Higher Property Taxes to pay for Teachers Pension (Chicago, Springfield: low income, 2013)

[chicagobears]

I thought we were paying high property taxes now but they want more and more every year,
why do I have to pay more property taxes for teachers pension ?
As of 2013 Illinois is right behind New Jersey for high property taxes....ouch ! and the homes in Illinois are not worth as much.

What would teacher pension shift do to your taxes? - DailyHerald.com

[pvande55]

Bad idea. Make teachers and others pay more toward their pension and cap the pension amount.

[Crede's Crew]

I been hearing all these stories about pension crisis in Illinois, and not just teachers pension. My husband now want to buy a house in Kenosha instead of Illinois. I insist that we stay close to my work (Northbrook) even tho I only have to be in the office 4 days a week.

I think the pension system in Illinois needs to be reformed and remove the burden from the citizens somehow.

[svillechris]

Originally Posted by Crede's Crew

I been hearing all these stories about pension crisis in Illinois, and not just teachers pension. My husband now want to buy a house in Kenosha instead of Illinois. I insist that we stay close to my work (Northbrook) even tho I only have to be in the office 4 days a week.

I think the pension system in Illinois needs to be reformed and remove the burden from the citizens somehow.

Not gonna happen. There are two options. Shaft the teachers and don't pay their pensions in full. Or pay them, through tax hikes. Who do you think the Democratic Chicago politicians will listen to, the union heads or the taxpayers? Therein lies the answer to what will happen.

[chet everett]

There are many problems with the Daily Herald article. It does not accurately account for the current shortfalls that will require signficantly greater sums than are currently flowing into the various systems. Nor does the article mention the fact that there are multiple pension funds under the umbrella of the State, some of which are in much worse straits. The various political insiders and often extremely well compensated individuals who were employed for very breif periods are largely the biggest actuarial anomolies. These cannot be addressed by increased local property taxes...

For folks who work far enough north in the region I agree it may make sense to look at housing in Wisconsinfor long haul, though the overal tax burden in Wisconsin is probably greater right now. It would be suicide-inducing to consider a commute from Kenosha to most employers in Northbrook...

There are a few public policy organizations that have good coverage of the Illinois' pension and other general fiscal irresponsibility.

[chicagobears]

Originally Posted by pvande55

Bad idea. Make teachers and others pay more toward their pension and cap the pension amount.

+1
yes I agree, I cant pay anymore in property taxes!
most the people in my area pay about $6000-$8000 per year in property taxes.
If my property taxes keep going up at this rate we are leaving Illinois.

[linicx]

The state legislature has bright ideas that usually isn't very s never. Pension is a good example. How does the state propose to treat this:

1-Unincorporated counties with 10 or less schools, 3000 or less students, and less than 20,000 residents in one county?

2-City/town/village with low income families and schools that are already being supported 100% by state and federal grants. There is very little tax money that is generated in these towns?

3-Correctional Centers with students - who pays taxes for this?

4-Should downstate
taxes pay for new schools in Cook County? How many tax dollars does Cook generate?

I think the legislators and Governor, Lt. Governor, all department heads need to take a pay cut. Then stop the double dipping for unnecessary office and office space. Tourism Office comes to mind. it doesn't take 40 people to create a state website that promotes Chicago and Springfield.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by pvande55

Bad idea. Make teachers and others pay more toward their pension and cap the pension amount.

You may want to take a look at the proposal. Teachers do already pay into their pensions and if teachers paid it all without any employer pickup, they would be paying 9.4%. We pay 6.2% in to social security, but the benefits paid out are less too.

Change of Subject: Inquiring minds want to know about teacher pensions and Quinn's reforms

From the TRS website:

Here are changes that will affect active TRS members:

A 3 percentage point increase in the member contribution, from 9.4 percent to 12.4 percent
The retirement age will be gradually increased over several years to age 67.
Upon retirement, the cost of living adjustment will be changed from 3 percent compounded to a COLA that is capped at 3 percent or one-half of the consumer price index, whichever is less. The new COLA is not compounded.
Upon retirement, a member’s COLA will not begin until 5 years of retirement, or age 67, whichever comes first.

Note that if the teacher had to pick up the 12.4%, s/he would be paying twice as much as people covered by social security pay. Now when my dh and I worked for IBM, we paid in to our pension plan at a much lower rate and the company paid quite a bit. Nowadays, corporate pension plans are more likely to be 401Ks and have a very different contribution than we did back in the *old* days.

[chicagobears]

Technically, teachers are not State employees; the teachers’ work for the various school districts not the State.

We need to transfer the cost from state taxpayers to local boards of education the employer portion of pensions for schoolteachers' Teachers and their employers need to pay for a 401k style of retirement and leave state taxpayers alone.

[chet everett]

The many individual teachers I know have no real problem with this concept, nor do any of the suburban residents I know, nor the adminstrative staff of well run schools or the elected board of ed members. So what is the problem? Well problems start with the FACT that just as the Federal government continues to use taxes collected as part of Social Security to fund the massive shortfalls in every other kind of government program so to do the scamsters in Springfield use the fiction or earmarked pensions fund contributions like a bottomless checkbook to pay the bills rung up by our ineptly run state. How big a deal is this? Most parties agree that the gap between the actuarial costs of the pension should be and the amount of money actually in Teacher's Retirement System of Illinois is about $44 BILLION dollars. A huge shortfall. It has grown under both Dem and GOP governors as far back as Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s! There are about 365,000 teachers covered by TRS and there is just no way for that number of people to make up for 50 years of underfunding. That system was cooked up as a way to afford some "efficiency through scale" by banding together all the non-Chicago schools districts back when Illinois had a bigger split between aggrarian downstates and those in Chicago. Unfortunately the reality of shifts that have seen a huge de-population of rural areas and a massive increase in well-off suburban area has not seen any meaningful shift in tax policies or alliances. Thus lots of the "we'll deal with this later" kind of punting that has happened in Springfield really has allowed the problem to compound upon itself...

There are addtional problems for the direct employees of the State(SERS) and its Universities (SURS)-- there is literally no mechanism to "split out" the costs of their underfunded pension system at all. Whether you make some paltry salary for a scant period before retirement or are a "connected" director of some nearly made up state agency the state shoulders the full burden of your pension and that is exactly why there no private sector firms that have not switched over to "defined contribution" plans where the employee has control over their retirement funds and the employer is not held to some unfufillable promise.


There is a separate CPS Retirement system that was never really accessible to the state as a "free checking account". It too is underfunded but not to the extend of the "big" TRS. The reasons for this probably have more to do with simply isolating itself from the influence of known "pick pockets" that were all too abundantly trotted out during the Blago trial -- guys like Cellini and Resko and Kjellender and Levine have feasted at the trough of statewide funds for so long simply because it was such a huge pile of slop that they thought nobody would notice if things did not add up. The much smaller shortfall in the CTPF are due to the City of Chicago failing to kick in the amounts that CTU actuaries have agreed is needed. Doesn't help that the CTU president is probably more concerned with putting on a "fierce public face" so that her members don't vote for a louder screamer than making a reasoned arguement as to financial spiral of doom that comes from underfunding...


The smaller still IMRF only covers employees of the towns, parks and non-certified employees of school
districts. It too does not allow the state to use its funds as a ceramic piggy bank but due to the depressed economic returns on its returns it is also underfunded by about 17%

Side-splitting hilarity surrounds the fact that Illinois Judical Retirement system (JARS), underfunded to the tune of a mere $1.3 Billion, is left out of ALL the proposals so that those b@st0rds won't be forced to recuse themselves for conflict of interest when the inevitable challenges are filled. That ensures they alll max out at a cool $112,000 a year for life so long as they can stay out of jail. Nice!

What is the most underfunder of the Illinois hoary pension funds? Why GARS -- which pays out big fat grosteque pensions to all the elected officials that can game it. Despite the 74% shortfall the checks to pieces of work like Art Berman top $203,000 a year for his fine efforts as seasoned expert in "double dipping".

Originally Posted by chicagobears

Technically, teachers are not State employees; the teachers’ work for the various school districts not the State.

We need to transfer the cost from state taxpayers to local boards of education the employer portion of pensions for schoolteachers' Teachers and their employers need to pay for a 401k style of retirement and leave state taxpayers alone.