Although the agreement described below mIght sound like a welcome relief to teachers, Gov. Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda pushed a local property tax freeze (pg. 9) and municipal bankruptcy (pg. 12) that may allow local municipalities to declare bancruptcy.
The State Senate passed a 2-year property tax freeze under Senate bills SB482 and SB484.
OPINION: How Gov. Bruce Rauner’s property-tax freeze will hurt your kids
Currently, teachers’ pensions are protected at the State level:
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the circuit court declaring Public Act 98-599 to be unconstitutional and permanently enjoining its enforcement is affirmed.
The question is whether or not pensions funded locally will continue to be protected under state law if moved to the local level. Current legislation suggests they may not.
HB0298 will amend the Illinois Municipal Code. In provisions concerning finance, it provides that a municipality may file a petition and exercise powers pursuant to applicable federal bankruptcy law. Effective immediately.
The last action taken on this bill took place 1/10/2017 in the House: Session Sine Die.
HB2575 was introduced in the House on 2/8/2017.
HB2575 creates the Illinois Local Government Protection Authority Act. Provides findings of the General Assembly and establishes the Authority with the purpose of achieving solutions to financial difficulties faced by units of local government. Defines terms and creates a board of trustees. Sets forth the Authority’s duties and powers, including the ability to obtain the unit of local government’s records and to recommend revenue increases. Provides for a petition process, whereby certain entities may petition the Authority to review a unit of local government. Sets forth participation requirements.
Section 35 – Powers
The Authority shall have the power to:
m) Consider and make recommendations to the General
Assembly legislation regarding an economic safety net whereby
the State shall provide a set of fallback post-employment
benefits for employees in the event that a public employer has
not resolved the underfunding of its pension plan and
thereafter is unable to pay its retirees. The program shall use
the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation* as its model.
Contractual benefits would have to meet affordability tests
prior to being approved for safety net funding. The outcomes of
the affordability tests may result in smaller benefit payments
than were initially promised to the employees by the defaulted
employer.
Section 40 – Petition and criteria
The Authority may exercise its authority over a unit of local government
under this Act if the Authority is petitioned and the Authority
accepts the participation of the unit of local government
identified in the petition. The Authority has absolute
discretion regarding acceptance or denial of any petition and
participation of a unit of local government. The Authority
shall create rules regarding the petition, procedure, format,
and required documentation.
a) The following parties may petition the Authority:
(1) the Illinois Comptroller;
(2) a unit of local government;
(3) a Significant Past Due Creditor; or
(4) a pension fund.
If the Illinois Comptroller, a Significant Past Due
Creditor, or a pension fund petitions the Authority, their
petition shall include documentation of the unit of local
government’s approval of the petition and participation.
* The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) takes over pension plans. The termination of a defined-benefit plan is initiated by the employer, either by a standard termination or a distress termination.
Under a standard termination, the employer must demonstrate to the PBGC that there are sufficient assets under the plan to pay all benefits owed under the plan to participants.
A distress termination occurs when the plan is being terminated but there are not sufficient assets under the plan to pay benefits.
Generally, the PBGC steps in to take over the administration of a pension plan when either a distressed termination is initiated by the plan sponsor or the PBGC determines that a plan will be unable to meet its obligations and mandates a takeover.
Distress terminations generally occur in conjunction with bankruptcy, but in most cases, a PBGC mandated takeover is the method by which the entity becomes responsible for a plan.
________________________________________________________
Post By: Illinois Policy Institute
RE: Illinois Policy Institute
• Meet the Little-Known Network Pushing Ideas for Kochs, ALEC
• Illinois Policy Institute (IPI)
• State Policy Network (SPN)
• Conservative Transparency
In the midst of Illinois’ pension crisis, River Forest District 90 has agreed to pay 100 percent of teacher contributions to the Teachers’ Retirement System – and it did so secretly
In Illinois, negotiations between local governments and government workers are done in secret. That’s a problem for taxpayers.
It means residents can be saddled with expensive contract provisions and can’t react until the contract is a done deal. And by then, it’s too late.
The latest example: River Forest District 90. That school district just renewed an agreement to pay 100 percent of teachers’ pensions contributions – the share the teachers are supposed to pay – as an additional benefit.
By law, teachers are obligated to pay 9 percent of their salary into the retirement system. But half of Illinois’ school districts take on that obligation themselves. Instead of having teachers contribute to their own retirement, the school districts agree to pay it for them.
Of course, forcing taxpayers to pay 100 percent of the contribution – while teachers themselves contribute nothing toward their retirement – isn’t the only issue.
A big problem is the secrecy of District 90’s negotiations. Bargaining between the union and school district happened away from public scrutiny. And that means taxpayers couldn’t find out the details of the deal until it was too late.
What’s more, the contract was negotiated under the leadership of School Board President Ralph Martire – whose own organization, the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, or CTBA, is heavily funded by government unions.
That means taxpayers in District 90 were essentially left without true representation in the negotiation process.
HER NAME IS LORNA not Loran. I hate auto correct which made the word “Board into “Broad” and the words “on the map” into ‘thump’
Pensions will disappear in their ploy to reduce the middle class to a level poverty which stresses them to the point that they will buy the lies, and actually have no time to reflect on how EVERYTHING that once offered a good life is being stripped away.
Health care is being decimated.
They will decimate the budget, and eventually declare bankruptcy in Congress, and then they will not have to pay back the funds they robbed from Social Security.
Here is a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
that shows what folks THINK is the income levels for the middle class, and then it shows what the reality is…. and that is before the latest plans to starve the states and cities into austerity budgets where the first to lose everything are the SCHOOLS and the teachers! Loss of pensions is part of the plan to Bankrupt the people.
And if you want to read the reality of the negotiation process for the civil rights or ANYTHING that teachers need, read my essay , written in 1998, when it happened to me in the nation’s largest school systems NYC. http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
I was a celebrated educator in NYC,( see my resume here at my author’s page at Oped News. http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
See how they lost more than pensions when the union abandoned them IN LAUSD, the largest of the ALMOST SIXTEEN THOUSAND school systems:
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
One year, 10,000 teachers were fired, with a savings of 40k to 60k for everyone who lost their salary, their pensions and their medical coverage…
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
and the media ignored the tragedy End the legal means for a teacher to fight for her rights, which is the union, and sold the lies.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/have-reporters-become-poli-ticks–the-media-parasites-of-the-body-politic.html
AND SPEAKING OF LACK OF REPERESENTATON… true representation in Congress does not exist, and in fact we now have a president that is the antithesis of what our CONSTITUTION STANDS FOR.
Richard Dreyfus hits the nail on the head, when he talks about what the loss of schools and teachers who bring knowledge of our history to our future voting citizens, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=B6n0tr4TfEA means for our nation.
DON’T MISS THIS ONE!
Thank you for your comment – I’m right there with you. Teachers are blamed for the mess created by corrupt legislators.
I hope you go to the Dreyfus link.
BTW I write a series at Oped news.
http://www.opednews.com/author/series/author40790.html
Many of the series deal with the privatization of education, and the lies that are being circulated about ‘choice.’
Diane Ravitch is my source as her site deals with the daily assault on public schools and teachers, and I know Diane for years.
https://dianeravitch.net
I also wrote several essays about how easy it was to bamboozle the public regarding ‘school’s, http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
because people do not know how learning takes place in a young mind, and will be sold magic elixirs with no evidence required. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
The national conversation was easily subverted in the fake news from Duncan and the government.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
Learning not Teacher evaluation should be the emphasis of media
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
If you search the archives on Ravitch’s blog for Songer, there are several articles on standardized assessment that I wrote: https://dianeravitch.net/?s=songer. The text complexity on them is ridiculous! I’ll definitely follow up on the sources you mentioned. Thank you!
You are welcome. I do follow you, and commend you for your insight and activism. I am just a teacher who experienced the assault when I was perhaps one of the most celebrated educators i in NYC, the state, and the nation thanks to Pew and Harvard, and the lRDC at the University of Pittsburgh, which sent my work around the nation.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
This is one of the links you have seen, but it is also MY experience and those of thousands of teachers in NYC in the nineties. http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
It is the ploy… destroy the reputation of the professional, marginalize her voice, and ensure that the UNION does not defend the contract, or the civil rights of a citizen who happens to be a teacher.
How else could the superintendent of District 2, Elaine Fink, publish a letter saying that i was found guilty of corporal punishment, when 1- there had been no charges put out , and not even a letter tome discussion the issue.
2- There had been no investigation, and no hearing… EVER.
3- The allegation of ‘verbal abuse’ even it had occurred …which it did not…is NOT corporal punishment.
Because the union FAILED to do its job, and put me back in the famous practice in the school which I put on thump in NYC, I hired an attorney, and for 25 thousand dollars, and the filing of a 4 million dollar lawsuit…he made THAT very clear.
I was returned to the school, but now instead of teaching the entire seventh grade using the curriculum which was touring the nation, I was in a closet, ‘teaching’ a few pull-outs each period in a program that was invented for one purpose. So the new principal could document my incompetence..
As they emptied my employment folder or 40 years of excellent review and awards, they filled it with her ‘reports’. Eventually, Eline Fink put out charges of ‘incompetence’ for the very years that I was awarded THE NEW YORK STATE’ ENGLISH COUNCIL’S “EDUCATOR OF EXCELLENCE.”
It is ‘ FULL-SPEED ahead for such lawlessness, In America, where there is not A SHRED OF ACCOUNTABILITY UNDER THE LAW for the criminal behavior that underlies the corruption, the bureaucrats who run the show — in the microcosm that is a Broad of ED, or in the state legislature or Congress.
To me, who was so excellent and celebrated, what happened illustrates the haplessness and hopelessness for teachers, but NO WHERE is there a story that is the EPITOME of this ASSAULT ON TEACHERS, then the story of Loran Stremcha, a lovely Montana teacher whose principal set her up to be sexually assaulted in her classroom. Despite all the evidence of his harassment and his criminal intent, he was not punished.
In “Bravery, Bullies, & Blowhards: Lessons Learned in a Montana Classroom, Lorna” tells what happens when THE LAW DOES NOT EXIST FOR TOP-DOWN bullies WHO run the show, in order to harass the best professionals out.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/background-information-bravery-bullies-blowhards-lorna-stremcha/?trk=mp-reader-card
Don’t miss this video called “Lawless” where you can Mrs. Stremcha tell how she was victimized by the system which took out over 200,000 tenured, professional educators so the schools would FAIL!
THAT IS THE PLOY IN THE PLOT TO END PUBLIC EDUCATION and with it democracy and income equality
geri, should you wish to communicate with me directly. message me at Oped News, and I will give you my email. Many at the Ravitch blog do this already.
https://www.opednews.com/populum/messagesend.php?to=40790&from=40790&a=n&o=&entry=%2Fauthor%2Fauthor40790.html&submit=Send+Message