TUA’s pension project on Illinois was featured in the following article at The Times.
Illinois is in the red. It can’t pay its bills on time. The teacher pension plan is in a mess.
Maybe the solution to Illinois’ current money crisis is for the state to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. You might think I’m crazy, but hear me out.
Illinois’ line of credit has been downgraded; at the current rate, Illinois is losing its credit rating, Illinois won’t have any. Teacher pensions are at stake because certain organizations that shouldn’t be included in the teacher pension fund are, and people who only taught school for one month have access to a teacher pension.
According to former state Rep. Mike Boland, D-East Moline, the state should freeze all cost-of-living increases for 10 years on anyone receiving a $100,000 annual pension. When a person reaches the $100,000 mark, the freeze would go into effect. Anyone having a pension of between $80,000 and $100,000 should be under a simple interest system. Boland went on to say no retirees could receive full benefits until the age of 67, except those who work in public safety occupations.
Taxpayers United of America (taxpayersunitedofamerica.org) stated 17 Illinois State Police employees retired at the age of 50 and now have pensions greater than $100,000 per year. Taxpayers United reported in La Salle County, seven Ottawa municipal government employees who retired before the age of 59 will collect more than $1.5 million in pension payments over a normal lifetime.
La Salle County just settled a class action lawsuit brought on by a Freeport lawyer for improperly imposing taxes to pay for $5 million medical expenses per year.
There are plenty of ways Illinois could save money. The Chicago Sun-Times reported of a Chicago policeman who went on disability when he injured his shoulder in pursuit of a suspect in a crime. He collects $51,762 a year in disability, yet he went on to get a law degree and went on an African safari hunt in 2003.
This is not the only case. The Sun-Times reported several cases where Chicago cops were injured and went on to get a law degree or a different job. Why can’t the city put these people on a desk job if they can no longer be on patrol?
The Sun-Times also reported a $78,444-a-year Illinois Tollway garage supervisor had his photo taken sleeping on the job. In fairness to the Illinois Tollway Authority, they tried to fire him twice, only to have him win back his job.
The Sun-Times reported the Chicago Transit Authority could save money by ending paid coffee time, lunch and bathroom breaks, paying workers convicted of drunk driving 180 days to do nothing while they attempt to get their driving privileges back, paid holidays for birthdays and work anniversaries for bus drivers and motormen.
The Chicago Tribune reported about a deputy director of boxing who is getting paid for doing nothing. Why on earth do we need this job? The Tribune reported Illinois has paid $23 million since 2007 for 2,033 employees to stay home. Some 740 were off for more than 60 days. Sixty-eight were off for more than a year.
It seems Illinois has too many people on its workforce. Some 420 people were receiving unemployment while incarcerated. The city of Chicago could save $18 million a year by getting rid of 200 truck drivers who spend part of their workday loafing or sleeping.
By filing Chapter 11, Illinois could clean up the budget mess by eliminating unnecessary expenditures.
Stockton, Calif., recently filed for Chapter 11. I wonder how it made out?
Findings from TUA’s pension projects on Illinois and Wisconsin are featured in this story from the Wisconsin Reporter.
By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter
MADISON – Boy, that med school can really pay off.
Take Dr. Tapas K. Das Gupta, department head and chief of service at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Das Gupta tops the latest list of highest pension earners in Illinois, pulling down $439,672 in his last annual pension payment, according to Taxpayers United of America, one of the largest taxpayer advocates in the nation. The doctor expects to pocket $5.2 million in lifetime pension payments, according to TUA’s study ranking the top 200 government pensions in the Land of Lincoln.
Also on the list is Larry K. Fleming, a Lincolnshire-Prairie View School District 103 retiree at age 55 who banked a $258,163 pension payout last year. He stands to pull in nearly $12 million over a normal pension lifetime, according to the report.
Of course you can know the top 200 Illinois public pension earners all bring in more than $189,000 a year. That information is available to you because, despite a woeful public retirement system burdened by at least $90 billion in unfunded pensions liabilities, Illinois at the very least is transparent about its misery.
While Wisconsin arguably has one of the best funded defined benefit systems in government – although in real market value that may be like comparing a Dodge Neon to a Ford Pinto – the Badger State makes personal pension information off limits to the public. And that, of course, includes the state taxpayers who foot the bill for the $80 billion-plus Wisconsin Retirement System.
“Even in a state as corrupt as Illinois we can ask for individual pension information, and we did get in a timely basis,” said Jim Tobin, founder and president of Chicago-based Taxpayers United of America.
Wisconsin has codified pension privacy.
It’s all spelled out under Wisconsin Administrative Code ETF 10.70, defining “individual personal information.” Personal pension information is considered confidential under Wisconsin Statute 40.07, and is “never a public record.”
“Individual personal information is all information in any individual record of the department, including but not limited to the date of birth, earnings, contributions, interest credits, beneficiary designations, creditable service, marital or domestic partnership status, address, and social security number,” the statute states.
Information included in statistical reports and retirement system summaries in which “individual identification is not possible” is a matter of public record.
The state Department of Employee Trust Funds also is specifically prohibited from releasing lists of annuitants “except as required for the proper administration of the Department,” the law states. In other words, the names and the numbers associated with them aren’t anybody’s business outside the agency.
Rae Ann McNeilly, executive director of Taxpayers United of America, says Wisconsin hides behind its privacy statute. But it’s not alone. McNeilly said she has analyzed government pensions in 19 states and a little more than half don’t release pension-holder names and amounts.
“This isn’t just a Wisconsin problem. This is a national problem,” the pension expert said. “That’s part of the reason pension systems are able to get into so much trouble, because of a lack of transparency.” Unfunded government pension liabilities is estimated to run in the trillions of dollars.
While unions and some privacy advocates have argued such information should be kept out of the public eye, organizations such as TUA say knowing who earns what in publicly funded retirement systems is the right of the taxpayers who pay for them.
“Many pension funds stand behind the aggregate information as being transparent, but the dirt is in the details,” McNeilly said.
Case in point, Colorado, where state Treasurer Walker Stapleton was denied access when he wanted to evaluate a pension fund’s long-term viability. Stapleton, who, by law, sits on the 15-member Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association board which oversees a $39 billion pension fund, sued the board and lost.
Colorado and Wisconsin are among 18 states that keep some – or all – public pension information secret, according to Colorado Watchdog.org, one of Wisconsin Reporter’s sister bureaus.
Wisconsin Reporter on Tuesday attempted to contact several state lawmakers asking why Wisconsin keeps pension information private while so many other states shine a light. None responded to the question as of this post.
The lock on personal pension data hasn’t kept Taxpayers United of America from putting together estimates on individual pension payouts in Wisconsin.
“It is our belief that people relate to numbers when they see a name and the annual amounts they receive,” McNeilly said.
TUA’s latest report tracks the top 100 government salaries and pensions in Milwaukee. The report showed the highest paid Milwaukee city employee in 2010 was Kenneth Grams, a police lieutenant who earned total pay of $174,154. Grams total pension payout is expected to approach $3 million, in accordance with the IRS life-expectancy table.
McNeilly cautioned the pension numbers are estimates, based on salary information, which is public in Wisconsin, and the pension payout formula in the state. TUA plans to disclose updated salary and pension data for public employees in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay and Shawano, and their respective counties, sometime this summer.
The Department of Employee Trust Funds expects to disclose its latest Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, covering 2011, by the end of next month. Agency spokesman Mark Lamkins said the 2012 report is slated for release in late fall. Changes in the state’s collective bargaining laws delayed release of the reports, Lamkins said.
Findings from TUA’s Illinois pension project are featured in this story from the Palatine Patch.
Two former District 15 employees and one former District 211 employee made the Taxpayers United of America list of top 200 pensioners in Illinois, according to the study that was released last week.
John G. Conyers, who retired from Palatine District 15 at the age of 57, receives an annual pension of $244,778. To date, Conyers has collected $2,014,291 in total pension payments. He is expected to receive $7.746 million in estimated pension payout over his lifetime, according to the study.
Robert A. McKanna, also retired from District 15, receives an annual pension of $191,382. McKanna, who retired at the age of 65, has received $840,556 in total pension payments to date. He is expected to receive over $4 million in total pension payments over his lifetime, according to the study.
Palatine Township High School District 211 retiree Gerald D. Chapman also made the TUA list. Chapman, who retired at the age of 57, receives an annual pension payment of $211,270 and is expected to bring in over $6.62 million in total pension payout over his lifetime.
In Illinois, six-figure pensions grew by 47 percent in one year to 9,900, said TUA president Jim Tobin in the press release. The top 200 pensions are all over $189,000 per year, according to the study.
“The purpose of our study is to put some perspective around individual pensions, to put them in terms to which the average taxpayer can relate,” Tobin said in the news release. “Illinois taxpayers, whose average household income is $53,234, and struggle with 9.3% unemployment need to know how much Illinois’ government retirees are being paid not to work and the astronomical accumulation of those payments over an average lifetime.”
Tapas Das Gupta, retired from the University of Illinois at Chicago, collected $439,672 in his last annual pension payment and will accumulate $5.2 million in lifetime pension payments.
Beverly Lopatka retired from DuPage Government High School District 88 receives an annual pension of $399,652, and should receive a lifetime payout of $11,524,643. Larry K. Fleming, retired from government school district Lincolnshire-Prairie View 103, is estimated to receive the highest lifetime payout of $11,868,155.
TUA call from sweeping reform in the pension system in Illinois. TUA estimates over 25,000 six-figure pensioners by 2020 if changes are not made, according to the TUA news release.
