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CHICAGO—Taxpayers United of America (TUA) today released the results of their updated study of the top pensioners of McHenry County, McHenry County government schools, McHenry County College, and McHenry and Crystal Lake municipalities.
“Well over 1,000 of the McHenry area government pensioners receive multi-million dollar lifetime pension payouts,” stated Jim Tobin, TUA president. “The pensioners’ average personal investment is only about 5.5% of the lifetime payouts.”
“While taxpayers struggle to make their property tax payments, working well beyond retirement age, these government pensioners enjoy lavish, gold-plated retirements beginning on average at the age of 58.”
“This is not a retirement system or a safety net for ‘the poor public servants’ who have given their lives to public service. This is theft. This is immoral and unethical theft of taxpayers’ hard-earned money to be given to the political elite to do absolutely nothing.”
“There are now 12,154 Illinois government pensions over $100,000 and 85,893 over $50,000 annually! Those are staggering numbers considering the taxpayers who fund these pensions get an average Social Security pension of about $15,000 a year.”
“Retired HSD 155 government employee, Michael E. Mills enjoys an annual taxpayer funded pension of $197,517. Over a normal lifetime, he will get about $6.5 million in pension payments. His personal investment in his rich pension is about 3.8% or $250,626.”
“Crystal Lake Park District retiree, Kirk R. Reimer retired at 55 and his current annual pension is $117,504.
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“Although we did not support or endorse SB 1 as any kind of pension reform, as it did more harm than good, the unanimous ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court clearly illustrates the limited options available to solve the pension crisis…and the answers are not tax increases!”
“A constitutional amendment that is fair to taxpayers, as well as government employees, must be approved next year. In the meantime, if the Illinois General Assembly increased individual government employee contributions to their own gold-plated pensions by 10 percentage points, it would save taxpayers about $150 billion over the next 35 years, or about $4.3 billion a year, and save the State of Illinois from financial ruin. If all else fails, there is always the option of moving forward with legislation to begin the process of allowing municipalities and government schools to file for Chapter 9.”
“Taxpayers must pursue these three paths forward to avoid disastrously higher taxes in the immediate future.”
*Lifetime estimated pension payout includes 3% compounded COLA and assumes life expectancy of 85 (IRS Form 590).

By on May 19, 2015   /   Illinois, Latest, Pension Reform, Taxpayer Alert  
1 Comment
  1. Al Hardersen
    9:27 pm on September 2, 2015

    You seem to be attacking the people who did there jobs every day without considering the whole story. I worked at MCC for ten great years. Prior to that it was my pleasure to work at Sauk Valley Community College for 12 years. I was a tenured faculty member at Sauk prior to becoming an administrator. The year I left faculty ranks 29 employees, mostly faculty and administrators were RIFFed. There were many years during my higher Ed experience when there were little or no pay increases. I took a cut of $3000 in 1977 to join higher Ed and worked 12 month contracts for my entire career.
    Some do have good deals. Please don’t paint with such a broad brush.