Ex-LITH Deputy Chief Keeps Pension Despite Sexual Assault on Teen Girl

Chicago Tribune article about convicted teen girl criminal sexual assaulter Alan Bokowski’s keeping his Lake in the Hills Police pension.

It was after the Lake in the Hills Police Pension Board meeting was well underway Thursday that I realized I would miss the meeting.

Fortunately, the Chicago Tribune sent stringer George Houde to the meeting.

That resulted in a page 3 story in Saturday’s paper.

The reason for sex criminal Alan Bokowski’s retention of his $84,000 pension was that the crime for which he was found guilty could not be connected to his police employment.

One of his former Crystal Lake Vista neighbors tells me she believes that there are victims from before he retired from the LITH Police Department.

Should they step forward and should the McHenry County State’s Attorney decide on a second prosecution and should that prosecution be successful, the law might require Bokowski’s pension to be taken away.

In the meantime, I believe the Illinois Department of Corrections has the authority to charge this prisoner (and any other with sufficient means) to pay for his incarceration.


Comments

Ex-LITH Deputy Chief Keeps Pension Despite Sexual Assault on Teen Girl — 23 Comments

  1. At least 43 states allow officials to seek what are often called room-and-board fees from prisoners. Some states charge inmates for medical care.

    Both fee structures are part of a broad effort — also called pay-to-stay — to lessen the prison system’s enormous financial burden on taxpayers.

    In Illinois, the law that allows the state to sue inmates for their incarceration dates to 1982.

    Would Bokowski’s $82,000 annual pension cover the $20,000 a year it costs to keep him at Robertson Correctional?

    I think so.

    Let’s be fair.

  2. Why doesn’t someone interview former chief Jim Wales and find out why he retired so abrubtly…

  3. Jim Wales retired as Chief of Police when he turned 50. Shortly thereafter he got the job as Director of Public Safety, a civilian position. He retired from that position after 10 years. And during all this he was teaching police procedure at MCC. As the Director of Public safety he was collecting his police pension plus the salary for being the Director of Public safety. And when he retired form the civilian position he started collecting a pension for that as well. In addition, he qualified for a pension from MCC. So, in all, he now has at least 3 pensions. He is currently touring the world with a Parakeet perched on his shoulder symbolizing affluence (as shown on his Facebook page). On Facebook he sports scrolls with quotations from intellectuals suggesting Jim Wales is a deep thinker.

  4. Jim Wales was a real Chum with Keith Nygren, Chief Stoddard (Lakewood) and Barbra Key (past pres. of LITH), they controlled everything. Jim Wales stayed active, to keep the secrets, secret.

  5. Wales grew up in a modest section of Hoffman Estates; and worked as a security officer at Harper College in Palatine for three years before he became a real police officer in Lake in the Hills. His credentials and intellect are at best average; it’s interesting that he had the connections he had starting in the 80’s – just being a step above a mall cop for Harper, and a Chief of Police of a town with less than 5000 people. What did he have to do or witness to get that much sway?

  6. Keep paying for the pensions taxpayers.

    The Chicago FED has a great idea to solve the Illinois pension mess.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-12/audible-gasp-was-heard-when-chicago-fed-unveiled-its-solution-pension-problem

    Raise property taxes and extra 1% per year for 30 years!

    “How Should the State of Illinois Pay for its Unfunded Pension Liability? The Case for a Statewide Residential Property Tax.”
    http://midwest.chicagofedblogs.org/?p=3096
    The State of Illinois has a very large unfunded pension liability and will likely have to pay much of it off by raising taxes. The Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability estimated the state’s unfunded liability at $129.1 billion in mid-2017,[1] which was about 19% of state personal income.[2] Benefits to public employees are protected under the Illinois Constitution, and a recent attempt to reduce the unfunded liability by reducing retirees’ benefits was struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court.[3] So, assuming that the state can’t reduce its current pension obligations and that it wants to maintain its current level of services, Illinois residents are going to have to pay higher taxes. What’s the best way to do it?

    Because the debt is so large, it’s unrealistic to think that new taxes (such as a tax on legalized marijuana or financial transactions) or increases that affect only a narrow segment of the population will be enough.

    Illinois will have to find additional revenues from already existing tax bases, either by increasing rates, expanding the definition of what is taxable, or a combination of the two.[4] Illinois state and local governments have three primary tax revenue sources—income, sales, and property—and each presents a unique set of tradeoffs in terms of how it affects the economy and who pays it.

    In our view, Illinois’s best option is to impose a statewide residential property tax that expires when its unfunded pension liability is paid off. In our baseline scenario, we estimate that the tax rate required to pay off the pension debt over 30 years would be about 1%. This means that homeowners with homes worth $250,000 would pay an additional $2,500 per year in property taxes, those with homes worth $500,000 would pay an additional $5,000, and those with homes worth $1 million would pay an additional $10,000.

    Perhaps the best counterargument to adding a statewide property tax is that Illinois homeowners already pay higher local property taxes compared to the national average.[5] But remember that Illinois residents will be paying higher taxes one way or another. Would you rather pay your higher taxes through a higher sales, income, or property tax? At the very least, higher property taxes should be part of the solution, perhaps in addition to the solutions proposed by the Civic Federation.

    There are several good reasons to pay off Illinois’s pension debt through a statewide residential property tax:

    Fairness: Illinois residents who have benefited most from the past services of governmental employees are more likely to be homeowners, so it seems reasonable that they should pay a larger share of the costs.
    Efficiency: Standard economic theory predicts that home values go down in response to new property taxes (that is, they are “capitalized” into home values). Current homeowners would not be happy about this, but it would be a good result for the Illinois economy. That’s because the new taxes wouldn’t affect people thinking of moving to Illinois. While they would have to pay higher property taxes, that would be offset by not having to pay as much for their new homes. In addition, current homeowners would not be able to avoid the new tax by selling their homes and moving because home prices should reflect the new tax burden quickly. (We included this “tax penalty” effect in our calculations below.)
    Transparency: The payment amounts and duration of the tax would be known in advance.
    Certainty: The property tax would be dedicated solely to paying for the state’s unfunded pension liability.
    Equity: Wealthier people would pay more. The plan could also be modified so that the tax rate is graduated rather than flat (for example, by exempting the first $50,000 of home value or exempting households with incomes below a certain threshold).
    Do Illinois homeowners have the ability to pay these larger tax bills? Our calculations suggest that, even under the best-case scenario, the additional tax bill is quite high, and some households would certainly struggle to pay it. But given the choice between paying off the debt via higher income, sales, or property taxes, we maintain that the property tax is the best of three painful options.

    A model of the property tax rate required to pay the pension debt

    We calculated what the fixed statewide residential property tax rate would have to be in order to pay off the pension debt in 40 or fewer years.

    First we must understand how the unfunded liability is calculated and how it changes over time. The unfunded liability is the discounted present value of all future payments made to pensioners and it’s calculated using a discount rate equal to the expected return on the assets in the pension system’s portfolio. This means that the higher the expected return, the lower the value of the unfunded liability. It also means that if the unfunded liability is not paid down, it grows every year at the pension system’s expected rate of return. For our scenarios, we assume that going forward, the state of Illinois fully pays the new normal costs of the pension system from other funding sources, so that the value of the unfunded liability is a function solely of the pension system’s expected returns and payments made to reduce the liability. Equation (1) in figure 1 shows that the liability at time is the liability from the previous year times the pension fund’s expected rate of return, less any payments made to reduce the liability.

    Next we must calculate what the payment should be in each year. To do this, we allowed the size of the payment to change over time, while holding the tax rate constant. As shown in equation (2) of figure 1, the payment is the fixed tax rate times the size of the tax base at time , which in our case is the total market value of all residential property in Illinois.

    While the tax rate is fixed, the value of the tax base can change over time, for two reasons: 1) home values (adjusted for inflation) tend to rise over time; and 2) property taxes reduce home values. Equation (3) of figure 1 shows that we assume a constant growth rate of home values in Illinois and that we apply a property tax penalty to the value of the base. The penalty has a complex formula (shown in equation (4)) that is a function of the tax rate and the real interest rate and represents the discounted present value of the future property tax liabilities.[6] The penalty is largest when the property tax is first implemented and declines as the end of the property tax gets closer.

    To derive the required tax rate, we must make assumptions about each of the parameters in our model. And since we are forecasting many years into the future, there is substantial uncertainty about what these parameters should be. For example, we do not know whether the expected return assumed by the pension funds is right or what the growth rate of the property tax base will be. To account for the uncertainty, we calculate rates for three scenarios—baseline, low, and high. In these scenarios, we vary two of the parameters: the number of years it takes to pay off the pension debt and the secular growth rate of the tax base.

    Figure 2 shows the assumptions for the parameters in our model and the rates that result from our baseline, low, and high rate scenarios. In the baseline scenario, the unfunded liability is paid off over 30 years, and we assume that property values grow at an inflation-adjusted rate of 1% per year, which is close to the average growth rate of property values in Illinois since 1990. In the low rate scenario, we assume property values grow at 2% and allow for the unfunded liability to be paid off over 40 years. And in the high rate scenario, we assume no secular growth in real property values and that the liability must be paid off in 20 years. The resulting tax rates required to pay off the liability are 1.04% (baseline), 0.77% (low), and 1.45% (high). See the appendix for more details on how the tax base, payments, and unpaid liability evolve over time under the three scenarios.

  7. To recap:

    “New taxes wouldn’t affect people thinking of moving to Illinois. While they would have to pay higher property taxes, that would be offset by not having to pay as much for their new homes. In addition, current homeowners would not be able to avoid the new tax by selling their homes and moving because home prices should reflect the new tax burden quickly.”

    In other words, just confiscate wealth from current owners because they will pay, whether they stay or not, through an immediate reduction in home value.

    This proposed tax would only address the five state pensions. What about the other 650-plus pensions in Illinois, particularly those for overlapping jurisdictions in Chicago which are grossly underfunded? The Fed was asked that at last month’s seminar and they, without explanation, said they didn’t bother to cover that.

    I’ve earlier met Rick Mattoon, one of the Chicago Fed authors of the proposal. He’s a smart, likeable guy who I thought had lots of interesting information. For the life of me, however, I can’t understand how he would put his name on this proposal.

    Property can’t leave, so seize it. That’s the basic idea.

  8. All government workers – police, firemen, teachers, school administrators, etc – must be moved to 401 type plans.

  9. Wales was a stooge, from Day One, yet he was a veritable virtuoso in one respect: he played the taxpayers like a world class violinist.

    He played plaintive airs while the taxpayers wept .

    From his FB bragging: May he choke on his ‘delicious and quite succulent Scampi’ served up at ‘Genoa’s five-star Trattoria dell’Acciughetta’ … apparently, Wales was on a recent Mediterranean Cruise which put in at Genoa (Italy, not Wisc.). It was unclear if his avian friend accompanied him, but if it did, I wouyldn’t really mind if some parakeet droppings mixed into his dessert struffoli.

  10. This encapsulates what’s wrong with Illinois.

    Low life gov’t officials are rewarded for utter corruption.

    Township officials, however, are the worst. They don’t even pretend to be doinbg anything.

  11. Whose creepier:

    A. Convicted teen rapist, ex-Deputy Chief Bokowski

    B. Suicide, Al Jourdan minion and corrupt Metra oficial, Phil Pagano http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-09-04/news/ct-met-pagano-tapes-20100904_1_metra-phil-pagano-suicide-note

    C. Convicted pederast McHenry County Deputy Sheriff Gregory Pyle

    D. Nicky Provenzano, ex-County Board Member

    E. The late Al Jourdan, wirepuller and Democrat-turned-Republican kingpin

    F. Bob Miller, of Amazon.com and Disney World spending sprees and legendary ‘King of the Nepotists’

    G. Kimberly ‘sticky-fingers’ Zinke

  12. Dinah, Why pick on Wales?

    He’s just one of thousands.

    Are you some kind of obsessive Ahab, chasing after a monstrous whale with a leviathan of a pension you paid?

    Here’s some advice: learn proper grammar and spelling; stay off blogs for awhile

  13. Why pick on ANY of the pensioners?

    If we can pick on them, surely we can pick on every taxpayer who claims the homeowner’s exemption, standard exemptions for dependents, etc.

    Why you might ask?

    Simply because that is what the law permits!

    With rare exception, most of the teachers, municipal workers, etc had no direct input into the pension program (other that paying whatever share of their salary the law called for).

    Just like you, the taxpayer, had no direct input in setting the amount of homeowner’s exemption, your exemption for dependents, etc.

    Rather than attack the symptom or result (the pensioners), attack the law and the lawmakers who passed those laws.

    They did it for a purpose and that purpose, in many cases, was simply to insure THEIR place at the public trough would continue.

    If Wales, Bokowski, Nygren or any other pensioner you care to name violated state laws to obtain those pensions, I’ll be the first one to go out and demand their prosecution or, better yet, fire up a mob and grab the torches and pitchforks!

    OTOH, if they merely took advantage of the law (and until recently there were very few impediments to earning and collecting multiple pensions under the law), then I suggest you back off and just shut the. . . up!

  14. @BethA.

    I’ll race you to the door.

    Counting the days until I can view “Land of Stinkin'” in my rear view mirror.

    We wouldn’t be in the state we’re in were it not for the Sheeple allowing the politicians to play games, promise the world and then fail, dismally, to live up to the obligations they created.

    Politicians created the laws providing for these pensions and also the method of funding them.

    Politicians then turned around and violated the law by NOT funding the pensions as promised, increasing them to whore themselves to the unions, etc. and the cry is out to take the pensions away from the workers who earned them?

    How about we start by seeing how many times the legislators have cut THEIR salaries and benefits in the past two or three decades?

    How about those responsible be HELD accountable?

  15. It would be useful if we could get quick facts like this published regularly for Lake in the Hills so residents could easily see what the pension system actually costs (like on the Lake in the Hills website Home page – let’s be transparent).

    The following is true about Arlington Heights and Addison:

    Arlington Heights Police Pension Fund

    Taxpayers contributed 76.4 percent of the $5,888,538 the Arlington Heights Police Fund brought in last year, or $3.24 for every $1 from pension members, according to a North Cook News analysis of the latest data reported to the Illinois Department of Insurance Pension Division.

    In all, Arlington Heights contributed $4,500,000 to the fund, which saw a $691,781 increase in revenue over 2015. Members contributed $1,388,538, or 23.6 percent, in 2016.

    Addison Firefighters Pension Fund

    Taxpayers contributed 88.8 percent of the $2,221,285 the Addison Firefighters Pension Fund brought in last year, or $4.35 for every $1 from pension members, according to a DuPage Policy Journal analysis of the latest data reported to the Illinois Department of Insurance Pension Division.

    In all, Addison contributed $1,971,893 to the fund, which saw a $158,764 increase in revenue over 2015. Members contributed $452,947, or 20.4 percent, in 2016.

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