PEORIA—Many Peoria-area government retirees received over $100,000 in pension benefits, according to pension researcher, Bill Zettler. This is one of many reports prepared by Zettler over the past nine years on Illinois Government Pensions.
“The Peoria-area government retirees with the highest pensions are almost all retired educators,” said Jim Tobin, president of National Taxpayers United of Illinois, “The top recipient is T. Thomas, former employee of Illinois Central College, whose annual pension is $172,520. That works out to $14,376 a month.”
Jim Tobin addresses the press in Peoria on November 17, 2010.
“And it doesn’t end there,” said Tobin, “Annette Smith has an annual pension of $155,352 ($12,946 a month). She’s a retired kindergarten teacher.”
“A state income tax increase is unnecessary. Also, property tax increases or service cuts are not necessary,” said Tobin. “New government hires should be required to fund their own retirements with 401(k) plans. Ending pensions for new government hires will eventually eliminate unfunded government pensions.”
“In Illinois, if each current state pension fund employee were required to contribute an additional 10% to his or her pension, taxpayers would save over $150 billion over the next 35 years.”
“Requiring public employees to pay for one-half of their health care premiums would save even more – an estimated $230 billion over current projections.”
Click the above image to view Peoria County Top 25 Teacher Retirement System Pensions
Click here to view Peoria County Top 25 College Pensions
Click here to view Peoria County Top 25 IMRF Pensions
Click here to view this News Release as a PDF
What wowuld it take to just cut these pensions? I have seen pensions reduced or eliminated for various reasons in the private sector. How would a simple 10%, 20%, 30% unilateral reduction impact the situation? I can imagine the political difficulties but is anyone working this issue?