Woodstock School District Burdens Taxpayers With “Silent Mortgage”

More from Seneca Township resident Susan Handlesman:

SCHOOL CAPITAL DEBT IS NOT THE END OF DEBT OBLIGATIONS IN WOODSTOCK D200

ADD to the Capital debt of Woodstock D200 all the UNFUNDED PENSION LIABiLITY and OPEBs (Other Post-Employment Benefits) at D200.

Unfunded funded pension liability is a debt of all taxable property owners in Illinois one way or another, but the new school funding law shifted some of that burden to local sourced obligation.

What is NOT reported in a clear and transparent manner are OPEBs.
OPEBs are 100% ALWAYS a local obligation.

These are a HUGE obligation, growing annually, and some of these obligations are to pay for staff bennies incurred to pay for teaching OTHER SCHOOL DISTRICTS’ ENROLLMENT AT WOODSTOCK TAXPAYERS EXPENSE.

A prime example of this is Clay Academy.

Only about 15% of Clay enrollment is local D200 Woodstock area students, the rest–85%–are tuition students from other districts.

And they pay a discount to their actual costs.

Illinois law dictates that the school district providing the employment is obligated for the OPEBs in addition to capital costs for buildings.

Clay Academy costs taxpayers at least $200,000 annually to keep to Code, so Woodstock taxpayers are on the hook for that, plus for all the Clay Academy 55-year-old retirees forever, even though they would not have been employed had Woodstock D200 Board not taken on the role of providing discounted services to other districts and hiring a huge Clay Academy staff, and maintaining Clay building to Code at the expense of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year….

ALL these hundreds of thousands of dollars annually SOLELY at the expense and obligation of ONLY Woodstock D200 taxpayers: NOT EVEN STATE MONEY PAYS FOR THIS.

So whatever you think your home is worth, know that there is a “silent mortgage” on your home owing school debt of 6.25% of your total home value for old buildings built in 2007 to house TIF free-riders.

Some more percentage of your home value is encumbered with debt to pay more-than-Cadillac health insurance premiums and other benefits to 55-year-olds retired (or double-dipping) who were only hired in order to provide (85% of enrollment) free-riders from other school districts a discounted tuition to Clay Academy.

Some percentage of your home value is encumbered because in the end, the Illinois State Constitution guarantees these 3% COLA pensions to these 55-year-old retirees FOREVER, and if everyone flees then they just get title to get your real estate, I suppose.

Is this a good time to bring up 60-Minutes report Sunday night about genetic engineering elongating lifespans indefinitely?

Anyone care to calculate what the 125-year-old teachers who retired at age 55 will be billing Woodstock D200 for pensions and OPEBs?

Is is a talking point that maybe it is a moral obscenity to demand that teachers and government employees get free taxpayer-paid pensions and health insurance,,,,but doctors and nurses in Illinois who are obligated to care for them—elongate the 55-year-old teachers’ QALY all the way to, who knows, with Cadillac healthcare provision age 125 is more likely than docs-and-nurses lifespan projections—- is it a moral obscenity that docs and nurses in Illinois have to provide for their own pensions and health insurance at their own risk and expense…while the value of their Illinois homes drop and drop as a function of taxpayers’ teacher pension obligations?


Comments

Woodstock School District Burdens Taxpayers With “Silent Mortgage” — 4 Comments

  1. The unfunded liability of a single employer OPEB plan is a local responsibility.

    The unfunded liability of the state’s multi-employer TRIP / THIS plan is shared (“proportionate share”) between the state and local school district.

    Both single and multi-employer OPEB unfunded liabilities are present in Woodstock CUSD 200.

    TRIP / THIS is present in all school districts.

    The TRIP / THIS unfunded liability is much larger than the single employer Woodstock CUSD 200 unfunded liability.

    All public school districts in Illinois participate in TRIP / THIS.

    +++++++++++++++

    TRIP = Teachers Retirement Insurance Program.

    THIS = Teachers Health Insurance Security fund.

    THIS is administered by the State of Illinois Department of Central Management Services (CMS).

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    On school district CAFRs, the THIS liability allocated as a “proportionate share” between local and state.

    Not 100% local.

    The THIS liability is entirely unfunded per the TRIP actuarial valuation report.

    Given that, the THIS liability = the THIS unfunded liability.

    +++++++++++++

    Contributions to TRIP / THIS come from the school district, the state, employees, and retirees.

    The retirees pay a premium.

    +++++++++

    No attempt is being made to pay down the TRIP / THIS unfunded liability.

    In other words, no attempt is being made to pre-fund the benefits.

    So TRIP / THIS is being operated on a pay as you go basis.

    Pay as you go is not unprecedented in Illinois retirement plans.

    TRS operated mostly or entirely as “pay as you go” until the Thompson 7 year Ramp, which was followed by the Edgar 15 year Ramp.

    The ramps were non actuarial ramps to 40 year actuarial plans to 90% fund TRS.

    Both are ridiculously expensive ways to fund a pension plan that no actuary would recommend.

    Part of the Illinois Pension Ponzi Scheme.

    +++++++++++++

    One problem with pay as you go / underfunded OPEB & pensions is future taxpayers are required to cover benefits earned in the past.

    That’s a ponzi scheme.

    The programs are not self sustaining.

    If something negative happens in the future, there is not enough money in the funds to fund the benefits already earned.

    +++++++++++++

    Why do some politicians like ponzi schemes?

    Because they can divert money elsewhere.

    Why did some union leaders, elected by rank and file union members, and lobbyists, raise little fuss about such a practice?

    Because one of the destinations to diverted funding is salary and current benefit hikes.

    They could have their cake and eat it too.

    The ponzi schemes are said to be guaranteed in the Illinois State Constitution, so they were not concerned that someday there might be a lack of funding to pay benefits in full.

    And decades go by and eventually more citizens are leaving the state than arriving.

    Less taxpayers means remaining taxpayers pay more.

    The taxpayers are the customers.

    Once a customer leaves, its hard to get them back.

    ++++++++++

    One would think in the case of school districts, if enrollment drops, taxes should decrease.

    In Illinois that rarely happens.

    Many school districts in Illinois have declining enrollment and increasing costs.

  2. My joy of escaping the imploding Illinois financial black hole, is tempered with visions of those few good people like Mark and Susan, stretched into a human rope by it’s gravitational vortex.

  3. The proposed DSM diagnosis to the APA is ITM.

    Illinois Taxpayer Masochism.

  4. Repeat after me 100,000X. “Brian Sager is a good man.”

    Repeat the lie often enough and the weak-minded will obey.

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