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CHICAGO—Taxpayers United of America (TUA) is working with taxpayers in Golf School Dist. 67 to oppose the district’s property-tax-increase referendum that will appear on the district’s February 26, 2013 ballot.
“This is the only property-tax-increase referendum on the February ballot in the entire State of Illinois,” said Jim Tobin, TUA president. “Homeowners in Dist. 67 twice before defeated such a referendum at the ballot box, but these greedy Dist. 67 government teachers and bureaucrats are back for a third try.”
“The average value of a home in Morton Grove is $347,800, so this referendum, if passed, would increase such a home’s annual real estate tax bill by about $327 – every year.”
“It’s amazing that even with the decline in property values, resulting in homeowners losing a significant portion of their assets, the Dist. 67 bureaucrats still want a sizeable increase in property taxes to pad their pocketbooks.”
“Eighty percent of government school revenues go to salaries and benefits of these government employees for their nine-months-a-year employment. An increase in property taxes would not help students, but it would make well-to-do teachers and administrators even more affluent.”
“Jamie Reilly, Dist. 67 administrator, pulls in an annual salary of $183,839. Maria Herzog, librarian, gets an annual salary of $137,861. Can anyone say, with a straight face, that they are underpaid?”
“Former Dist. 67 employee, Linda R. Marks, retired at age 59 and receives an annual pension of $156,115. Over a normal lifetime, her estimated total pension payments would reach an astounding $5,240,914, with her own employee contribution being only 3.9%.”
“Former Dist. 67 employee Harry C. Trumfio retired at age 52. His annual pension is $113,299, and his estimated total pension payout over a normal lifetime is $3,597,627. His employee contribution is 2.1%.”
“Dist. 67 doesn’t need any more money from homeowners to fund the hefty salaries of current teachers and administrators, most of whom, when they retire, will become pension millionaires.”
“Dist. 67 government bureaucrats think they can ram this property-tax-increase through by putting it on the ballot in the primary, when voter turnout is low, then flood the polls with government employees.”
“We urge Dist. 67 homeowners to turn out in force for the Feb. 26 election and vote No on the property-tax-increase referendum.”
Click here to download our ‘Vote No’! flyer and share with friends and neighbors in the district.
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CHICAGO—Illinois politicians and government union bosses are trying to deflect criticism of their lavish, gold-plated pensions by throwing out a deceptive “average” pension figure of $30,000, according to the president of one of the country’s largest taxpayer organizations
“The government unions are desperate to confuse taxpayers and the news media,” said Jim Tobin, President of Taxpayers United of America (TUA). “They claim that the ‘excessive, multimillion dollar pensions’ we publish are misleading because the ‘average’ government pension in the state’s pension system is much lower. They keep throwing out $30,000 as the ‘average’ government pension which is intentionally misleading.”
“By far the largest state pension system is the Teacher’s Retirement System. The estimated average pension for 2010 was $65,000, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. Even TRS states the average pension as $48,216.”
“The full pension of a teacher in Illinois (outside of the Chicago Public School system) is 75% of the average salary in the four highest consecutive years in the last 10 years of teaching. This is a very generous way to determine an employee’s pension. Then there are the 3% per year cost-of-living increases on top of that every year which double annual pensions after only 24 years.”
“These low averages that they like to throw around include all part-time employee pensions as well as all of the small pensions of those who didn’t stay in the employment of the participating government for very long. Even at the understated $30,000, that is more than twice as much as the average Social Security pension.”
“According to Crain’s, only about 3% of private sector employees get defined benefit pensions comparable to the government employee pensions. So, that means about 97% of workers retiring from the private sector will get the average Social Security pension of only $14,800 and Medicare, which requires additional out of pocket expense for supplemental coverage. Government employees enjoy premium healthcare coverage before and after they are retired that does not require any supplementation and at no expense to them.”
“But these bureaucrats aren’t fooling anyone any more. Everyone knows, thanks to groups like us exposing the government pension scam, that all of the money from the recent 67% increase in the state personal income tax is being poured into the floundering state pension funds, and they are still under water.”
“The State of Illinois’ credit rating was just downgraded, making Illinois the state with the worst credit rating in the country. Whether the average government pension is $30,000 or $100.000, is really irrelevant. The Illinois government bureaucrats and union bosses are destroying Illinois and as many taxpayers as they have to, in order to prop up the government employee pension scam which will collapse under their watch.”
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CONTACT:
Herbert Sorock
(847) 251-8955 (h)
email: h.sorock@gmail.com
WILMETTE, IL –Wilmette School District 39 has failed to substantiate its December 3, 2012, claim in a media release that its April 2011 referendum ballot language “correctly followed Illinois law as it existed at that time.”
On January 18, 2013, Sorock submitted a written Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the District, asking for all materials “supporting, explaining, or justifying” its claim that the April 2011 referendum ballot language “followed Illinois law as it existed at that time.” The District responded to Sorock’s FOIA request with only one document—a draft version of its December 3, 2012, media release showing that one of the District’s attorneys—Ares G. Dalianis— had inserted the claim language into the release.
Sorock, along with Taxpayers United of America (TUA), had sued the District to reverse tax increases that were a result of illegal ballot language in an April 2011 referendum election. In November 2012, Sorock and TUA asked the First District Appellate Court to dismiss their suit due to the earlier reluctance of the courts to enforce the clear requirements of Illinois property tax law.”
“At the December 28, 2012, District 39 Board of Education meeting, I challenged the District to substantiate its ‘followed Illinois law’ assertion, and later followed up with a FOIA request for any information that would have supported their claim,” said Sorock. “It is now clear that the District is unable to do so. As TUA and I demonstrated in our lawsuit, the required calculation of an individual’s property tax increase was understated by more than a factor of three.
“The District has continued to blame TUA and me for the costs associated with defending the District’s April 2011 referendum language. Now that we know conclusively that the District itself allowed legally non-forming language to be placed on the ballot, the District should not look to blame those who uncovered the error, but instead those who made the flawed calculation of the tax impact in the first place,” Sorock concluded.
For more information, please contact h.sorock@gmail.com.
