you can bet that arcane accountability measures will remain firmly in place for them.)

StudentsFirst told America to distrust its teachers. Eric Hanushek told America that larger class sizes will improve education and, gee-whiz, they’re cheaper too, so why wouldn’t we grow them? Bill Gates seconded the motion. Barack Obama told teachers he hated teaching to the test, and then he built Race to the Top of Test Mountain.

The educators I’ve known aren’t the goats they’re held up to be. There are certainly goats, and they’ve made a terrible mess of things. There are, indeed, Americans doing grievous harm to children; they just don’t happen to always be their teachers.

We feel uncomfortable being honest about who they are and what they do (and neglect to do) to devastate these babies. So we usually don’t speak out about it. We leave out the damning details because they are unkind.

When it comes to America’s shamefully overflowing crop of ravaged children, trembling pundits, bumbling policy-crafters, and bombastic governors lead us in a chorus in which we either blame their teachers, or we blame something amorphous like poverty, or we blame no one. It is impolite to point at the blood dripping from the hands of well-meaning devastators when they happen to go by names like Mom and Dad.

And so we fix nothing. The American schoolteacher is exhausted. I am exhausted. Tom Petty once sang, “Let me up, I’ve had enough.” That. Please.

http://theeducatorsroom.com/2012/09/the-exhaustion-of-the-american-teacher/

http://dianeravitch.net/2012/10/06/why-teachers-are-demoralized/

HJRCA 49: Constitutional Amendment's meaning sparks meaningful debate by Jim Dey

October 6, 2012| Jim Dey

Today's column can be summed up in a few words, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." Or not.

Everyone knows our elected officials are desperate to solve Illinois' apocalyptic public pension woes and, at the same time, equally desperate to avoid political retribution from the voters for doing so. So what better way to do so than to have the voters themselves approve the means by which the benefits of public employees or retirees are modified in a way that reduces, or even eliminates, the pension funds' $80 billion-plus unfunded liability [This amendment will not address the unfunded liability]. Sure, it's black helicopter stuff, but this is Illinois, a place where the politicians don't play straight with the public for two days in a row.

Ever heard of Constitutional Amendment 49 to the Illinois Constitution? It's on the Nov. 6 ballot, and it will become law if it is approved by the supermajority of 60 percent of those voting on the question or a majority of those who cast a ballot for any office in that election.

The amendment purports to make it harder for state and local government to increase public sector pensions. It supposedly was driven by the propensity of some legislators, Chicago's Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan to name one, to pass special legislation aimed at enhancing pension benefits of connected politicos.

Did you hear about the Madigan bill that allowed two teachers' union lobbyists, nonpublic jobs, to qualify for $100,000-plus annual public pensions by working one day each as a substitute teacher? Backers say the proposed amendment is intended to make it more difficult to pull stunts like that by increasing the number of votes necessary to pass such legislation from a simple majority to a special two-thirds majority [HJRCA 49 has another purpose, however].

It's especially ironic that Madigan is the chief sponsor of the amendment to make it harder for people like Madigan to use the legislative process to pay off political friends with taxpayer dollars.

But some skeptics argue that the amendment's convoluted language is really a back door effort to override Article XIII, Section 5, of the Illinois Constitution, which provides that the pension benefits earned by state employees "shall not be diminished or impaired." In other words, the Illinois Constitution states that once you earn it, no one can take it away.

It's the view of retired University of Illinois Professor John Kindt that Madigan & Co. are hiding behind the amendment's wall of words to provide the legal cover necessary to override the so-called "non-impairment clause."

"It's a threat to all benefits," Kindt argues. That may or may not be the case. Many do not share Kindt's interpretation. UI economist J. Fred Giertz, who plans to vote against the amendment, said he's not concerned the proposed amendment would jeopardize the retirement benefits public employees have earned. He acknowledged that "some people believe it's kind of a back door attempt to replace the non-impairment clause."

"No one seems to be concerned about it within the university," Giertz said. "I think it's not a problem." He opposes the amendment because it is sloppily drafted and fears it will have a confusing effect on local governments. But he speculated that he is in the minority...

This is technical, boring stuff. Indeed, readers may feel themselves nodding off, and that's if they haven't already stopped reading. Here's the background:

Beset by pension woes and embarrassed by continued revelations over pension sweeteners for special groups of state employees or, even more outrageous, state pension benefits for non-state employees, legislators hatched the plan for Amendment 49 earlier this year. Speaker Madigan filed the proposed amendment with the clerk of the Illinois House on April 9. Whatever Madigan really wants, he gets. So by May 3, both the Illinois House and Senate had signed off on the proposal by overwhelming margins.

The House vote was 113-0… Champaign's Senator Mike Frerichs provided one of the two no votes… Frerichs attributed his no vote to the poor drafting of the amendment. "It could have been a lot more simple and clear," he said.

The proposed amendment is so long that it will not be printed on ballots. Instead, voters will be provided the conventional explanation of its meaning and asked to vote yes or no… Critics have focused on the amendment's final paragraph, which was added at the last minute of legislative review, as the game changer.

Here's what it states:

"Nothing in this section shall prevent the passage or adoption of any law, ordinance, resolution, rule, policy or practice that further restricts the ability to provide a 'benefit increase,' 'emolument increase,' or 'beneficial determination,' as those terms are used under this section."

For starters, what does "beneficial determination" mean? Isn't that another way of saying a determination of benefits? But what about the entire paragraph?

Springfield lobbyist Dick Lockhart, in a memo sent to his clients, said he interprets it to mean the following: "Although providing or increasing a benefit would require a three-fifths vote of the governing body, like a school board or a city council, restricting or eliminating a benefit can be done with a simple majority vote."

That's the black helicopter interpretation — the conspiracy theory view of the amendment's real intent. Of course, what the amendment really means can only be divined by the judicial branch of government. So the question of the amendment's meaning is open to debate until the courts make an interpretation.

There also is a conspiracy theory about the conspiracy theory. Noting public employee unions and various retiree groups oppose Amendment 49 because it will make it harder to win benefit increases...

This is a debate over legal definitions with no definitive answers — at least not until the amendment passes and the legal questions are addressed in court. But by then, it might — with emphasis on the word "might" — be too late.

Here's a link to the complete language, at the General Assembly's website.

Jim Dey, a member of The News-Gazette staff, can be reached by email at jdey@news-gazette.com
Article was originally printed: http://www.news-gazette.com/opinions/editorials/2012-10-06/jim-dey-amendments-meaning-sparks-meaningful-debate.html

TRS Executive Director Dick Ingram explains comments on pensions, COLA

October 5, 2012 by IEA Communications

State pensions for public employees, particularly teachers, were in the news again this week when Crain’s Chicago Business published excerpts from an interview with TRS Executive Director Richard Ingram. The Crain’s report had an attention-getting headline: Head of teacher pension fund says state will need to cut COLAs. Ingram’s comments, especially about COLAs (the annual three percent compounded Cost of Living Adjustment for TRS pensions) generated angst among many IEA members.

“Look at every other state that’s done pension reform – what have they done? They’ve changed the COLA because that’s where the cost is,” Mr. Ingram said, noting that 25 percent of TRS payments are for cost-of-living increases on pension benefits. Changes in cost-of-living adjustments could be targeted so they have the least impact on the oldest retirees and those with the lowest incomes, he said.

“If that is where we need to go in Illinois, then we can do it in a manner that is targeted and effective and protects those that need it the most and, at least to a large extent, get the job done,” Mr. Ingram said. Asked to explain his remarks, Ingram said he was not advocating or proposing a change to the COLAs for TRS annuitants.

IEA President Cinda Klickna, a TRS Trustee, said IEA and the other members of the Illinois labor coalition remain strongly opposed to the proposals that have been made in the legislature to change pension benefits.  The coalition continues to state that the following must be in any plan going forward:

1. A guarantee that the state will pay its portion as required. That hasn’t happened for decades, as legislatures have diverted money to other programs.

2.  A true look at revenue by closing loopholes for big corporations that hurt taxpayers of Illinois. Many loopholes exist, and closing a few would generate money to help pay down the pension debt.

3.  No inclusion of current retirees, who are living on an earned and needed pension and cannot re-enter the job market.

4. With a guarantee that the state would pay its portion, the members would be willing to help the state by paying more, even though they have contributed their portion over the years.  (This increase may differ for the various pension plans.)

The Crain’s report came without warning and IEA leaders immediately contacted Ingram and asked him, on behalf of IEA members, to explain what was said to Crain’s, and whether a change of position was being expressed about TRS and state pensions.

His emailed response is below, in its entirety:

Thanks for your email.  Let me see if I can address the issues that you raise.

Nowhere in any of these comments did I advocate or propose a change in the COLA for TRS members. The article clearly states that TRS is neutral on legislative proposals related to our member’s benefits.  Neither I nor TRS has advocated for any benefit changes or reductions.  Crain’s had no illusions that I was advocating for changes to the COLA or any other specific proposal for that matter, and they stated that in the article.

Moreover, you cannot “propose” something that was proposed by legislators in May of 2012, when Senate Bill 1673 was amended.  The stakeholders close to this issue; labor, the retirement systems, legislators, and the Governor’s staff have all known for months that the COLA was the main target of the lawmakers discussing potential changes to the pension code.

The proposals to change the COLA made back in May have steadily advanced through the legislative process. As it currently sits in the House, Senate Bill 1673 is now one roll call away from being sent to the governor’s desk for his action – and Gov. Quinn has said he would sign the bill into law.

The interview with Crain’s did cover a wide range of issues related to pension changes. I framed them, as I do in any public discussion, by my consistent focus on the simple and merciless equation that we have to balance, Contributions or Revenue (C) + Investment Income (I) = Benefits (B).  We discussed the left side of the equation first.

Going through that equation item by item, we agreed that no one should expect the equation to be balanced by higher returns from TRS’s investment program. We cannot invest our way out of this hole. Our long term performance is top quartile already and our recent action to lower the assumed return in our actuarial model argues that we are more than holding up our part of the deal in that area already.

We then spoke about contributions, or revenue, including proposals (or the lack thereof) to generate additional revenues to help Illinois meet its budget shortfalls, including pension costs. We spoke specifically about the idea of the graduated income tax and loophole closing. The fact remains that right now there are no legislative proposals for more revenue under active consideration and there are multiple claims on any incremental revenue that would be generated if there were. For example, a generally accepted estimate of the additional revenue expected to be generated by a graduated income tax is somewhere around $2.5B annually. That is what TRS would need above current revenue projections over the next 30 years. TRS is not the only budget challenge the state has.

Only after discussing the first two items did we get to the benefit side of the equation.  Reading the article you will see that even without the benefit of any description of the full conversation being included in the article, as we pivoted to discuss proposals regarding benefits my quote is “IF (benefit costs) is where we need to go…”, i.e., if revenues are not forthcoming to solve the problem, only then did we discuss benefit costs and proposed changes and their impact. 

I did point out that if they were focusing on the COLA, then there were smarter and better ways to approach any COLA changes than what is currently in the proposal and what other states have done in this area.  While not the only element we need to talk about, everyone knows – and has known for months – that the COLA is the largest cost driver. It represents 22-25% of the cost of the benefit.  Other factors, for example, increased member contributions have and should be part of the discussion, but our funding hole is so deep that changes to the COLA must be part of the solution in any scenario.  It is the only way that the math can work.

As the executive director of TRS I must be realistic about the provisions of Senate Bill 1673.  As I note above it is a roll call vote away from potential passage.  We have to prepare for the possibility that it becomes law and ignoring it won’t make it go away.  TRS must face reality and the reality is that all of our members must be prepared to deal with this potential change, no matter how they feel about it.

Everything I said to Crain’s is factual and relevant to a discussion about the realities that surround us. I did not advocate for a change in the COLA. I did not propose a change in the COLA.  I did respond to questions about a change in the COLA that legislators have been talking about for more than a year and explain why it is part of the proposed legislation.

Dick Ingram

Executive Director, Teachers Retirement System of the State of Illinois

Watch an edited video of the Crain’s interview

Filed Under: Featured
Cinda

Commentary:
“Look at every other state that's done pension reform – what have they done? They've changed the COLA because that's where the cost is,” Mr. Ingram said, noting that 25 percent of TRS payments are for cost-of-living increases on pension benefits. 
Read more: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20121003/NEWS02/121009921/head-of-teacher-pension-fund-says-state-will-need-to-cut-colas#ixzz28ZoB2aNL

Read Once again we have a problem with TRS Executive Director Dick Ingram

A Rhode Island Teacher’s Story about Her Pension

Hello Glen,

I just saw your message concerning pensions on Diane's blog. I am a retired Special Ed teacher from Rhode Island. The school year I retired (2006-2007) I went to the retirement board and sat down with one of their retirement counselors. We came up with (what I call) a contract. I knew what I would be getting every month, and I knew what my COLA would be (at the time it was 3% compounded). I took a special option that existed at the time called the Social Security leveling-out option, otherwise known as SRA, but the name is deceiving. It has nothing to do with Social Security. It is an extra amount of money that supplements the pension you get monthly but, when you turn 62, you have to pay it all back. After this was discussed, I signed it; they signed it, and life was good.

Until two years ago, when a woman named Gina Raimondo came along. She had a 10-year-Point Judith Investment business in NY for 10 years. For whatever reason, she decided to come back to her roots in RI and run for Treasurer. When she came back from NY, she used “Disaster Capitalism” to not only win her election, but she cooked the books and used scare tactics that included saying RI's pension fund would go broke due to its unfunded liability.

She ran as a Democrat, but her support came from corporate reformers, the Republican Party and, most important, organizations that were formed to bust unions because they were jealous of our pensions. They wanted to eliminate them by saying the taxpayers can no longer afford them.

(Forgetting teachers and unions are also taxpayers), she won the election. And her pension bill with the help of the crooked RI General Assembly passed. Teachers have to work longer now; they lost their pensions to new 401k funds, and she stopped all COLAs (for all unions including the judges) for 5 years...

For me, that affects the option called SRA that I have since it was based on numbers long before Ms. Raimondo ever set her body in RI. We filed LAWSUITS in June 2012. Her pension bill went into effect in July, 2012. Our lawsuits were brought forth by unions, not by class-action suits that would have taken more money and another two more years. We, retirees, have our own lawsuit. Working teachers have another. We have different goals. My goal is to receive my COLA. Working teachers have a hell of a lot more to get back. And now this Bi… wants to run for governor in 2014!

We are very angry and upset in RI; we want the courts to revoke this pension bill. We had a contract; she, with the RI General Assembly, broke the contract when they passed the new law. I am on the AFT-R board and am reminding all teachers to REMEMBER LAST NOVEMBER and vote out all the lawmakers who voted “yes” to the changes. They need to be thrown out of office. They threw teachers – both working and retired – under the bus...

I thought I read somewhere that Gina Raimondo went to Chicago. If she did, she is bad news! Tell Karen Lewis, who I have great respect for, to stay away from Raimondo and to keep Raimondo away from your despicable Rahm Emanuel who is pure evil. You seem to have the Chicago mob crew down there destroying public education: Obama, who thinks Race to the Top is not a top-down application (Obama is quite the liar) and Rahm Emanuel, who I was glad to see Karen Lewis wiped the floor with. She is my hero. I sent blogs about the Chicago strike to my teachers every day. I was glad the courts did not get involved. I hope this helps.

Jo Ann /RI teacher -AFT-R

Raimondo did come to Chicago last April. Here is a commentary: http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/04/foreshadowing-of-illinois-pension.html

“Once again we have a problem” with TRS Executive Director Dick Ingram by Glen Brown

“Once again we have a problem. TRS Director, Richard Ingram, was interviewed by Crain's [October 4, 2012], and he is quoted as saying that changing the existing COLA may be the only way to save the pension systems. Last spring the TRS Board was very clear that the role of the System and of our director was to supply sound information when asked and not to be an advocate of any solution to the problem, and especially not to do so when the specific solution was unconstitutional. Reading the article and especially watching the accompanying video, I came to the conclusion that Director Ingram sees the Illinois Constitution as an inconvenience to solving the underfunding problem. Mr. Ingram has gone to where the Board of the System did not want him to go and for the second time. Our next regularly scheduled meeting is in Springfield on October 24. As a single member of the board, I cannot say what we will do, but I certainly believe that we have a problem and that we will deal with it” – Bob Lyons, TRS Trustee

According to the Teachers Retirement System, “the Executive Director serves as the Secretary of the Board and the System’s chief executive officer and is responsible for the detailed day-to-day administration of the System. The Executive Director shall perform all duties prescribed by the Illinois Pension Code or by rule, order, or resolu­tion of the Board. The Executive Director’s perfor­mance review is conducted annually.”

On April 10, the Chicago Tribune printed this statement sent by Ingram to Voice of the People: “To be clear: Neither I nor Teachers’ Retirement System is proposing any changes in member benefits, especially a reduction in the current annual cost-of-living adjustment… It is not our role at TRS to suggest a solution to this problem…”

Ingram then proceeded to say, “New revenues must be generated, and if they are not, benefits may have to be reduced… There are only a few options available and none is very pleasant to discuss – changes in the cost-of-living adjustment; in member contributions; in retirement age and in the benefit formula; as well as increased revenues through new taxes.”

For Ingram to suggest unconstitutional alternatives for solving the state’s budget problems is to focus not on the essential causes of the state’s budget deficits: its structural revenue and pension “debt” problems. It is not one of the Executive Director Ingram’s duties to make self-contradictory statements that jeopardize the TRS members’ benefits and rights guaranteed by the Illinois Constitution. It is not “prescribed by the Illinois Pension Code” that the executive director’s role is to also validate a fallacious and illegal argument “where lawmakers [the Civic Committee, and the Chicago Tribune also perpetuate] a [dishonest and illegitimate] solution.”

In April, I wrote that Ingram’s testimonies have spread like a virus and in such a way that their infectious frequency will convince most everyone by the sheer weight of their contagious reiteration rather than by the presentation of more meaningful substantiations of evidence and better solutions that are available for the problem of pension funding. Ingram’s suggestion that the Cost-of-Living Adjustment is “where the cost is” reinforces an attempt by policymakers to reduce the rights and benefits for both current and retired teachers.

Ingram’s omission of “fair” solutions to address the deficits is suspect. To not discuss the numerous ways to increase necessary revenue to pay the state’s self-imposed, perpetuated debts, but to choose to rob teachers’ of their constitutionally-earned rights and benefits is wrong.

Given that Ingram has changed his “neutral” position since last fall, why isn’t Ingram talking about extortive tax breaks and loopholes for corporations and the wealthy instead? How much revenue would be created single-handedly with their elimination? Why isn’t Ingram talking about the creation of a graduated-rate structure that will “cut the overall state income tax burden for 94 percent of all taxpayers” (the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability), and why isn’t Ingram talking about an elimination of the tax loopholes for “Tax Increment Financing Districts?”

Let’s stop distorting fundamental issues and blaming the state’s budget deficits on teachers and other state workers, propagated through thoughtless comments and skewed broadcasting that flagrantly omit the obvious facts that pension costs are increasing because of a defective 1995 “ramp-up” payment to the pension systems and the accrued pension debt caused by irresponsible, incompetent and corrupt politicians; reckless union leaders, and three illogical court rulings (People ex. Rel. Illinois Federation of Teachers v. Lindberg, 1975; McNamee v. State, 1996; People ex. Rel. Sklodowski v. State, 1998).

Let’s put an end to scapegoating teachers. Teachers and other public employees are not responsible for the state’s budget deficits. To reiterate, let’s put an end to distracting the general populace from the real problems that the State of Illinois confronts: its revenue structure and pension “debt.”  Let’s defend the State and U.S. Constitutions; let's defend the ethical and contractual promises made to teachers; let's focus on raising revenue without compromising the future of the state’s retirees and teachers and other state employees.

I hope when the TRS Board meets on October 24^th, this stupidity is put to rest by a significant decision and declaration to the members of TRS.  

-Glen Brown

Dear Diane Ravitch: Teachers need your help to fight another injustice

Dear Diane Ravitch:

You are a powerful, reasonable, and articulate voice and an invaluable resource and forum for teachers in this country. Your blog offers rebuttals to many injustices, including educational reform, corporate privatization of public schools, and the denigration of teachers. Teachers need your help now to fight another injustice.

As you are aware, across the United States and elsewhere in the world, there is an unprecedented attack on public employees’ rights and benefits, especially teachers’ pensions. Those of us in Illinois have felt, as has the nation, the impact of the 2008-09 financial crises. State policymakers have responded to this catastrophe, not by addressing the structural deficits that are resultant of the lack of revenue growth needed to meet the increased cost of services, but by irrational public pension “reform.”  In one particular state, however, its economic austerities have also been intensified by decades of legislative irresponsibility and deceptiveness. The results are the unconscionable, unfunded liabilities of the Illinois public pension systems.

For several decades, Illinois policymakers have consistently failed to make the annual required contributions to the state’s pension systems, primarily because they could then pay for services and their “pet projects” without raising taxes; they have bargained with previous union leaders and allowed for enhancements of pension benefits without fully funding the public pension systems; moreover, they created a flawed re-funding schedule (a "pension ramp" in 1995), and they have refused to correctly amortize the pension systems’ unfunded liabilities. In short, they have favored corporate interests rather than the interests of their citizenry and; thus, they have seriously sabotaged the public employees’ retirement plans and the State of Illinois’ future economic solvency through calculated mismanagement and fiscal irresponsibility. Past state policymakers left us with this fiscal debacle.

Current Illinois policymakers are not more trustworthy or competent either. They are equally as reckless in employing the old cost-avoiding tactics as their predecessors. They continue to use an ineffective and “cheaper” actuarial cost method (a projected-unit credit which back loads required contributions) instead of an entry-age normal cost method for determining pension funding and benefits earned; they continue to issue obligation bonds with the assumption that they will reap high investment returns, and they continue to be concerned more about Bond-Rating organizations than the protections of their public employees’ guarantees and security. They prefer to jeopardize the public employees’ retirement plans through pension “reform” by contesting teachers’ constitutional rights and cutting their benefits, even though revenue and pension debt reform is the legal and moral solution.

Instead of protecting public pension rights and benefits, which have a legal basis under Illinois State Law; instead of restructuring the state’s revenue base to pay for the state’s growth in expenditures and its injudiciously-accumulated debts and obligations, current policymakers have chosen to challenge the Illinois constitutional provision (Article XIII, Section 5) and diminish (and predictably destroy) the public employees’ defined-benefit pension plan, their health care benefits, and their cost-of-living adjustments. Their masquerades of proposed pension “reform” bills to be considered conveniently after the November elections include increasing public employees’ contribution rates (which are already one of the highest rates in the country), raising public employees’ retirement ages, capping earnings for final pension calculations, eliminating or reducing cost-of-living adjustments by forcing public employees (and retirees) to choose between a COLA or their health care benefits with duress, and inducing public employees to select an unreliable and inadequate self-managed retirement plan (none of the above-mentioned address the pension debt created by policymakers).

For most teachers, their pension plan is their only retirement subsidy, since nearly all of them cannot receive Social Security benefits. Furthermore, instead of funding crucial services and benefits in a time when they are most needed, many ill-informed policymakers want to shift the state’s normal costs for the Teachers’ Retirement System to public employees and school districts and further slash public services and health care benefits. For most school districts, the effects of the policymakers’ proposal to shift the normal costs of the pension systems to school districts will raise property taxes and devastate public schools’ resources and programs, increase class sizes, purge teachers’ jobs, and freeze contractual salary enhancements for those who remain employed (on average, wages for teachers and other public employees are lower than employees in the private sector with comparable education). Because the best possible teaching candidates will most likely forego working in Illinois, as a result, students will become victims.

The irony, of course, is that poverty, inequality and violence are not issues to be “reformed” in Illinois or anywhere else in this country. Citizens United, Super Political Action Committees, and the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago’s “We Mean Business” will perpetuate that incongruity. In Illinois, policymakers are sanctimonious about their recent lacerations of Medicare, and they are foolhardy about granting excessive tax breaks for wealthy corporations that have extorted the Illinois General Assembly and the citizens of the state. In Illinois, and in other states, political policies are created for the corporate elite, all in the name of “Free Market” principles and anti-unionism. In Illinois, they are espoused by Illinois Is Broke (the Civic Committee’s obverse group), the Civic Federation, Illinois Policy Institute, Pension Fairness for Illinois Communities, Taxpayers United of Illinois, and the Chicago Tribune, and their ilk.

We are not alone fighting this assault in Illinois. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Louisiana, policymakers have not been held accountable for their incompetence and betrayal as well. They are not held responsible even though their state’s current and retired public employees’ will suffer disastrous consequences as a result of their policymakers’ negligence to fully fund their pension systems. Furthermore, in Maine, Oklahoma, Washington, Wyoming, Rhode Island, Minnesota, South Dakota, New Jersey and Colorado, the public employees’ COLA has been either reduced or suspended. These states do not have a constitutional provision to protect this benefit (Alicia H. Munnell, Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College).

“[Moreover,] twenty-one states [have] raised employee contributions for current and future [public] employees only, which diminishes the net compensation received in the form of pensions for these workers. Thirty-one states [have] reduced benefits for new employees, primarily by increasing the age when full benefits will be paid, and five states [have] introduced a less expensive hybrid defined benefit/defined contribution system for new employees. In all cases, new employees will receive diminished pension compensation… [It is important to reiterate that] current actions, without any compensating changes in wages, have the potential to adversely affect the quality of people willing to teach in public schools” (Munnell, State and Local Pensions: What Now?).

These pervasive attacks on public employees’ pensions are aligned with the undemocratic, corporate dismantling of public schools for privatization or profiteering through unaccountable, biased charter and simulated schools; dictatorial Race to the Top and unreliable value-added modeling for rating schools and teachers’ effectiveness and students’ learning;  counter-productive merit-based pay knotted to standardized test scores; the irresponsible failure to renovate dilapidated public school buildings and rectify the depletion of public schools’ resources and personnel, such as school psychologists, social workers and nurses; the oppressive stripping of collective bargaining and due process rights; the despotic destruction of public employees’ unions; the propagandized demonization of teachers; and the disparate distribution of wealth and “shared sacrifice.”

I am asking you to fight this assault on teachers’ pensions with other stalwart teachers; I ask humbly for a link about this injustice in your Blog Topics entitled “Pension Reform,” so all teachers and other public employees, their family and their friends across the nation can have this essential discussion and opportunity for unification and purposeful action. This is my entreaty to you. I hope this letter will be your first post appearing in that category.

Respectfully,

Glen Brown