Major pension legislation is up for vote today in the Illinois House. I have been speaking to many current and retired teachers and current and former state employees. Most retirees believe that something should be done to adjust the COLA(because 3% compounded is significantly above the norm and unrealistic during long economic droughts), but they are still wondering how this can be constitutional. After hours of reading on proposed legislation this seems like another attempt to pass the burden of the pension systems back to the employees that made their contributions EVERY pay period. Lawmakers for 19+ years failed to make proper or if any pension obligations to keep the pensions properly funded. They did this to free up money for projects in their own districts to remain popular among their constituents, all the while risking the retirement funds for a large number of Illinois citizens that devoted their lives to the service our state. While yes I believe that reform is needed to curb the amount of fraudulent increases in salary in the latter portions of an employees career to unfairly increase their pension benefits, along with an adjustment to the retirement age due to the longevity of life, we cannot lose sight that they employees are not the ones that are at fault. Lawmakers ignored actuarial advice as to what problems they were creating for the future of our state. If lawmakers want to truly show that they are looking out for our best interests in this legislation, then why would they include only 10% of the savings of the pension bonds towards decreasing the debt liability in 2019? I know this is all very confusing to most, and this is something that I actually enjoy reading about, learning about, and speaking to actuaries on how to fix these issues. The problem is that we continue to vote for, and elect representation that plays the popularity game instead of running our state like a business. Some of these lawmakers have been in their position for decades, and they want to pass the blame to anyone else but themselves. Our state going forward cannot afford to follow these wolves in sheeps clothing towards our own slaughter. Deficit spending, poor economic investment, favors for corporate political backers, and a broken tax structure, does nothing to pull Illinois out of dire straits that we find ourselves in currently. I seem to be bombarded with people that are more interested in political affiliation(D or R) than the statistics and the finances of our state. We have all been brainwashed by the media in believing that our issues are as simple as a vote for a democrat or a republican. We have to some how shake off that mentality and work towards a common ground that takes our state in the right direction not one that benefits campaign financiers and corporate friends of our elected officials. Please feel free to voice your opinion below, along with sharing this post to increase exposure of this page. For those regular followers of this page, I have continued my daily attendance of local and regional government meetings along with school board meetings. I have stopped updating daily on what meetings I am attending as I feel like it is monotonous and boring to those of you who follow the page. I do however have to say that Salem City Council last night moved forward with an amazing ordinance that helps combat the major issue of K2 or fake cannabis. Chief Ron Campo expressed his approval after the meeting that this is going to be a major tool in helping to end the rampant use of fake cannabis amongst the young people of Salem. It is sad however that over a month ago the chief stood up and said he was unable to contact our local representation to be of assistance in curbing this major problem in Salem. Building a working relationship with these councils, boards, and public officials is one of the main reasons I have been attending this meetings for 2 years. If you do not have a close connection with the local officials and an exceptional knowledge of the problems in each of the towns in the 107th district, then how are you offering the best representation of the people in the district?
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 15:07:34 +0000
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