That is obscene when you see how many people in McHenry County are living in poverty.

If you look at the High School report listed on this webpage McHenry East has over 30% low income.

What happened of the idea that teachers, doctors, nurses, and their administrators put the children’s needs before their own greed.

No contribution to a retirement plan?

Professional memberships?

Expense allowance for conferences, conventions?

Does the auto allowance include ALL vehicle-related expenses (fuel, maintenance, repairs, insurance, tolls)?

Vicky Smith’s total compensation is understated in this article.

In general under reported or non reported items include:
– SURS Pension contribution by the State of Illinois.
– Vacation Days.
– Sick Days both used and the unused days which can be accumulated.

Vacation days, sick days, and any other perks in her employment contract not reported above would be in her employment contract is available via FOIA.

More specifically about SURS.

The state of Illinois shares the cost of providing benefits to SURS participants.

The state’s share is actuarially determined each year.

SURS Employer cost listed in the article above is $1,055.07.

That’s 1/2 of 1 percent of her $211,013.01 salary listed above.

Apparently that’s the amount MCC itself contributed to SURS.

This prompts the thought following thought.

IS MCC PICKING UP ANY PORTION OF VICKY SMITH’S CONTRIBUTION TO SURS?

If so, the pension pick up would be stated in her employment contract with MCC.

However, the article above does not include any pension pick-up.

To explain further, the State of Illinois makes a contribution for all active employees covered by SURS, including Vicky Smith, to the SURS pension plan.

This is the State of Illinois contribution, on behalf of the employer (MCC), to the State University Retirement System (SURS) pension plan.

Furthermore, there is not just one SURS plan.

There are many.

First there is Tier 1 and Tier 2.

Vicky Smith is likely in Tier 1.

Then, there are three Tier 1 plans.

Vicky Smith would be in one of three SURS Tier 1 plans.
– SURS Traditional Benefit Plan. This is a defined benefit plan.
– SURS Portable Benefit Plan. This is also a defined benefit plan.
– SURS Self-Managed Plan (SMP). This is a 401K type plan.

The State of IL contribution varies depending upon which SURS Tier 1 plan the employee is enrolled in.

Thanks to State legislation, SURS benefits have increased over the years, especially after once sentence was added to the Illinois State Constitution in 1970 stating that State pensions, including SURS, are contractual and cannot be diminished or impaired.

Left unsaid but true is that State pensions can be increased by modifying or adding State laws through State legislation, and that’s what happened.

SURS benefit increases have resulted in in larger required State of Illinois contributions.

Thanks to Governor budget decisions, especially over the last 40 years, the State has not properly funded SURS pensions.

For example instead of properly funding pensions the State provided money to community colleges and universities which was used for extra salary increases, extra additional employees, extra capital improvements such as new and remodeled buildings, and a whole host of other extra items.

If one looks at SURS financial documents you can learn about what a complete taxpayer disaster the program has evolved into.

Reading Bill Zettler’s Illinois Pension Scam also sheds some light on the subject.

The article above highlights how little the public understand about SURS pensions.

It’s almost impossible for the average person to understand how much a public employee covered by an Illinois state pension (TRS, SERS, SURS, GARS, JRS), IMRF pension, police pension, or fire pension in Illinois truly compensated.

You can obtain bits and pieces of information here and there.

But putting the jigsaw puzzle together takes lots of time and effort.