McHenry County Board Compensation with Social Security and Pension

When the last compensation chart was published, left off were totals and how much more than the base salary that members were receiving.

That is rectified below:

McHenry County Board members' salary and estimated fringe benefits.

McHenry County Board members’ salary and estimated fringe benefits.


Comments

McHenry County Board Compensation with Social Security and Pension — 7 Comments

  1. In what other PART-TIME job can you double your income with benefits?

    This Board needs to show they really are a Republican majority and drop ALL benefits when they next set salaries!

    This will not happen without a lot of pressure from voters.

  2. Knowledge voter, you are SO right.

    Part time employment in the private sector doesn’t warrant benefits.

    Why should the taxpayers subsidize County employees who are well paid as it is?

  3. I would like you to attend the Human resource committee on April 8 815 am.

    I plan on discussing this issue with the rest of committee members and would love to have the people we represent come and give their input.

    Or feel free to call me 815-482-5693.

  4. IMRF is the pension plan.

    Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund.

    Specifically, the Elected County Official (ECO) option within IMRF.

    County Board members being the elected officials.

    There are two Tiers of ECO.

    Tier 1.

    Tier 2.

    The Elected County Official plan was closed to new members effective August 8, 2011.

    Public Act 96-0889 created a second tier for IMRF’s Revised Elected County Official Plan.

    Effective January 1, 2011, IMRF will assign a benefit “tier” to an elected county official when he or she is enrolled in ECO.

    The tier is determined by the member’s first participation date.

    These defined benefit pensions in Illinois are a taxpayer nightmare.

    There are so many different defined benefit pension plans.

    TRS: Teachers Retirement System of Illinois.

    SERS: State Employees Retirement System.

    SURS: State University Retirement System.

    GARS: General Assembly Retirement System.

    JRS: Judicial Retirement System.

    Fire: Most local fire departments have their own pension fund.

    Police: Most local police departments have their own pension fund.

    IMRF: Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (county and local employees including for instance school district
    employees whom are not teachers or administrators in TRS).

    Each pension fund has its own rules and funding sources.

    Just like Illinois has the most units of government, it probably has the most overall convoluted public sector defined benefit pension plans.

    And the Illinois public sector defined benefit pension mess was just made more convoluted by the 327 page pension reform of 4 of the 5 “state” pension funds (TRS, SERS, SURS, GARS) passed by the General Assembly
    (House and Senate) and approved by Governor Pat Quinn December 2013.

    JRS was not included in the reform since the reform will be constitutionally challenged so the logic was to exempt the Judges who will be deciding what parts if any of the reform are constitutionally valid.

    That pension reform was Public Act 98-0599 (PA 98-599) signed by Pat Quinn on December 5, 2013.

    PA 98-599 was Senate Bill 1 (SB1) which passed both Houses (Senate and House of Representatives) on December 3, 2013.

    The 327 page SB 1 was presented to both Houses for consideration on December 2, 2013.

    That’s one day, 24 hours or so, for the House and Senate to understand 327 pages of complex pension legislation.

    It should not even be legal for the House and Senate to have such little time to consider a bill with so many pages.

    What a complete mess.

    Can you imagine how much time and money lawyers and all sorts of others are going to spend just to determine the legality of 327 pages?

    That’s Democracy?

  5. Let’s take a look at how IMRF works.

    Since pensions laws are constantly being changed, be it enhanced or rolled back or just making various rule changes, not sure if these are the current laws.

    As a sidenote, intended or not, constantly change pension rules or underfunding pensions or what not keeps a steady stream of campaign contributions, votes, and electioneering assistance flowing to politicians at all levels of government from employees whose pensions are affected.
    This from the IMRF website.

    4.14 A. IMRF Employer and Tax-Deferred Member Contributions.

    The employer and member IMRF contribution rates are applied to the member’s IMRF wages as described in 3.96 Introduction to Earnings for IMRF Purposes.

    [There are 4 sections here.]
    [1.]MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS.
    [2.]REGULAR PLAN MEMBERS WITH MORE THAN 40 YEARS OF SERVICE CREDIT.
    [3.]TAX-DEFERRED PAYROLL DEDUCTION PROGRAM CONTRIBUTIONS.
    [4.]EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTIONS.

    [1.]Member contributions
    Currently, the member contribution rate for the Regular plan Tiers 1 and 2 is 4.50% (7.50% SLEP, 7.50% ECO Tiers 1 and 2) of all wages.
    Tier 2 members do not make contributions on wages over the wage cap.
    Also, SLEP Tier 2 members do not make contributions on overtime.

    Member contributions cannot be attached, garnished, assigned, or seized by any creditor, even if the member declares bankruptcy.
    Members cannot borrow from their member contributions on deposit, nor can they use their member contributions as collateral for a loan.

    [2.]REGULAR PLAN MEMBERS WITH MORE THAN 40 YEARS OF SERVICE CREDIT.

    IMRF members obtain the maximum Regular Tier 1 and Tier 2 retirement benefit after earning 40 years of service credit:

    1-2/3% x 15 years = 25%
    2% x 25 years = 50%
    Total = 75% (maximum pension earned)

    If a member has 40 or more years of IMRF service credit, he or she can elect to stop making IMRF contributions, even if the member’s position meets the annual hourly standard.

    The election is irrevocable.

    He or she would be considered an active IMRF member.

    IMRF service credit would not increase, nor would the member’s final rate of earnings.

    However, the member would have the same IMRF death and disability benefit protection as contributing members.

    See 6.20 D. Election to Cease Making IMRF Contributions)

    If a member has 40 or more years of IMRF service credit and elects to stop making IMRF contributions, that member would not be eligible for an IMRF retirement benefit until he or she terminates IMRF participation.

    [3.]TAX-DEFERRED PAYROLL DEDUCTION PROGRAM CONTRIBUTIONS

    Refer to 4.35 for details on reporting TPDP contributions.

    [4.]EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTIONS.

    The employer IMRF contribution rate is computed separately for each employer every year.

    Employer contributions pay a portion of the cost of retirement pensions, surviving spouse pensions, death benefit coverage, and disability benefits.

    If the employer rate times the monthly payroll is not sufficient to cover the required paydown of the employer’s pension obligation, a minimum monthly employer contribution may be charged.

    The minimum employer contribution would be shown on the ”Final Rate Notice” (Exhibit 4A) and on the Wage Report Summary.

    Employers are also required to immediately pay that portion of the present value of a pension attributable to earnings increases exceeding the greater of 6% or 1.5 times the increase in the CPI-Urban as of the previous September.

    This applies to earnings increases paid on or after January 1, 2012, to members retiring on or after February 1, 2012.

    See 7.20 E. Accelerated Payment.

    http://www.imrf.org/pubs/er_pubs/aamanual/online_aa_manual/4.14_a.htm

    Bottom line?

    IMRF is structured so the employer contribution increases to cover any shortfall.

    The taxpayers is on the hook for any problems in IMRF pensions via increased employer contributions.

    One of the main purposes of the 327 page pension reform for 4 of the 5 “state” pensions passed in December 2013 was to more closely align the State pensions with IMRF pensions, making it much more difficult for the employers to short the pension contribution.

    But because of all the pension benefit enhancements made over the years, especially starting in 1971, and because of all the salary hikes, those pension contributions have been substantially hiked.

    We are going to see big tax hikes or service cuts to cover pension contributions if much more pension reform is not done.

    The basic pension formula is [Years Worked x Accrual Rate] x Final Pay.

    That is an oversimplification.

    All parameters of that pension formula were tinkered with to hike pensions.

    The tinkering was done through state legislation.

    Meaning new laws were passed.

    The formula was special interests including public sector unions provide campaign contributions, votes, and electioneering assistance in exchange for favorable pension legislation.

    No politician ever explained this to the taxpayer in simple language.

    Bill Zettler has lots of detailed examples using specific figures.

    BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS MESS.

  6. The employer IMRF contribution rate is computed separately for each employer every year.

    That is a key phrase.

    THE EMPLOYER IMRF CONTRIBUTION RATE IS COMPUTED SEPARATELY FOR EACH EMPLOYER EVERY YEAR.

    EMPLOYER = TAXPAYER.

    EMPLOYEE CONTRIBUTION = FIXED PERCENTAGE OF PAY.

    EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION = VARIABLE PERCENTAGE OF PAY.

    EMPLOYER = TAXPAYER.

    TAXPAYER = BOTTOMLESS PIT.

    Since no one can predict the future, we don’t know how much we will have to pay for these pensions in the future.

    IMRF keeps touting they are 85% or so funded.

    That’s because employers have been sucking up more and more of employer budgets for pensions.

    Those employers being counties, cities, towns, villages, park districts, school district employers that are not certified which is employees that are not teachers or administrators, etc.

    More and more of county and local budgets have been going to IMRF employer contributions since the financial downturn.

    Yes last year was a good year financially for pension fund investment returns in general.

    That is just one year.

    It will help make up for past losses.

    The big problem is there is no crystal ball into the future and why should taxpayers be on the hook to fund public sector defined benefit pensions when their private sector 401k’s are not defined benefit.

    Why are private sector 401k’s not defined benefit?

    Because employers went out of business providing overly generous pensions.

    Employers had to scale back their defined benefit pensions or convert to 401k’s or a combination.

    Well unless you were lucky and Obama helped at leas partially bail out your UAW pension.

    The government does not go out of business.

    The government keeps taxing residents.

    Municipalities can declare bankruptcy, see Detroit.

    States cannot.

    We have big big problems pension funding problems for a long time in Illinois no matter what is done.

    We need to switch to defined contribution pensions.

    Get rid of defined benefit pensions.

    Because the politicians use defined benefit pensions as political pawns.

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