Chicago Tribune | Watchdog group puts spotlight on six-figure pensions in Lake County

Jim Tobin and Jared Labell of Taxpayers United of America were featured by the Chicago Tribune discussing the public pensions of Lake County and Waukegan retirees.


Nearly 900 retirees from Lake County government, Lake County public schools and the College of Lake County collect six-figure annual pensions — including 14 whose pensions pay out more than $200,000 per year, according to a Chicago-based watchdog group.ctribart
“These people paid very little into their own pension funds to pay for the cost of their lavish, gold-plated pensions,” Taxpayers United of America president Jim Tobin said at a Chicago news conference last week. “That’s the key problem here. They’re just not paying enough into it. The pensions are ridiculous — that’s one of the problems. But the second problem is that they’re just not paying enough out of their own pockets.”
Last week, the group released data that included local retirees’ names, their annual pension amounts, their retirement ages, how much they paid into their pensions and their projected lifetime payouts. The data comes amid the ongoing debate over how to handle the state’s public pension system, which is estimated to be underfunded by nearly $105 billion.
Combined, there are 893 retirees from those groups earning pensions in excess of $100,000 annually, including 12 Lake County public schools retirees and two College of Lake County retirees whose annual pensions pay out more than $200,000 per year, according to the TUA data. Meanwhile, 743 Lake County public schools retirees, 113 College of Lake County retirees and 23 Lake County government retirees have annual pensions between $100,000 and $200,000, the group’s data showed.
No Waukegan municipal government retirees collect annual pensions over $100,000, according to the group’s data. TUA claims that statewide more than 11,000 public retirees are earning six-figure pensions.
According to TUA data, one retired educator from Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 paid $326,507 into the state’s retirement fund, retired at age 55 and began collecting an annual pension of $258,163. The TUA claims the lifetime payout for that pension, assuming a life expectancy of 85, could amount to more than $11.1 million. This would mean that the employee’s total contribution would represent 2.9 percent of the projected payout.
A list of the top 44 Waukegan pensions paid through the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund — including those for Waukegan Park District employees but not police or fire personnel — found annual payouts that include $73,715 for a former city engineer who retired at age 57 and contributed $84,659 into municipal retirement funds.
One of the names on the list of Waukegan municipal government’s top pensioners was Ray Vukovich, who served as the city’s director of governmental services from 2001 to 2010 and retired at age 51. The TUA listed his annual pension at $70,171 after paying a total of $54,684 toward retirement funds.
Vukovich said he was not against the scrutiny, pointing out that he served in a position that was in the public arena and was paid under a budget that was approved as part of an open process. But he added that some of the individuals are facing criticism for participating in a system that was presented to them as a benefit of employment.
“It’s not fair from the standpoint that they followed the rules that were in place,” Vukovich said. “They paid into the system (and) when they were ready for retirement, they filed their paperwork and they’re receiving what the system set up for them. These are people who planned their lives around what they’d receive.
“Is the system perfect? No. Does it need fixing? Yes,” Vukovich said. “If I got a call from Springfield saying, ‘Would you volunteer to serve on a committee to discuss pension reform?’ I’d gladly do it. But this is a problem that didn’t get created in the last six months. It’s been 30 or 40 years in the making.”
The TUA has gone public with lists of retiree pensions in communities from Champaign to Dixon in recent months, and the group feels it’s an effective approach to name names, TUA operations director Jared Labell said..
“The idea isn’t to demonize teachers and these individual government employees, but to look at these individual payments and make them seem more real,” Labell said. “If you tell somebody that there are 11,000 retirees making six-figures, their eyes kind of glaze over. But when you see the actual numbers and say, ‘I know that guy or that woman,’ it (puts) a face to the growing problem in the state.”
But Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Executive Director Louis W. Kosiba said he feels Taxpayers United of America has been engaging in “inflammatory (and) sensational” tactics to cast the entire idea of public pensions in a negative light by releasing lists of retirees drawing six-figure annual payouts.
“They certainly have a right to opine about the compensation (and) pensions of public employees,” Kosiba said, adding when you cherry-pick the high numbers, it looks terrible and “unsustainable.” You need to look at a more holistic approach.
Using the most recent audited, actuarial data from December 2013, Kosiba said the IMRF covers the pensions of 106,997 retirees, with the average annual benefit coming in at $13,758. He added that more than 5,300 IMRF members field less than $100 per month.
Information provided by the IMRF states that the organization is 97 percent funded with more than $34 billion in assets. Kosiba said that for every dollar paid to a fund retiree, 63 cents came from investment income, 25 cents from employers and 12 cents came from employee contributions.
“Yes, there are highly-compensated people in government, and the pensions are going to be a function of their longevity — the longer you work, the higher your pension is going to be. IMRF covers medical doctors, IMRF covers attorneys,” he said, adding that “taxpayers shouldn’t get the idea that they’re funding the entire pension.”
Kosiba also countered the notion that the group was not trying to “demonize” retirees, saying, “If they’re not trying to demonize anybody, they wouldn’t be putting these names out there.”
“At the end of the day, people in the public sector know that their (compensation) is out there,” Kosiba said, “but no one talks about pensions in the private sector. I feel everyone has a right to know how their dollars are spent by corporations, and some of them are monopolies. So it’s a little bit unfair.”
Labell and Tobin used the term “unsustainable” to describe Illinois’ pension system.
In Waukegan, the city’s comprehensive financial report for the 2013-14 fiscal year shows that the public contribution to municipal, police and fire pensions totaled more than $11.3 million. Mayor Wayne Motley responded by saying “it is an issue” that must be addressed.
“We can’t do a thing about it until the Legislature acts,” Motley said. “It’s broken — there’s no question about it, but I can’t fix it. It has to be fixed by the state Legislature.”
Motley — who noted that he draws a public pension himself, having retired from the Waukegan Police Department at age 51 in 2001 — added that “I wish I knew the answer to fixing it, because I would be on the Oprah Winfrey Show. But I don’t know.”
The TUA reiterated past recommendations to put newly-hired public employees into private 401(k) savings accounts, increase the percentage of salary contributed by current employees to the public-pension system, and increase the retirement age for full benefits, among other reforms. During last month’s budget address, Gov. Bruce Rauner also touted 401(k) options, along with other approaches that would include caps on high-salaried pensions and a raise in retirement age for benefits earned after July 2015.
“If they implement these recommendations, (current) pensions can be paid out,” Tobin said. “We’ve got to get the new people into 401(k) s, or there’s not going to be any way to save this thing.”

Watchdog Group Says 14 Lake County Retirees Collecting $200K+ Pensions

Jared Labell was interviewed by CBS 2 WBBM Newsradio’s John Cody about Lake County pensions.


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(CBS) — Taxpayers United says over 14 Lake County retirees are collecting pensions over $200,000 as the tax watch it continues combing through Illinois county retirement records for potential tax savings, reports WBBM’s John Cody.
Taxpayers United warns Illinois is heading for financial collapse without radical change to the pension system.
“We’re talking about the nearly 900 Lake County and Waukegan government collecting annual pensions of more than $100,000,” said Taxpayers United operations director Jared Labell.” It’s unconscionable that taxpayers are still on the hook for such outrageous pensions.”
Labell is urging all new public hires in Illinois, including teachers and police, go into 401K retirement plans, an increase to the minimum retirement age at full benefits to 65, and an increase in member contributions to 50 percent of all health care premiums.


893+ Lake County and Waukegan Gov. Retirees Raking in Pensions Over $100,000!

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Chicago – Taxpayers United of America (TUA) reveals in their latest government pension study that over 893 Lake County and Waukegan government retirees are collecting annual pension payments over $100,000.
“It’s unconscionable that taxpayers are still on the hook for such outrageous pensions,” stated TUA’s operations director, Jared Labell. “Across the state pension funds, there are 11,054 government pensioners collecting six-figure pensions and over 78,526 pensioners collecting more than $50,000 where the per-capita income is slightly higher than $34,000.”
“Lake County taxpayers struggle to make ends meet with 6.2% unemployment and bank-owned homes on the rise, but are forced to pay for these outrageous pensions rather than save for their own retirement, much less afford to hang on to their own homes.”
“It is time to preserve the future of the taxpayers who have been scammed by politicians and union thugs into going along with a system that creates and constitutionally protects a special class of government elite.”
“It’s also time for union leadership to have a frank discussion with the rank and file, educating them on the inevitable collapse of an unsustainable crony system designed to siphon money from taxpayers for the benefit of the few. The unions should use those dues forced from members to bail out the pension system rather than use those funds to elect political cronies who keep them in power.”
“Those of us in the private sector must reduce our spending if our income decreases; we can’t just go to our employer and demand more money to fund irresponsible spending. Mercifully, Waukegan has staved off a property tax increase for at least this year.”
“Consider the annual pension of $258,163 being paid to retired government teacher, Larry K. Fleming from Lincolnshire-Prairie View 103. His estimated lifetime payout is $11.2 million! Retiring at the ripe old age of 55, his personal investment in that gold-plated payout was a mere $326,507, or 2.9%.”
 
“Then there is Peter Krupczak, retired from the College of Lake County. He gets $216,287 in annual pension payments and because he retired at only 57, those payments with compounded annual cost of living adjustments will accumulate to more than $6.3 million! His personal investment was only about 3.6% or $228,997.”
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“The average Social Security ‘pension’ is only about $15,000 a year and taxpayers pay 15% of every penny they earn for that modest payout.”
“This pension system is the single cause of Illinois’ critical financial situation and it is mathematically impossible to tax our way out of this situation.”
“This financial squeeze of paying for yesterday’s services with today’s tax dollars is only going to get worse as yesterday’s services rendered compete for today’s tax dollars tendered.”
“The Illinois government has failed us; local governments have failed us. It is in everyone’s best interest to solve the pension problem before the system completely collapses. It is no longer a matter of ‘if’ it will collapse, but when.”
“Immediately place all new hires into 401(k) style retirement savings accounts, increase member contributions to their retirement fund, increase retirement age for full benefits, and increase member contributions to 50% of health care premiums. Anything short of these reforms will do nothing to permanently solve the problem. If it takes a Constitutional Amendment, then what are we waiting for?”