We’re Back!
An
active teacher/friend and even retired family members recently asked several of
us bloggers if the latest plan for pension reform by Senate Leader John
Cullerton was something about which they should worry. The plan was a response by Cullerton to the
five-day-old decision by the Illinois Supreme Court strictly striking down the
earlier “Pension Reform Act of 2013. The
plan, as explained below by my
fellow blogger Glen Brown, serves up a new low in “consideration.”
Another
active teacher responded that his worry was that IEA might consider making a
deal? I quickly wrote him back:
The IEA seems always willing to deal…but the ILSC has made it
abundantly clear - even to them and Cullerton "that benefits can be added
and a payment of some kind can be made for the addition; that is called
consideration." Those are paraphrase quotes. The IEA couldn't
begin to entertain Cullerton's latest sweven (visionary pipe dream). With
Chief Counsel Madiar gone, he's making up this stuff. Even the IEA has
its negotiating hands tied for this one.
Offers of a willingness to be at the table might be as earnest as my pleasantries
to an oral surgeon.
And while Cullerton talks about this latest mathematical square of
the hypotenuse, we've got Rep. Ives and others pushing for an amendment to the
Pension Protection Clause, and traveling Governor Rauner trying to find a new
way to remove the only steady funding source for pensions without comprehending
that the state would still be on the hook for all of us retired and actives
until we die. They'll be selling a hell of a lot more than the Thompson
Center.
Cullerton's blowing smoke. But, as Glen Brown warned, they'll
blow smoke and even fume smoke until they realize they're going to have to turn
to revenue side answers. This may take years with the way they avoid any
real and honest way to deal with "their" own mess.
And the very last choice they'll make in this flat-tax backward
state will be to levy the rich. They'll suck the blood out of poor
districts like Chicago Heights with a pension cost shift to the local
districts; they'll play with a possible tax on services (and then realize how
many of them have service businesses that would be affected); they'll allow
those marginalized and without advocacy like the poor/homeless/mentally ill to
die on the streets without succor; they'll design some new scheme to avoid
making an amortized payment for the unfunded liability which would provide some
stability for the state; they'll veer away at 180 degrees from any look at a
transaction tax; in short, they would be Medea to their own children before
they'd actively acknowledge their own mess, their own making.
They are hopelessly liars and thieves.
Other than that…the weekend was a nice respite.
See my friend and good blogger’s report below, or go directly to
Glen’s site:
Senate President John Cullerton
presented his updated pension reform plan in the Illinois General Assembly
today aimed at circumventing the Pension Protection Clause
So what can we expect from the
pension thieves of the Illinois General Assembly just four days after the
Illinois Supreme Court Ruling? Is it all just poppycock? Here is the first of
many blustery attacks on public employees and retirees to come.
“Lawmakers returned to the Capitol
on Tuesday [May 12] facing renewed pressure to overhaul the state's employee
pension system after the Illinois Supreme Court struck down a law aimed at
sharply curbing benefits, with Senate President John Cullerton proposing an
updated version of a plan he floated two years ago.
[The We Are One Coalition of Unions
(the IEA, IFT, Illinois AFL-CIO, AFSCME, et al.) mutually assented to
Cullerton's diminishment of our pensions on May 6, 2013. There should never have been any negotiation of our
constitutionally-guaranteed benefits and rights with the Illinois General
Assembly. Only the Illinois Retired Teachers Association disagreed and hired
Tabet, DiVito & Rothstein LLC to defend our constitutional guarantees at
that time].
“While details are still being
worked out, Cullerton's plan amounts to giving government workers a choice
between keeping more generous yearly cost-of-living increases or continuing to
count pay raises in calculating their retirement benefits…
“Cullerton's pension plan is aimed
at working around a clause in the Illinois Constitution that says once someone
is in a retirement system, they've entered into ‘an enforceable contractual
relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.’
“Justices appeared to offer little
in the way of a path forward other than requiring the state to pay up, but
Cullerton contends the ruling left open the possibility for changes to be made
based on a theory in contract law called ‘consideration.’ Under that theory,
Cullerton says, benefits can be scaled back, but only if workers agree to the
changes and are given something in return.
[Simply stated, “Consideration is
when a claimant promises something in exchange for the defendant’s promise,
[or] the inducement to a contract, something of value given in return for a
performance or a promise of performance by another, for the purpose of forming
a contract…” (Law Dictionary). “It is well settled that a contract, once made,
must be performed according to its terms, and that any modification of those
terms must be made by mutual assent and for consideration” (Ross v. May Co.,
377 Ill. App. 3d 387, 389 (2007))].
“As such, the plan Cullerton
floated Tuesday calls for giving employees a choice about their retirement
benefits. Under the first scenario, a worker could choose to not have future pay
increases factored into their pensions. In exchange, they would receive an
annual 3 percent compounded cost-of-living pay increase. If they chose to count
pay raises toward their pensions, workers would receive lower annual
cost-of-living increases that are not compounded over time.
“It's a revamped version of a
Cullerton proposal that passed the Senate in 2013 with union support that would
have allowed employees and retirees to choose between compounded cost-of-living
increases or health care benefits. That measure was never called for a vote in
the House, as critics argued it would save about a third of the more sweeping
proposal that ultimately became law but was struck down last week…”
For the complete story, click here.
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