Glenview–On Thursday, June 23, 2016, Jim tobin, founder and president of Taxpayers United of America (TUA), spoke before a crowd of more than sixty taxpayers in Glenview, IL to discuss the financial challenges taxpayers are currently facing in Illinois, and the chances of substantive reforms.
Organized by Lucinda Kasperson, Tobin recounted for attendees TUA’s four decades of work and activism on behalf of taxpayers across Illinois and America. He also highlighted a recent TUA report analyzing local pensions, including Glenview, and discussed how local property taxes fund the lavish benefits and retirements of former government employees.
Tobin also offered some solutions to the state’s ongoing financial crisis, which is driven by outrageous government pension liabilities.
Tobin concluded by discussing TUA’s recent 10th Annual Illinois State Pensions Report. The analysis includes both short-term and long-term policy solutions, like transitioning away from the defined benefit pension system and offering 401(k)-style plans to new government employees, and more enduring changes, like amending or repealing the Illinois Constitution’s pension-protection clause – Article XIII, Section 5 – and allowing municipalities, school districts, and other taxing districts to reorganize through Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
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CHICAGO—Taxpayers United of America (TUA) today released the results of their 10th Annual Illinois State Pensions Report, which analyzes Illinois’ General Assembly Retirement System (GARS), Judges’ Retirement System (JRS), Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), State Universities Retirement System (SURS), State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS), and the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF).
Click to view TUA’s 10th Annual Illinois State Pensions Report
This new report examines Illinois’ government-pension troubles since 1989, providing background information outlining the poor policies and political blunders that produced the state’s ongoing fiscal fiasco. Included in the analysis is a case study of the Top 40 Pensioners from 2006–2016, based on estimated lifetime pension payouts. Surveying the growth of these pensions over the past decade provides a snapshot of the financial burdens Illinois taxpayers face, illustrating the extent of the unfunded liabilities accrued and the cost of not implementing reform.
TUA’s 10th Annual Report also expands the annual list of top government pensions, this year revealing updated data for the Top 400 Illinois Pensioners of 2016, who will collectively receive $91.5 million in pension payouts this year alone.
“Nearly seventy-five percent of these top government pensioners are collecting more than $200,000 a year in taxpayer-funded pensions,” said TUA’s executive director, Jared Labell. “These government pensions accumulate to multi-million dollar payouts over a natural lifetime, and for many government retirees, they will collect more than their total contributions to their pension fund while employed within two years of retirement.”
TUA’s analysis of Illinois’ government pensions, based on data collected through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, shows that there are now 15,661 state pensioners collecting more than $100,000 annually and 92,386 state pensioners collecting more than $50,000 annually in Illinois.
“Taxpayers should not be expected to suffer under devastating income tax hikes and skyrocketing property taxes while continuing to fund an insolvent government pension system resistant to reform,” said Labell.
“Illinois’ government-employee pensions are unsustainable. The Illinois Constitution’s pension-protection clause – Article XIII, Section 5 – unfairly chains generations of taxpayers to an uncontrolled financial burden created by the disastrous decisions of politicians in Springfield,” said Labell.
“Taxpayers in Illinois are nearing a tipping point. The Illinois General Assembly continues to fail to pass a balanced budget and correct decades of financial mismanagement. As the tax burden weighs heavier upon residents, a growing number of taxpayers are talking about tax protests and tax strikes, and rightfully so,” said Labell. “Taxes are revolting, so why aren’t you?”
View as PDF Chicago—Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) members descended upon multiple downtown locations today to demand more taxes and higher taxes for Chicago taxpayers. The “Fund Our Schools Now!” protests culminated at Chicago’s City Hall with demonstrators chanting slogans against Gov. Bruce Rauner (R), Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), and calling for more tax dollars to be funneled into the broken Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system.
An overwhelming majority of CTU members in attendance told Taxpayers United of America’s (TUA) executive director, Jared Labell, that they are disgusted with political leaders from both parties. However, many were skeptical of decentralizing power within CPS and nearly all were opposed to any reform of the pension system, one of the driving factors of the current financial crisis.
Not much has changed since CTU members last took to the streets on April Fools’ Day.
Attendees agreed almost universally that the only solution to CTU’s grievances with CPS funding and administrators is for the Chicago City Council to adopt numerous new taxes and tax increases, a proposal TUA completely opposes.
But CTU members weren’t the only people at City Hall with an axe to grind.
Also marching in solidarity with their CTU comrades in a sea of Soviet Red union shirts were members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, whose adherents passed out leaflets calling for organizing a revolution to “overthrow this system” and establish a “New Socialist Republic in North America.”
Not far from the center of the action inside City Hall was former governor and longtime political hack, Pat Quinn (D). CTU members were perplexed as to why he was there and what he was doing, and numerous attendees said that they were worried that Quinn was attempting to hijack the protest for his own political purposes. It turns out, of course, that Quinn was indeed in attendance for his own interests, which were to circulate a petition for Chicago mayor term limits and not-so-subtly target Mayor Emanuel.
Considering the pitiful return on investment for taxpayers, Cook County’s population decline, CPS’ decades-long credit ratings plunge and its unsustainable combination of lucrative salaries, benefits, pensions, and operating expenses, CPS cannot continue as currently structured. CTU members must recognize that fact. Handing more tax dollars over to the government without reform is madness. Students are not benefiting from a system that is this politicized and mismanaged.
The cost to society can be measured by the substandard performance of students, the financial burden placed on the taxpayers of Chicago, and the loss of future opportunities for the city with every day that passes without reform.
