CHICAGO–Illinois taxpayers should take a look at the top-100 salaries of Illinois government teachers. Then they should look at their latest real estate tax bills. The tax bills have been increasing because of bloated public school teacher salaries such as: a gym teacher making $184,029 a year…a guidance counselor making $183,182 a year…a driver education teacher making $167,351 a year…and the top salary, a music teacher making $189,434 a year.

In addition to these outrageous salaries, these same government school employees have lavish, gold-plated retirement pensions and health benefits. That’s why Springfield politicians want to raise the state personal income tax 67%, and the state corporate income tax from 7.3% to 9.7% — to pump more taxpayer dollars into the floundering state pension funds.
Illinois taxpayers, in other words, are being hit with higher real estate tax bills to pay government teacher salaries, and are threatened with higher state income taxes to pay for multi-million-dollar pension benefits for these same overpaid government school teachers.
There is no need to raise the state income tax to bail-out the state pension programs. If each government employee were required to contribute an additional 8% toward his or her pension, and $250 a month following his or her retirement, $50 billion of the $102 billion in unfunded state liabilities would be eliminated.
The long-term solution is to require all new state and local government hires to join the Social Security System and to save for their own retirement with savings plans such as 401(k) plans, just as workers do in the private sector. This would gradually do away with the state pension plans and their huge unfunded liabilities.
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View the Top 100 Illinois Government Teacher Salaries

By on April 14, 2010   /   News Releases