McHenry County Blog

Jim Tobin’s National Taxpayers United of Illinois has revealed the top 50 pensions for the General Assembly Retirement Fund.

It doesn’t have many pensioners, but the legislative retirement fund has some big payouts.

Part of the reason is that statewide elected officials can opt in.

While he was in office, for instance, Governor Jim Thompson announced that he would be in the same pension fund that regular state employees paid into.  Right before leaving office that changed.  He transferred his pension credits to the GA Retirement System.

Indeed many of the largest pensions you see below are the result of an ex-legislator getting a well-paying job for a while and transferring in the pension credits in their new public pension fund back to the more lucrative legislative system.

Tobin’s press release follows:

TOP 50 GA PENSIONS REVEAL MILLION DOLLAR PAYOUTS AS TAX INCREASE LOOMS

CHICAGO–Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTUI), today released the latest pension study of pension researcher Bill Zettler: the Top Fifty pensions received by former members of the Illinois General Assembly.

“Governor Quinn and the lame duck General Assembly are desperate to increase tax revenues any way they can to ensure that these outrageous, lavish pensions are available to themselves when they retire.

“Under the current pension program, General Assembly members are guaranteed to be millionaires if they can collect for only eight to ten years.  Protecting this rite of passage has become their highest priority, despite the terrible financial situation in which most Illinoisans find themselves.

“Under the guise of securing the financial future of the Illinois general fund, Quinn and his conspirators are trying to push any tax increases that they can.”

“If Quinn can’t get HB 174 with the 67% income tax increase through the house, he will push to get a 33% income tax increase passed.

“At the same time, there are efforts to increase the gasoline tax by an unknown amount, the cigarette tax by $1 per pack, and a new 7-10% sales tax on 39 services.

“The primary objective is to pump 15 billion taxpayer dollars out of taxpayer pockets and into the pension and payroll funds of the robber barons that are bankrupting the great state of Illinois, not to secure the financial future as they would have us believe.”

“Do you recognize any of these pension millionaires? Figures are as of 10/1/2010.  A complete list can be viewed at www.ntui.org.
Mo. Pension         Yearly Pension         Total Pension Paid So Far
Arthur Berman                     $16,459               $197,503           $1,449,640
Judy Barr Topinka              $12,144                 $145,727            $402,229
Jim Edgar                           $10,910                 $130,925             $1,106,372
James R. Thompson           $10,601                 $127,215             $1,547,836
James “Pate” Philip             $10,551                 $126,615             $713,029
Dawn Clark Netsch             $10,143                 $121,720             $1,476,711
Walter Dudycz                     $7,661                 $91,937                $449,128

“Jim Edgar and James R. Thompson engineered the largest tax increases ever passed in Illinois. Arthur Berman was the author of the Berman Tax Increase Amendment. Dawn Clark Netsch never met a tax she didn’t like.”

“I urge members of the Illinois General Assembly to vote in the interest of the constituents they serve and not their own best interest.”

How do legislators manage to hike their pensions so much?

Some get a short-term position paying a lot more than they received in their last year as a state legislator. Former State Senator John Friedland, for example, was hired as a lobbyist by the Elgin Sanitary District for a couple of months as a hefty salary. That boosted his base salary.

Add three percent extra each year, which all on public pensions in Illinois receive and it mounts up over time.

Others like Terry Stezco lose an election and get a well-paying local governmental job. In his case, Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan hired him.

Others get appointed to head state departments. Chuck Hartke, for instance, was appointed Director of the Department of Agriculture.

All can transfer pension credits from the new pension system and their final salaries–upon which their pension is based–back into the General Assembly Retirement System.

Above is the final vote on James Meek's voucher bill to allow Chicago public school students in the worst and most crowded schools to obtain vouchers to attend the private schools their parents select. Click to enlarge. What you see below is a video of the electronic voting process from beginning to end. Note the switches, at least one, Rich Brauer voted "Yes," "No," "Yes," before ending up "No."

Senate Bill 2494 went down to a preliminary defeat Wednesday, twelve votes short of the 60 needed.

One of the missing votes was teacher union-supported Democrat State Rep. Jack Franks. No voting for anything involving school choice of something like a voucher for him.

Representatives Mike Tryon and Mark Beaubien, both of who represent parts of McHenry County along with Franks, voted in support of the bill to allow students in Chicago’s worst performing and most crowded schools to transfer out and get

Never seen a roll call?

Take a look at the votes going up on the board in the Illinois House:

Capitol Fax Blog reports the partisan breakdown:

• Republicans: 25-23-0
• Democrats: 23-47-2

The almost 50% of Republicans voting against giving the Chicago Public School System a semblance of competition where it is demonstrable failing is a residue of former Republican House Leader Lee Daniels’ recruiting of former educators to run for vacant state rep seats Downstate.

Look at the Republicans voting “No” and you’ll find the Republicans who will vote for a massive income tax hike.

There may be an opportunity for the sponsor to call the bill for a second vote. Those living in Rep. Franks’ district might want to contact him, if the disagree with his vote.

The bill was originally proposed by the Rev. and State Senator James Meeks.  To say he broke from the traditional Democratic Party position on the issue is an understatement.

Roll calls like this used to only be available to the sponsor, if the Speaker decided to provide the only copy created by the counting machine.  Now, anyone with a camera can “take the record” electronically.

How would you like to live in Marengo and have your grade school board members ask whether you would allow them to increase part of your tax bill by 3¾ times?

Forever.

That’s the way I read the language on tomorrow’s ballot.

“Shall the debt service extension base under the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law for Marengo-Union Elementary Consolidated School District Number 165, McHenry County, Illinois, for payment of principal and interest on limited bonds be increased from $180,983.80 to $680,983.80 for the 2010 levy year and all subsequent levy years?”

From $181,000 (to round off the numbers) to $681,000.

Pretty audacious, wouldn’t you say?

Asking for a 376% increase on a tax capped levy.

I’m pretty sure what the district is talking about is the measure I fought so hard to defeat in the mid-1990′s.

When the tax cap was passed under Governor Jim Edgar in 1992, I quickly read the bill. When I ran into Illinois Revenue Director Doug Whitley, I asked him if he let the park districts off the hook. I was talking about allowing park districts to continue borrowing money without a referendum.

“They think I did, but I didn’t,” he told me as he walked quickly into the Republican House office complex.

At the behest mainly of park districts, Republican Speaker Lee Daniels and Senate President Pate Philip sponsored a bill to give any local tax district the ability to borrow forever the amount of debt they had issued without a referendum.

(I asked Daniels why he was so bent on repealing this taxpayer protection. “Because park district employees walk precincts for our campaigns,” was pretty much his answer, if not his exact words.)

With my aversion to non-referendum debt, stimulated by our paying about $500 a year extra for the better part of a decade to pay off the golf course bought by our Lakewood village board right before the tax cap went into effect, you can imagine how strongly I felt and feel about the such borrowing without asking the voters first.

So, the grade school in Marengo had $180,983.80 in non-referendum loans outstanding when the revision of the original tax cap legislation went into effect.

That amount has acted as the upper limit on a credit card does. It matters not that it never paid off. The school district has a revolving credit line that the taxpayers have to dig into their pockets to pay the interest.

I am confident that the school board took every dime it could under the law. Virtually every tax district does. (That’s why local governments should be called “tax” districts.)

But, as I read this referendum question, the board wants to be able to borrow almost four times as much…indefinitely.

Passage of this one referendum will allow that.

You don’t have to ask how I would vote if I lived in Marengo or Union.

= = = = =
Here’s some detail I found about the law on page 61 of this publication:

“Non-referendum bonds (Working Cash, Funding, Fire Prevention and Safety, Tort Judgment, and Insurance Reserve Bonds) may be issued as “limited bonds.” The limited amount of the tax that can be extended to make principal and interest payments on such bonds is determined by each district’s debt service extension base (DSEB). For school districts in Cook and the collar counties, the DSEB is the 1994 levy-year extension (extended in 1995) to make principal and interest payments on nonreferendum bonds. For all other school districts, the DSEB is the amount of taxes for the year in which the referendum is held which make the district subject to the law (extended, collected and distributed in the following year).”

Year after year, when the choice came down to pump more money into State Aid to Education or pay pay the state’s share of pension payments, teacher unions took the money and ran.

As far back as the 1970′s, current teacher raises trumped paying for future pensions time and time again.

That’s what hit me while I was reading today’s Chicago Sun-Times editorial entitled,

Teacher union leaders knew that as long as the Illinois Constitution is interpreted by the Illinois Supreme Court–who are in a public pension system just like they and I are–pensions promised would be pensions paid, even before future State Aid to Education.

How disingenuous it is for those in the know (and I’m not counting the Sun-Times editorial writers as necessarily being among such folks) to argue

“That liability, it’s important to note, cannot be blamed on excessively generous pension benefits.

“Instead, it is largely reflects failures year after year by the sate to pay its fair share.”

If you are or were a legislator beholding to the Illinois Education Association or the Illinois Federation of Teachers (and way too many Republicans recruited by Lee Daniels were and are) would you chose to come down on the side of

• the teachers lobbying you and living in your district for higher wages or
• retired teachers who may or may not live in your district, when you know future legislators will have to come up with the pension money, not you?

= = = = =
These striking teachers are from Huntley School District 158. Last year they “settled” for 5.25%, with less in salary in future years, but the difference going to lessen their share of the current teacher pension burden.

I was more than fed up with the way the McHenry County Conservation District had borrowed $39 million without asking for permission at the ballot box after Lee Daniels and Pate Philip passed the tax hiking bill numbered Senate Bill 368.

That was the bill that gave tax districts that had behaved badly by taking out loans prior to the Tax Cap’s going into effect without asking for voter approval to continuing doing so forever.

It could be described as a revolving credit card which we taxpayers will never see paid off.

So, when MCCD trustees actually decided to put a referendum on the ballot the year after I got kicked out of office, why was I disturbed?

I went down into the catacombs, which my wife will have put in a dumpster when I die, and found a Daily Herald article from August 29, 1997. It which answers the question in one sentence.

Reporter Arthur Kane was writing a story about the Algonquin Township Board’s putting an advisory referendum on the ballot asking whether voters wanted the Conservation District to buy more land in Algonquin Township.

MCCD at the time was trying to condemn what was then being called Gentry Ridge, but which most long-timers will remember as the ski resort owned by Henry Carroll called Fox Trails. I knew the property pretty well because my good high school friend Tom Carroll lived there before his father built the resort.

In any event, here’s the sentence from the story:

“(MCCD Executive Director Craig) Hubert said traditionally the district did not buy land in Algonquin Township because it” was more expensive.”

Any dim bat could tell you that land in the Southeastern-most township in McHenry County would be the most expensive. It’s closest to Chicago.

But, that was and is no reason to spend virtually nothing in the most populated township in McHenry County.

Cary has made out pretty good with

• the purchased 168 acre Fox Trails/Gentry Ridge property, now called Fox Bluff Conservation Area
• the donated 220 acres in the Fel-Pro RRR Conservation Area south of Rawson Bridge Road near the Fox River
• the 440-acre Hickory Grove Conservation Area/Lyons’ Prairie and Marsh,
• the donated 338-acre Hollows, an old gravel pit between Crystal Lake and Cary
• the 840-acre Silver Creek Conservation Area on the Fox River northwest of Fel-Pro in Nunda Township

The rest of the township can boast of a bike path and the Lake in the Hills Fen, which will finally be accessible from Crystal Lake behind CVS Pharmacy.

So, if you get the feeling that I think the money from my immediate area has been spent elsewhere, you would be correct. Virtually none of it was being spent where most of the people in my state rep district lived, which was south of Crystal Lake Avenue in Algonquin and Grafton Townships.

Hence, this re-entry into the political arena in 2001:

Click to enlarge any image.

Without early voting totals folded into the results, Barack Obama was leading John McCain by one percentage point.

After adding those early votes in, Obama’s lead leaped to 5.3 percentage points: 51.75% to 46.45%.

House Speaker Mike Madigan will have some explaining to do for his refusal to reinstate the straight party voting that Republican House Speaker Lee Daniels killed the ability to punch one hole and vote for every on the ticket.

Had straight party voting been in effect, there might have been more victories down the ticket.

As it stands now—with the Democratic Party-dominated early voting included in the totals—Democrats have picked up two county board seats.

Lake in the Hills village trustee Paula Yensen beat McHenry County Board Vice Chairman John Jung.

McHenry County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Bergan Schmidt turned out Nick Provenzano.

Both men were strongly supported by Pro-Life forces in McHenry County.

64th state representative Democratic Party candidate Robert Kaempfe got more Democratic primary votes than Mike Tryon received in the Republican primary last spring.

But Kaempfe could not convert that seeming advantage to victory. Instead the spread was almost 23 percentage points.

Democratic Party candidate for coroner, the only countywide Democrat who actually had his name on the ballot, also got more Democratic Party primary votes than incumbent Republican Marlene Lantz.

That did not convert to a close fall race.

Lantz got over 60% of the vote.

I am sure local Democrats will wonder what would have happened had there been straight party voting.

The countywide candidate who came closest to losing was McHenry County Auditor Pam Palmer.

She got almost 58% of the vote.

55% is considered a landslide.

Running best was McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi. He almost got 62% of the vote in his re-election campaign. The possibility that the hotly contested primary election with Dan Regna would hurt his re-election chances against former Democratic Party Chair Tom Cynor did not materialize.

Without early voting totals folded into the results, Barack Obama was leading John McCain by one percentage point.

After adding those early votes in, Obama’s lead leaped to 5.3 percentage points: 51.75% to 46.45%.

House Speaker Mike Madigan will have some explaining to do for his refusal to reinstate the straight party voting that Republican House Speaker Lee Daniels killed the ability to punch one hole and vote for every on the ticket.

Had straight party voting been in effect, there might have been more victories down the ticket.

As it stands now—with the Democratic Party-dominated early voting included in the totals—Democrats have picked up two county board seats.

Lake in the Hills village trustee Paula Yensen beat McHenry County Board Vice Chairman John Jung.

McHenry County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Bergan Schmidt turned out Nick Provenzano.

Both men were strongly supported by Pro-Life forces in McHenry County.

64th state representative Democratic Party candidate Robert Kaempfe got more Democratic primary votes than Mike Tryon received in the Republican primary last spring.

But Kaempfe could not convert that seeming advantage to victory. Instead the spread was almost 23 percentage points.

Democratic Party candidate for coroner, the only countywide Democrat who actually had his name on the ballot, also got more Democratic Party primary votes than incumbent Republican Marlene Lantz.

That did not convert to a close fall race.

Lantz got over 60% of the vote.

I am sure local Democrats will wonder what would have happened had there been straight party voting.

The countywide candidate who came closest to losing was McHenry County Auditor Pam Palmer.

She got almost 58% of the vote.

55% is considered a landslide.

Running best was McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi. He almost got 62% of the vote in his re-election campaign. The possibility that the hotly contested primary election with Dan Regna would hurt his re-election chances against former Democratic Party Chair Tom Cynor did not materialize.

The Associated Press highlighted the well-funded Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund yesterday.

You know why it has enough resources to pay the pensions local government employees have earned?

One reason is that forty-some years ago, it required participating governments like McHenry County to sign an agreement to agree over the next forty-year period to put enough money into the IMRF to enable the pension fund to have enough money to, as they say, “fully fund” the pensions of its participants.

It happened in the late 1960′s when I was McHenry County Treasurer, not that I had anything to do with the agreement, except signing the checks.

So, the IMRF has 100% of the money it needs to pay the obligations that have been incurred.

The five state pensions are funded at 63%.

Guess who gets to make up the difference.

You’ve got it.

It’s Illinois taxpayers.

And, lest I seem ungrateful, thank you for paying the taxes to pay my pension.

Recently, the Chicago Sun-Times pointed out that former State Senator Carol Ronan had used a loophole in the legislative pension plan to increase her pension by $38,000 a year for eight weeks work for Governor Rod Blagojevich at the annual salary rate of $102,000.

Ronan wasn’t the first to do that.

I remember that after State Senator John Friedland (R-Elgin) he took a lobbyist job with the Elgin Sanitary District for a couple of months at about the same salary and similarly jumped his pension.

Legislators appointed sanitary district trustees, myself among them during the 1970′s. We who were not from Elgin deferred to the recommendations made by Friedland, however. So, the people Friedland appointed gave him the job.

Earlier in his career, Friedland earned a figurative “Badge of Honor” for standing up to Governor Richard Ogilvie. Friedland refused to vote for the income tax Ogilvie proposed. Ogivie decided to make an example of Friedland, but, fortunately, for the concept of separation of powers, failed.

Blagojevich is merely following in the foot steps of former Secretary of State George Ryan, who allowed former Republican State Rep. Roger Stanley (R-Streamwood) a little work job that similarly boosted his pension.

Stanley admitted to various felonies and served time in federal prison. Among his admitted misdeeds was a postal fraud charge in which Stanley fronted for Lee Daniels’ House Republican Campaign Fund and created a fake organization that mailed out the hit piece reprinting the then-Northwest Herald’s Amy Mack’s reporting of my ex-wife Robin Meridith Geist’s false divorce court charges.

And, speaking of hiking legislative pensions, in the summer of 1999, Daniels chief of staff Mike Tristano asked me at Daniels’ DuPage County office if I would like to be assistant Auditor General. The salary would have been over $100,000, with a massive pension boost to follow.

In return for the appointment I would have to agree not to run in 2000.

I told Tristano if the offer were to be Auditor General, I would think about it, but not the assistant’s job.

I was later told that Daniels got to decide who filled that job in the deal to make Bill Holland Auditor General. I was told Daniels even put his former travel agent in the post. When she found out she would have to go to work, she decided she didn’t want the job, the story went.

After I lost the 2000 primary election to Rosemary Kurtz, another offer was made via Tristano. It was to be assistant director of the department where my former state legislative colleague Jack Schaffer had been director during Jim Edgar’s terms. The pay was about $96,000, with understood subsequent pension boost.

I decided to retire instead.

The Associated Press highlighted the well-funded Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund yesterday.

You know why it has enough resources to pay the pensions local government employees have earned?

One reason is that forty-some years ago, it required participating governments like McHenry County to sign an agreement to agree over the next forty-year period to put enough money into the IMRF to enable the pension fund to have enough money to, as they say, “fully fund” the pensions of its participants.

It happened in the late 1960′s when I was McHenry County Treasurer, not that I had anything to do with the agreement, except signing the checks.

So, the IMRF has 100% of the money it needs to pay the obligations that have been incurred.

The five state pensions are funded at 63%.

Guess who gets to make up the difference.

You’ve got it.

It’s Illinois taxpayers.

And, lest I seem ungrateful, thank you for paying the taxes to pay my pension.

Recently, the Chicago Sun-Times pointed out that former State Senator Carol Ronan had used a loophole in the legislative pension plan to increase her pension by $38,000 a year for eight weeks work for Governor Rod Blagojevich at the annual salary rate of $102,000.

Ronan wasn’t the first to do that.

I remember that after State Senator John Friedland (R-Elgin) he took a lobbyist job with the Elgin Sanitary District for a couple of months at about the same salary and similarly jumped his pension.

Legislators appointed sanitary district trustees, myself among them during the 1970′s. We who were not from Elgin deferred to the recommendations made by Friedland, however. So, the people Friedland appointed gave him the job.

Earlier in his career, Friedland earned a figurative “Badge of Honor” for standing up to Governor Richard Ogilvie. Friedland refused to vote for the income tax Ogilvie proposed. Ogivie decided to make an example of Friedland, but, fortunately, for the concept of separation of powers, failed.

Blagojevich is merely following in the foot steps of former Secretary of State George Ryan, who allowed former Republican State Rep. Roger Stanley (R-Streamwood) a little work job that similarly boosted his pension.

Stanley admitted to various felonies and served time in federal prison. Among his admitted misdeeds was a postal fraud charge in which Stanley fronted for Lee Daniels’ House Republican Campaign Fund and created a fake organization that mailed out the hit piece reprinting the then-Northwest Herald’s Amy Mack’s reporting of my ex-wife Robin Meridith Geist’s false divorce court charges.

And, speaking of hiking legislative pensions, in the summer of 1999, Daniels chief of staff Mike Tristano asked me at Daniels’ DuPage County office if I would like to be assistant Auditor General. The salary would have been over $100,000, with a massive pension boost to follow.

In return for the appointment I would have to agree not to run in 2000.

I told Tristano if the offer were to be Auditor General, I would think about it, but not the assistant’s job.

I was later told that Daniels got to decide who filled that job in the deal to make Bill Holland Auditor General. I was told Daniels even put his former travel agent in the post. When she found out she would have to go to work, she decided she didn’t want the job, the story went.

After I lost the 2000 primary election to Rosemary Kurtz, another offer was made via Tristano. It was to be assistant director of the department where my former state legislative colleague Jack Schaffer had been director during Jim Edgar’s terms. The pay was about $96,000, with understood subsequent pension boost.

I decided to retire instead.

Last week the Chicago Sun-Times ran a story about how a large proportion of truck drivers probably have sleep apnea. (Sorry, I can’t find it for a link.)

It’s a condition I have and, boy, can I relate to the problems outlined in the article.

Often the last day of session was a long one.

I’d get in the car and head north.

I’d keep wondering if I was going to make it home without having an accident.

I remember during what I called the “Death March,” when Lee Daniels was House Speaker, he would keep us in session well after midnight and, then, expect us to return for a 9 AM session.

For some reason, Daniels allowed the Democrats to talk and talk and talk. And it wasn’t just for five minutes. Inexplicably, he allowed (usually) Lou Lang to use other people’s time.

Give me about 9½ hours sleep and I resemble a human being the next day.

After getting less than 8 hours sleep a couple of nights in a row, I went into Chief of Staff Mike Tristano’s office and told him I was leaving at Midnight, that I was going to get 8 hours of sleep a night.

“You can’t do that,” Tristano said. “We need your vote.”

“Watch me,” I replied.

That was certainly a miserable session.