Category Archives: Pension reform updates

Our Weekly Reader for the Week of 4/7/2013

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This week’s big story is that the workers at SEIU approved a new four-year contract. Legislators will be returning this week to continue trying to “reform” pensions, more from the world of MOOCs other delights. Remember: the reaction to our organizing may have moved from denial to anger, but the next stage is negotiation! There is more below.

1. Here is the coverage by WILL, the News-Gazette and the Daily Illini on Friday’s vote by the SEIU to approve the contract.

2. Both houses of the State Legislature return from Spring Break this week.

3. There are stories in the News-Gazette and Chicago Business reporting that UI Labs is beginning to organize.

SURS Update on Pension Activity

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SURS LogoThe latest news on pensions is covered in the SURS publication The Advocate. According to SURS, the House has passed three changes (to cost-of-living, retirement age and cap on pension size). These would have to be approved by the Senate, signed by the Governor, and validated as constitutional by the Judiciary to come into effect.

The House returns to session Mon. Apr. 8 and the Senate returns on Wed. Apr. 10.

Pension Alert!

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The IFT is asking members to call their legislators tomorrow and tell them to support SB 2404 and HB 3162, which are the only pension bills supported by the WeAreOne coalition of public employee unions and the State University Annuitants Association. It is cosponsored by Sen. Mike Frerichs and Rep. Naomi Jakobsson. To contact your legislators, call 888-412-6570 (one legislator per call), or click through on the website here.

If your lawmakers are sponsors, call to thank them and urge them to get the leadership to support these bills as well.

Pension Alert! Call Your State Reps, Ask Them to Support SB 2404

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There will likely be a vote in Springfield on a pension bill on Thursday, March 14. This information was reported to the Senate Executive Committee by John Kindt, Chair of the Senate’s Faculty and Staff Academic Benefits Committee. Kindt said that there are 3 bills on the agenda, and that several of them would have very negative consequences for us.

But: There is a labor union coalition bill, Senate Bill 2404. Its 3 main provisions are noted below. Senator Frerichs is already a cosponsor. Please ask Representative Jakobsson to support and lobby for this bill, and please thank Senator Frerichs for his support. Now is the time to call your state legislators. Please do not to use University resources or work time to make your phone calls.

Representative Naomi Jakobsson (D-Urbana) 103rd District at 373-5000 in Champaign or 558-1009 at her Springfield office.
Senator Mike Frerichs (D-52nd Legislative District) at 355-5252 in Champaign or 782-2507 at his Springfield office.

Provisions of the Labor Coalition Bill:

1. Guaranteed Funding. You’ve always paid toward your retirement. The state has not. Decades of skipped and shorted payments have created a $90 billion debt and a serious crisis. This bill secures an ironclad promise that lawmakers must make the annual pension and debt payment every year. And, SB2404 establishes the right for the state retirement systems – or individuals – to bring court action if they don’t.

2. Creating a Pension Stabilization Fund. Beyond paying the annual costs, the state must also pay down the massive debt. In past years, Springfield leaders used creative borrowing schemes to make payments, which only created more debt through bonds that had to be paid off first by law. SB2404 would create a constitutionally protected fund to directly pay down the debt with resources already in the Illinois budget.

3. Shared Sacrifice. While public workers are not to blame for Illinois’ pension problem, we are willing to be part of the solution. With an ironclad funding guarantee to ensure employer underfunding can never happen again and the dedicated revenue source described above, active members would contribute an additional 2 percent of salary, phased in over the next two years. This will generate more than $3 billion over the next decade.

Call your representative today, and ask her/him to support SB2404.

IFT Proposes Pension Reform Bill

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Bipartisan, labor-backed pension bill introduced

Tuesday, Feb 19, 2013

* This Illinois Federation of Teachers e-mail from IFT President Dan Montgomery is being forwarded around all over the place…

Late last week, State Senators Linda Holmes (D-Aurora) and Pam Althoff (R-McHenry) filed Senate Bill 2404, legislation that includes key components advocated by the IFT and We Are One Illinois labor coalition. In large part, this fair, constitutional bill provides a path to paying down the pension debt that, as you know, neither workers nor our modest retirement benefits are responsible for causing.

We support this legislation, which addresses three of our key priorities:

1. Guaranteed Funding. You’ve always paid toward your retirement. The state has not. Decades of skipped and shorted payments have created a $90 billion debt and a serious crisis. This bill secures an ironclad promise that lawmakers must make the annual pension and debt payment every year. And, SB2404 establishes the right for the state retirement systems – or individuals – to bring court action if they don’t.

2. Creating a Pension Stabilization Fund. Beyond paying the annual costs, the state must also pay down the massive debt. In past years, Springfield leaders used creative borrowing schemes to make payments, which only created more debt through bonds that had to be paid off first by law. SB2404 would create a constitutionally protected fund to directly pay down the debt with resources already in the Illinois budget.

3. Shared Sacrifice. While public workers are not to blame for Illinois’ pension problem, we are willing to be part of the solution. With an ironclad funding guarantee to ensure employer underfunding can never happen again and the dedicated revenue source described above, active members would contribute an additional 2 percent of salary, phased in over the next two years. This will generate more than $3 billion over the next decade.

In the weeks ahead, organized labor aims to add more co-sponsors to this bipartisan legislation. We believe there is an appetite to support an initiative with the union coalition’s backing.

The bill is here.

Notice that there’s no explicit mention of a tax hike in this proposal. There’s just a requirement that all the money be paid. So, without other reforms, there would absolutely have to be either a big tax increase or more budget cuts, or both. Then again, it’s the first time that organized labor has actually supported a bill on this topic. It’s something.

Our Weekly Reader for the Week Beginning January 13, 2013

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A new year begins. The big story this week is that the legislature continued its great tradition of punting on the pension funding situation. I won’t put any links on the top about this; there’s plenty in the e-news, and I imagine most readers are up-to-date on this. (A good op-ed is at the top.)  Thanks to SD for several of the links below. — Bruce

1. A sensible editorial by an old friend of the CFA, Ralph Martire:


http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x1665859717/Ralph-Martire-Dont-pass-unconstitutional-pension-fix

2. Labor trouble on campus with SEIU


http://www.news-gazette.com/news/politics-and-government/2013-01-12/union-picket-ui.html

I have a request in to find a link to the official SEIU point of view.

3a. More on the stress of being a faculty member, continuing on last week’s list


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/07/claim-college-professor-least-stressful-job-infuriates-faculty

3b. Especially if you are an adjunct:


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/09/adjunct-leaders-consider-strategies-force-change

4. Various articles on online learning, MOOCs, and recruiting students.


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/08/survey-finds-online-enrollments-slow-continue-grow#ixzz2HTc5wW2Q


http://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168889785/elite-colleges-struggle-to-recruit-smart-low-income-kids


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/09/courseras-fee-based-course-option

5. The DI is back, with summary articles for students on the fiscal cliff and pension

http://www.dailyillini.com/news/campus/article_22a7d5a6-5bac-11e2-b673-001a4bcf6878.html


http://www.dailyillini.com/news/illinois/article_6bd242ce-5bad-11e2-a2ca-0019bb30f31a.html

Rather than write a “Greatest Hits of 2012″, I’ve decided to have an occasional restrospective series. Many, such as this one, predate OWR.

On January 20, 2012, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Chris Kennedy, made an interesting choice of words to describe the audience of this email and revealed his perspective on the organization of the academic community.

You may recall that Lisa Troyer resigned as President Michael Hogan’s Chief of Staff, and moved to her appointment as a professor in psychology.

Kennedy said the board had purview over Troyer’s administrative position, as she reported directly to the president “who reported to us.” But as a faculty member, her reporting line would go through a department head, dean, provost and chancellor first, he said.

“We don’t want to get involved in something six levels deep into the university,” he said.

Source:
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2012-01-20/faculty-blasts-ui-leaders-over-anonymous-emails.html

This can also be found on pp. 12-13 of the 1/20/2012 news summary at
http://www.uillinois.edu/our/news/summary.cfm

This week’s news, found daily as always at
http://www.uillinois.edu/our/news/summary.cfm

===========================
1/7 — Record length (to my recollection) 85 pages.

1/7 — pp.2-14 Various pension articles
1/7 — pp.36-40 (NYT) “Students rush to web classes, but profits may be much later”
1/7 — p.41 (Forbes) “How liberal arts colleges could go bankrupt” Key quote “It’s going to wipe out high-cost mediocre private schools without big endowments”.
1/7 — pp.49-55 (Chron) “How many adminstrators are too many”
1/7 — pp.56-58 (InsideHigherEd) “Claim that college professor is least stressful job infuriates faculty”, see last week.

1/8 — pp.11-13 (InsideHigherEd) “Survey finds online enrollments slow but continue to grow”
1/8 — pp.16-17 (Trib) “Blame flies in pension mess”, distributed in real time
1/8 — pp.18 (Sun-Times) “Pension reform going nowhere”
1/8 — pp.19-20 (NG) “Pension reforms advance” (admittedly, from the morning, while the previous two were from the afternoon)

1/9 — pp.1-3 (NYT) “Illinois tries, and fails, to fix its pensions”.
1/9 — pp.4-8 (Sun-Times, NG, Trib) same topic, plus editorials
1/9 — pp.9-10 (Chron) “Coursera announces details for selling certificates and verifying identities”
1/9 — p.22 (SF Chron).”UC online courses attract few outside students”  (1700, but only 5 from the outside, despite $4m marketing)
.
1/10 — pp.4-5 (NG,Trib) Editorials on pensions
1/10 — p.6 (Trib) “NIU employees charged with theft back at work”
1/10 — pp.10-12 (WSJ) “Colleges caught in value trap”
1/10 — pp.15-17 (WSJ) “Colleges rise as they reject: Schools invite more applications, then use denials to boost coveted rankings”

1/11 — pp.1-3 (NYT) “Downturn still squeezes colleges and universities”
1/11 — pp.8-9 (Trib) “Performance at Purdue” Editorial about Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN), who is about to become their president.
1/11 — p.13 (Trib) “Facing angry mob of Illinois retirees” Op-ed “What do a deadbeat dad, an AWOL soldier and an Illinois legislator have in common? .

Our Weekly Reader for Week Beginning December 9, 2012

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1. The first big news this week is that the GEO ratified their contract with the University. The University wanted to put the tuition waivers into the revenue mix, but those crafty grad students outsmarted them once again. For details go to the GEO homepage  uigeo.org ; fortunately, there is no longer any need for a CFA strike page. Other coverage includes
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2012-12-07/geo-members-ratify-five-year-contract.html


http://www.dailyillini.com/news/campus/article_bd1030d4-40ae-11e2-9c38-001a4bcf6878.html

The News-Gazette page also contains a link to the contract itself.

For a dissenting view, see


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/dec2012/uiuc-d04.shtml
2. The second big news is that it’s pension reform season in Springfield once again. A large number of links can be found on our page


http://cfaillinois.org/2012/12/06/more-information-on-pensions-bill-hb6258/

and we will update as new information becomes available. An excellent source is
http://www.suaa.org/
 , which usually has a “mini-briefing” after each day in which there is meaningful and publicly-known change.

3. Other articles:

i. Stanford wants to try to get a 5 year PhD in the humanities:


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/12/04/stanford-moves-ahead-plans-radically-change-humanities-doctoral-education#.UL36UsfmNR0.twitter

ii. Coursera wants to link its better students with companies, who would pay for the lists, and Chancellor Wise is on its advisory board.


http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/12/05/coursera-creates-service-help-its-many-students-find-jobs

iii. The University has had declining returns on its acceptance letters since 2006.


http://www.dailyillini.com/news/campus/article_43e41898-3ea0-11e2-b396-0019bb30f31a.html

iv Google gives me this link to an AP story. “Illinois. Our State. Our team.” Haven’t the people of the state of Illinois suffered enough?


http://www.galesburg.com/newsnow/x1745970478/University-of-Illinois-starts-billboard-campaign

Amendment 49- An attack on your pensions-update

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The  implications  of Amendment 49 which will appear on the upcoming ballot are becoming clearer.  This amendment is a definite blow to our pensions. By making any improvement in pensions subject to 60% approval by the legislature, the amendment virtually blocks any positive measures.  This is especially serious for new faculty who are now in the Tier 2 pension, which is a decided step down from the traditional defined benefit plan enjoyed by established faculty. For more details on Amendment 49 we suggest you visit the website of the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) at:


http://www.ift-aft.org/firstvoteno.aspx

November Referendum Threatens Pensions

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The CFA is concerned about CA 49, a referendum on the November ballot which could potentially threaten pension benefits. We reprint here an article on CA 49 from the Chicago Sun-Times of September 23rd. We hope to have more on CA 49 as we carry on investigating its impact.

the link is:
http://couriernews.suntimes.com/opinions/letters/14953585-474/pensions-amendment-hides-true-impact.html

Pensions amendment hides true impact

September 5, 2012 1:26PM

Amendment 49 on the November ballot in Illinois is cleverly drafted to concentrate more monetary power in the same Springfield legislative leaders who have de facto bankrupted the Illinois Treasury. With $83 billion in projected liabilities, Illinois has the nation’s largest state budget crisis.Amendment 49 is crafted to strip local governments and voters of current decision-making prerogatives and transfer those decisions to Springfield.

Among other subterfuges, Amendment 49 overrules and destroys the Illinois Constitutional protection against eliminating or reducing earned benefits, such as pensions for state retirees who by state law cannot receive Social Security and, in many instances, cannot receive Medicaid.

Furthermore, thousands of elderly retirees and current state employees were mandated by Illinois law to pay into Illinois retirement systems and then were legally prohibited from having Social Security.

Amendment 49 contains more words than the entire first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution — the Bill of Rights. The obvious intent of the verbose Amendment 49 is to hide its true impacts from voters in a 700-word avalanche of unnecessary and deceptive words. Marketing experts know that few voters will read beyond the benign first sentences and that voters will be inclined to vote “yes” in that benign spirit. While the voters may wish to vote to concentrate more monetary power in Springfield leadership, they should not be tricked into misdirecting their votes and eliminating their current constitutional safeguards by the confusing 700 words in Amendment 49.

For example, hidden in the “last sentence” is the new constitutional provision: “(d) Nothing in this Section shall prevent the passage or adoption of any law, ordinance, resolution, rule, policy or practice that further restricts the ability to provide a ‘benefit increase,’ ‘emolument increase,’ or ‘beneficial determination’ as those terms are used under this Section.”

Thus, Amendment 49 overrules the current Constitutional safeguard known as the “non-impairment provision” in Article XIII, sec. 5, of the Illinois Constitution.

As confirmed by expert memoranda — for example, the State Universities Annuitants Association memoranda (at http://www.suaa.org, June 8, 2012) — Amendment 49 was drafted outside normal processes, including the Springfield Legislative Reference Bureau.

Among other problems for local taxpayers, the language overriding the “non-impairment provision” was added at virtually the last minute as the “last sentence” hidden at the end of 700 words.

Amendment 49 has also been disguised with various monikers including “HCA49” and “HJRCA49,” and it was originally floated by Speaker Michael Madigan’s office as “Amendment 5.”

Instead of concentrating more power in Springfield’s legislative leadership, taxpayers should consider simply rejecting Amendment 49 as just more deceptive legislative legerdemain.

John Kindt of Mahomet is a professor of business at the College of Business at Illinois. He has testified as an academic before Congress and state legislatures regarding business and legal policy issues.

Editor’s note: According to the Legislative Information section of the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, Amendment 49 would “require all legislation, ordinances, rules and resolutions that increase public employee pension benefits to receive a three-fifths majority vote of the governing body considering the proposal before it takes effect. The amendment would govern the actions of the General Assembly, county, township and city governments, school districts and special districts throughout the state.”

For more on CA 49 visit: 
http://www.suaa.org/