Thanks to Illinois Review for pointing me to a list pensions of retired legislators published by the Chicago Tribune.
Democrat Art Berman, one of my contemplates, seems to have gamed the system the best. He’s getting $203,428 a year.
Republican Ed Petka, who served as Will County State’s Attorney before being elected to the legislature and as a judge afterward, pulled in $161,280.
Locally, former State Senator Jack Schaffer, who headed the financial regulation department under Governor Jim Edgar, gets $99,010.
Former State Senator Bill Peterson got $93,737 in the last year.
Yours truly is receiving $79,831 this fiscal year.
Ann Hughes’ annual pension is $21,768.
In another connection to McHenry County, former felon and State Rep. Roger Stanley, who went to jail seeming to admit to illegalities in a GOP primary campaign by an Establishment Republican against me, but was allowed to keep his state pension because his conviction was not linked to his public service, gets $73,721.
296 are on the list.
The General Assembly Retirement System web site says,
“At June 30, 2010, the accrued actuarial liability of the System was $251.8 million and the actuarial value of assets amounted to $66.2 million resulting in an unfunded actuarial liability of $185.6 million.”
There should be a law that no public pension shall be higher than 60% of the average of all the wages in the county (minus the public sector wages as those are quite bloated in many cases). Unfortunately politicians would never vote to reduce their benefits because they work against the taxpayers and not for them.
Most of those PENSIONS are more than most individuals that I know that work 40 – 50 hours a week (and will until they are 65-70).
Serve and Screw the taxpayers!