Wisconsin Reporter | Tax avenger takes message to small-town WI

Findings from TUA’s pension project on Shawano County, Wisconsin, are featured in this story from the Wisconsin Reporter.
taxavengerBy Ryan Ekvall | Wisconsin Reporter
SHAWANO — Jim Tobin is frustrated, and he’ll tell you so.
“It’s been so difficult getting the information from these lazy … bureaucrats,” Tobin said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Tobin is president of Taxpayers United of America, which organizes and mobilizes taxpayers to defeat tax increases. TUA is based in Chicago, where Tobin lives and works.
Thomas Madsen is Shawano County’s administrative coordinator, and he handles open-records requests.
The information Tobin wants — Shawano County salary data — and his struggles to get it underscore one of  his big battles in Wisconsin — exposing the costs of government employees and bringing transparency to government pension data.
That battle, in turn, is part of Tobin’s war — fight off taxes wherever politicians want to raise them.
Tobin describes himself as a “professional tax-fighter,” throwing down, so to speak, Monday evening at the Shawano school board annual budget meeting.
Tobin owns property and pays property taxes in Shawano.
“I think it’s unfair these taxpayer groups take on hard-working government employees when there’s so much other wasteful government spending,” Madsen said.
Tobin insists he’s just following the money.
“The main reason we were there (Monday) night was to let people know that 80 percent of their taxes goes toward salaries and pensions,” he said. “A system that pays so many millions of dollars to people who do absolutely nothing is unsustainable.”
Fighting for the data
Outside the gym, Tobin distributed lists of the 50 highest paid school district employees and the 30 highest paid municipal government workers .
But what about the county? Tobin would like to know, too.
Madsen told Wisconsin Reporter he’s happy to process the request, as soon as TUA sends a check for $100. Usually the county fulfills requests and then bills for payment, but he said it was “burned by a taxpayer group before, and we’re not going to be burned a second time.” Under state law, the county can require a prepayment of fees.
As of Wednesday, Madsen said, he hasn’t received a check.
But here’s what the city and school district data show:

  • Only four of the 80 employees listed earned less than $37,686, the median household income in Shawano, according to U.S. Census data.
  • Each of the top 50 earners at the Shawano school district took home more than Tobin’s $53,000 TUA salary, as revealed by TUA’s 2011 Form 990, the latest public data available.
  • According to TUA’s estimates, all but five of those 80 government employees will take home more than $1 million in pension payouts after they retire.

Tobin’s numbers, though, are probably inflated — in some cases severely so — because they assume the maximum possible pension payouts under the Wisconsin Retirement System and pad that figure with Social Security benefits.
But, again, Tobin would be happy to use actual retirement system data, if he could get it.
Personal pension information is considered confidential under Wisconsin Statute 40.07, and is “never a public record.”
In Illinois, where pension data is public information, 9,900 government retirees take home more than $100,000 a year in pension payments, according to TUA.
“Why isn’t the information public (in Wisconsin)?” Tobin asked. “ What are the politicians trying to hide?”
Professional Tax-fighter
Thirty-seven years ago, Tobin, a former economics professor at Elmhurst College in Illinois, founded National Taxpayers United of Illinois.
That became TUA in 2011 and, according to its founder, has more than 30,000 current and past members.
He said he worked at the Federal Reserve for nine years.
“While I was still at the Fed, I started the property tax strike in Cook County. I started working evenings spreading the seeds of rebellion,” Tobin said.
He persuaded thousands of people to not pay Cook County property taxes in 1977, which resulted in a massive tax strike that garnered national media attention. The New York Times reported that Tobin led the charge of fed-up taxpayers after property taxes increased for many homeowners 40 percent to 300 percent in one year.
Cook County taxpayers eventually paid their property taxes, but not until bureaucrats rolled back the rate.
Tobin boasts his organization helped defeat 198 referendums on property tax increases and 200 home rule attempts in Illinois.
In 2011, TUA expanded to a national focus. The organization works more now to expose the highest paid government worker’s salaries and pensions and advocate for pension reform, whereas it previously focused on fighting off property tax hikes.
Wisconsin Reporter long has been analyzing the state’s pension system, which has a sterling reputation for being among the best funded and most flexible systems in the country. These descriptors are both true and misleading.
The system is 100 percent funded based on government accounting standards, which economists say doesn’t match economic theory – that future liabilities of promised benefits should reflect the safest rates of return. The reason is that if the market crashes and the pension fund tanks, as it did in 2008, taxpayers will still be on the hook to pay those benefits.
In Wisconsin, the pension system’s supporters say the system is flexible enough to handle those losses. When the market tanks, it takes back the gains older retirees made in the good years. The result is recent retirees earn a full pension, while older retirees live on their pre-inflation rate payouts. It’s like robbing grandpa to pay dad.
Tobin advocates a 401(k) style pension for government employees, in which contributions are guaranteed, but not returns.
“The point I was trying to make (Monday) is, and maybe I didn’t do a good enough job, if they don’t support reforms, they will get hurt,” Tobin said. “Bankruptcies will come here to Wisconsin after they come to Illinois. I think something that helped us is the Detroit fiasco. They’re bankrupt, government retirees are going to get 10 to 20 cents on the dollar. As that kind of thing continues around the country, more and more people will learn we need to shape up.”
Hitting home
On Monday night, Tobin brought the fight to Shawano, population about 9,300.
Tobin said Wisconsin taxpayers will pay “millions for people who do nothing,” referring to the “pensioneers.”
John Granchay, a government retiree and former school board member, confronted Tobin, saying he worked hard for his pension.
“I’m still working,” Tobin answered. “I’m going to have to work until I drop to pay your pensions.”
“What did you do for a living that you earned your pension?” Granchay asked.
“I don’t have a pension,” Tobin said. “Don’t you get it? People in the private sector don’t have pensions anymore.”
One state employee brought Tobin’s Shawano-riverfront house property tax records to the meeting to expose what he called the tax-fighter’s “true” motive, an ax-to-grind with the city.
“Our property taxes here went up from $4,000 to $6,700 in one year. The schools went crazy with tax increases.”
Much like the events leading up to the Chicago tax revolt, his riverfront property was reassessed at a higher value, causing his taxes to jump.
Tobin organizes strikes and demonstrations, distributes fliers opposing all referendums to increase property taxes. He takes on politicians and government employees – whom he calls “bloodsuckers” and “special interests,” respectively.
“They don’t like it when we release the salaries. They don’t want folks to know who’s getting the stolen money,” Tobin said. “They expect us to keep working and working and paying and not complaining. They were upset (Monday) night – ‘Oh, you’re complaining, you’re so negative.’ Well, of course I am. (They’re) robbing us blind.”
The Shawano school board passed the preliminary budget Monday night with an expected tax levy for the 2013-14 school year of $12.93 million, a 1.5 percent increase from the 2012-13 school year.
Teachers and other staff will receive a 2.3 percent pay raise. The district has not yet decided on pay raises for administrators.
“A few years ago, I was up here 10 weeks and thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll be retiring soon,” Tobin said. “But there’s just too much to do. I’ll fight taxes at least another five years full-time. After that I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t have a million-dollar pension.”

Chicago Tribune | New law allows DuPage to shrink government

Rae Ann McNeilly, Executive Director of Taxpayers United for America, was quoted in the Chicago Tribune on legislation allowing DuPage County to consolidate government.
DuPageCountyHow many government officials does it take to change a light bulb in a subdivision near Naperville?
Too many, according to advocates of streamlined government, who celebrated Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature Friday on legislation that will allow DuPage County to consolidate or eliminate some government entities like the Century Hill Street Lighting District.

“This is the best medicine to take on bureaucracy and excessive, wasteful duplicative government that we’ve had in a long, long time,” Quinn said.
Under the new law, the county will be able to dissolve non-elected government agencies deemed outdated or inefficient following a full analysis and public review process.
And in the case of the unincorporated subdivision just outside Naperville, one of the trustees on the Century Hill Street Lighting District wouldn’t mind being out of a job.
“As a board, we’re entirely welcome to this,” said Tom Cieslak, 70, who has been volunteering as an unpaid trustee since the 1980s. “What happens if I get a heart attack tomorrow and I’m one of two people that know the job?”
The district, which includes about 300 homes, levies about $15,000 in property taxes to service approximately 77 streetlights. Cieslak said that managing the district has grown increasingly burdensome.
“It’s very difficult to maintain a district this small to ensure quality and to keep up with the changing levels of law in terms of ethics rules and Freedom of Information rules,” he said. “There’s more and more training that’s being put on us. There’s very little support in the community.”
In addition to the Century Hill Street Lighting District, about a dozen other entities could be on the chopping block under the new law, including fire protection, sanitary and mosquito abatement districts.
“Frequently we find there’s another unit of government that could do the same thing,” said DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin, who had pushed for the legislation. “Why don’t we just figure out who is going to be the odd man out?”
The narrowly written law currently applies only to DuPage County, which has more than 400 taxing bodies. State officials say they hope DuPage will serve as a model for other counties.
“I believe this has changed the conversation in Springfield, and I think it’s the first step and you’re going to see a lot more of this going on in the entire state,” said Rep. Deb Conroy, D-Villa Park, one of the sponsors of the new law.
Rae Ann McNeilly, executive director of Taxpayers United of America, said she supports the concept of shrinking government, but questions the “top-down method” being employed in DuPage.
“You have county bureaucrats telling the local bureaucrats what they need and don’t need,” she said. “But at first blush, any time we can shrink government, it’s a good thing as long as it doesn’t negatively impact the governed. They should have the say in what occurs — it’s their tax dollars.”
Cronin said his office will analyze each entity individually to determine whether there is the potential to save money and come up with a plan for how those services would still be provided. Residents would be able to weigh in during public hearings and could put together a referendum to fight a proposed dissolution.
Cronin acknowledged consolidation could mean the loss of jobs for some.
“This is not going to be all sunshine and rainbows,” he said. “This is about realizing tangible, measurable cost savings, and as anybody knows in operation of government, personnel is the No. 1 cost.”
Amy Kovacevic, 38, a trustee on the Downers Grove Sanitary District — a position that pays $6,000 a year — said she believes her agency is run efficiently, but believes the county could consolidate other nonessential or outdated governmental bodies.
“As a state, as a county, there are probably ways we can trim,” she said. “Many people are working paycheck to paycheck to pay their bills … and we owe it to the taxpayers.”
Ronald G. Berquist, 83, has served on the Glenbard Fire Protection District board for the past 12 years and has seen the district slowly shrink as the village of Lombard annexes homes and businesses.
Currently, the district levies taxes from about 700 homes and businesses in the unincorporated area near Lombard.
“It’s a paper district,” Berquist said. “We only levy the taxes and we contract our fire and EMS services from Lombard. So a point could be made that there is no point to what we do, but we continue under the statute. We think we perform a duty to the citizens of our district, but if they (county officials) choose to eliminate us, then they would have to take on the responsibility of levying the taxes.”
Berquist and two other board members each are paid $1,000 a year for their service and their duties include approving a budget and tax levy at an annual meeting and hearing complaints from citizens, although Berquist said none has shown up to meetings in recent years.
He said that given the modest expenses the district incurs, it’s unlikely that eliminating the district would save taxpayers any money. And he enjoys the opportunity to work in his community.
“My wife says, ‘Aren’t you too old to do this, why don’t you retire?'” I say, ‘I enjoy doing this.’ If they chose to eliminate my job, so be it. But I’m willing to serve as long as the structure exists.”

Wisconsin Reporter | Packing on the pensions

Findings from TUA’s pension projects on Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are featured in this story from the Wisconsin Reporter.
packingonthepensionsBy M.D. Kittle and Alyssa Hertig | Wisconsin Reporter
MADISON – The good people of Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District first elected Tom Petri to serve as their representative in the U.S. House in a special election in April 1979.
Times have changed in Wisconsin and national politics, but the 6th District’s representative hasn’t.
Now into his 18th term, Petri, a Fond du Lac Republican, is a fixture of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation. He also is the beneficiary of a $174,000 annual salary and will ultimately benefit from what the National Taxpayers Union calls the “single most personally valuable perk to a Member of Congress” – his federal government pension plan.
As it stands, the veteran congressman expects to earn a pension north of $100,000 per year, based on his earnings and what would be his 36 years in Congress upon the close of his latest term.
“Congressional pensions are typically 2-3 times more generous than those offered to similarly-salaried workers in the private sector, and are even more generous than pensions for most federal workers,” the National Taxpayers Union asserts on its website.
But Petri isn’t waiting to draw a federal pension. The long-serving lawmaker came to Congress after a six-year political career in the Wisconsin state Senate.
Last year, Petri collected $14,878 from his Wisconsin Retirement System pension, in which he was vested after five years of public service.
In 2011, Petri received $14,950 in legislative pension payments, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Since 2008, the congressman has pocketed some $64,000 in state legislative pension payments, according CRP, a campaign fundraising and political information tracker. Admittedly, the pension payments are a drop in the bucket for a lawmaker whose net worth, placed somewhere between $9.52 million and $45.41 million, ranks him 22th wealthiest among his House peers, according to CRP.
Petri sees nothing wrong with cashing the pension checks he rightfully earned.
“Rep. Petri simply believes that he earned his state pension through his public service in the state legislature and he has chosen to take it at this time,” Petri spokesman Lee Brooks said in an email to Wisconsin Reporter.
But to critics, the practice of congressional members drawing government pensions while building potentially hefty federal pensions stinks of double-dipping.
That’s how Petri’s fellow Wisconsin congressman, U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, sees it.
“It does smack of a bit of double-dipping,” he told Wisconsin Reporter. “That’s an increased financial burden on taxpayers.”
Kind, who began his congressional career in 1997, is not eligible for a state public sector pension. The congressman served as La Crosse County’s assistant district attorney for about four years, and as a practicing attorney before that. He said he’s hopeful his congressional brethren will “delve into” the issue, following the lead of states that have curtailed the practice of drawing from other public pensions while still being paid to serve the public.
After eight terms in office, Kind is looking at an annual federal pension of $53,244.
A side of retirement
Petri is among three members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation to draw a state pension, according to financial disclosure reports posted on the Center for Responsive Politics.
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, in 2011 collected $13,628 in legislative pension payments, and $7,770 from the Wisconsin Deferred Compensation Fund,   a supplemental retirement savings program available to all active state and university employees. Moore served two terms in the Wisconsin state Assembly and three terms in the state Senate. Before that, she worked for the city of Milwaukee as a neighborhood development specialist and for state agencies such as the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.
In 2010, Moore drew a $13,628 legislative pension, and $27,418 in deferred compensation. Her pension in 2009 was $12,440.
As of July 30, Moore had yet to file her financial disclosure for 2012. She asked for and received an extension to file her annual Financial Disclosure Statement Report, due by Aug. 13.
In 2011, Moore claimed her net worth was $0, with assets of between $50,001 and $100,000. The Center for Responsive Politics ranked the congresswoman 406th among House members in terms of wealth.
The 4th District congresswoman, should she retire in 2015, would draw an estimated $29,580 federal pension, based on a formula that applies years of congressional service and the average of the three highest years’ salaries upon leaving office. Other adjustments are made for age at retirement and marital status.
Moore’s office did not respond to Wisconsin Reporter’s request for comment.
U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, also sought a 90-day extension on his 2012 financial disclosure, now due Aug. 13.  The congressman, who has served the 5th Congressional District since 1979, pocketed a $29,861 state pension payout in 2011, the benefit of his decade in the state Legislature.
Sensenbrenner, who ranked 34th in the House in personal wealth in 2011 with a net worth pegged somewhere between $13.42 million and $18.98 million, according to CRP, has collected nearly $100,000 in state pension payments since 2008.
The long-time politician would collect an annual federal pension payout of well above $150,000 for 36 years of service under the old Civil Service Retirement System, which covers members of Congress elected before 1984. Members can opt out of the CSRS for the lower paying Federal Employees’ Retirement System, although few do. Sensenbrenner’s annual federal retirement check is estimated at $106,000 under the FERS plan.
In Congress, retiring lawmakers get pensions worth up to 80 percent of their $174,000 salary — or $139,200 — if they serve 32 years, according to a 2011 piece in USA Today. The average pension for 455 retired federal lawmakers is $57,590, according to the Congressional Research Service.
It’s all government money
Sarah Bryner, research director at the Center for Responsive Politics said the term “double-dipping,” is somewhat apt, although congressional members drawing state pensions are not drawing from the same funds.
“On one hand, it’s all government money,” she said. “I would say it is interesting. There is no clear-cut case of nefariousness or conflict of interest. These are people who are perfectly, legally entitled to their pension.
But Bryner said the pension data poses an important question: whether members of Congress are out of touch with their constituency.
“Sensenbrenner is good example of someone quite wealthy and collecting a (state) pension,” Bryner said.
The Wisconsin congressman, however, runs nowhere near the top earners of public pension payouts among congressional members.
U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-California, pocketed $54,925 in pension payments for her time as mayor of San Francisco, according to CRP and a recent investigation in the National Journal.  Feinstein has received about $850,000 in retirement benefits over the past two decades, according to the magazine. Feinstein ranked as the second-wealthiest member of Congress to collect a pension in 2012, according to CRP, which estimates the senator’s net worth somewhere between $42.8 million and $98.7 million.
“One lawmaker, freshman Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, received $253,323 from her government pension last year — a sum that, combined with her congressional salary, will make her better paid than President Obama this year,” the National Journal piece noted.
U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, at 90, is the oldest member of the House. According to the National Journal, Hall spent a decade in the Texas Legislature before beginning his hold on his congressional seat.
“The Republican (who was a Democrat until 2004) has been collecting a Texas state pension ever since. In those 32 years he earned some $1.3 million in retirement benefits. (Many years in the 1980s he didn’t list specific amounts; this analysis presumes his pension remained flat during those years.)” the magazine reported. Hall collected a pension of $65,748 in 2012.
More than 100 members of Congress collected public pensions atop their taxpayer-financed $174,000 salary in 2012, according to the National Journal examination.
Then there are the multi-public pension accruers.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a former U.S. representative, is eligible for an annual federal pension of around $25,000 a year for his five terms in Congress. The Democrat also earns an estimated state pension of about $7,200 per year, a benefit he collects for his service in the state Legislature. An analysis by Taxpayers United of America projects Barrett could earn nearly $3 million in pension benefits from the city of Milwaukee and in Social Security, over his lifetime, depending on age of retirement and length of life.
Some members of Congress who are eligible for a public pension choose not to collect it.
Bryner said that might send a message of fiscal responsibility to constituents, but there may be little substance beyond the symbolism.
“It doesn’t seem in most cases that a person’s pension is going to have a significant affect on their behavior in Congress,” the campaign finance tracker said.