Prairie Grove School
Prairie Grove Grade s School District 46 recently came to a new agreement with its teacher’s union on a new two-year contract through August 2020.
The new agreement is posted on its web site.
The old agreement has been removed from their site preventing one from making any comparisons.
Some of the highlights are as follows:
- Raises for the next two years are a blend of CPI with a floor of 2.5% and a ceiling of 3.5%.
- It does not appear to make any effort to mitigate the district’s exposure to Teachers Retirement System retirement penalties for those employees that may receive an increase of greater than the new 3.0% cap.
- The district pays 100% of the employee’s retirement contribution of 9% to TRS.
- Every teacher will receive a onetime stipend payment of $800 at the end of the 19/20 school years.
- The stipend payment will be considered creditable earnings subject to the TRS contribution rate of 9% and will result in piercing the 3% cap for retirement-eligible employees and triggering exposure to significant employer TRS penalties.
- The district will pay 100% of the Employee Only premium rate for health insurance, plus a portion of any spousal and/or dependent health insurance.
- The district will pay a Retirement Bonus up to a maximum of $17,500 based on years of service on a post-employment basis (therefore, it will not increase their pensions).
Seems generous to me, but maybe the administration is trying to compensate their teachers for the Roskam/Hultgren tax law that favored those much richer than teachers. Using data for Illinois from the conservative Tax Foundation analysis posted on Randy Hultgren’s website ( http://bit.ly/2nLoKOM ), here are the average percentages by which taxes are reduced by income level:
• Less than $25,000…………………0.5%
• $25,000-$200,000…………….……2.5%
• Greater than $200,000….…….3.7%
Actually, the tax cut is even more unfair to teachers and other middle-income voters than shown above. After 2026, households earning over $1 million scoop up 82% of ALL tax savings; the middle-class gets zip and the working-class pays more http://bit.ly/XX2027.
Although unrelated to this post, I am happy to learn that Cal Skinner has an undergrad degree in economics from a first-rate school, and a masters degree in public administration from an even better school. So while we may often disagree on policy issues, I know that any debate will be intellectually rigorous. (BTW, I have an MBA in finance and industrial relations, and a PhD in Business and Applied Economics, from the Wharton School.)
And I owe it all to my teachers at the County Youth Cottectional Center.
I stand on the shoulders of educational giants like Metal Shop Teacher, Pug ‘Two Fingers’ Cutcovich.
Funny about what PT is saying because what was the excuse for being generous over the Obama administration?
100% of employee health insurance, 100% of TRS, $800 Stipend, and a blend of CPI which not sure what that all entails, Retirement bonus of up to $17,500.
This is nothing short of stealing from the taxpayers!!
The school board obviously doesn’t represent the taxpayers!
Won’t matter anyway because when this state goes belly up the Teacher’s Pensions will be a fraction of what it is today!
Numbers can always be presented to fit a narrative.
Assuming PT is talking about married filing jointly, the 10% tax bracket up to $19,050 didn’t change. Including the 10% bracket with up to $25,000 skews the percentage since $25,000 should be included with the $19,051 to $77,400 bracket. This bracket (19 to 77) decreased from 15% to 12% which equates to a 20% drop. Seems to me this bracket did very well!!
The $77,401 to $165,000 dropped 3%, from 25% to 22%. On a percentage basis, that is a 12% drop in the rate paid. Again, this bracket seems to have done very well.
From $165,000 to $400,000 dropped an average of 4%. Again when you compare the decrease to the overall percentage rate paid (28% down to 24%) that is a 14% decrease in the rate paid. Not bad!
Those in the $400,001 to $600,000 did not receive any decrease and in some instances may pay slightly more.
Above $600,001 the rate dropped from 39.6% to 37%. This equates to a 6.5% decrease in the rate paid. This is half the “discount” every other bracket (except the 400 to 600) received.
Since I don’t include those making over $400k in the middle class bracket, I would say anyone under that amount did fairly well by averaging a 12 to 20 percentage reduction in their tax rate.
Considering, the top bracket pays 1.5 to 3 times the percentage rate of the other brackets and only received a 6.5% discount off the rate paid, it seems hard to consider this a tax cut that favored the rich.
The narrative presented by PT is meant to encourage jealousy and discontent by leading those in lower tax brackets to believe the rich received a larger tax cut. Creating divisiveness does nothing to fix the broken system.
https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/personal-finance/how-tax-reform-impacts-your-tax-bracket-and-rate/
BTW, I have a Bachelor’s degree in gun collecting, a Master’s degree in cat grooming, a PhD in political fundraising freeloading, another PhD in useless political signage preservation, and, last but not least, I am currently working in my most important PhD of all; in Big Government Consolidation and Unnecessary Spending Elimination from the virtual cyber-Sunshine University, a spin-off of chump university. Stay tuned…80 days…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock, oinc, oinc, meow, meow, meeeeeoooooowwwwwwwww…
The usual bs from useful idiots, left wingers about taxes. The facts are that those in the bottom 50 percent adjusted gross income (AGI) in the U.S. pay less than 3 percent of all federal income taxes collected. It is the top 1 percent, top 5 percent, top 10 percent of income earners in the U.S. who pay a huge amount of federal taxes collected. The poor, the lower middle income classes ought to be beholden to the higher income citizens who fund this US Government including the military expense that allows them to live here in the land of the free. If you are a no income person living off government aid, or a low income or lower middle income earner, thank those of higher incomes that provide for the operations of the US government and your freedom.
Cal. What is this nonsense that from time to time I have to prove that I am not a robot? Can you get better software for us who “honestly” post on your blog to not have to PROVE we are not a robot?
Our political science and sociologist professor emeritus robot just taught us another lesson on how the poor must be grateful to the rich; nonsense you will only see coming from irresponsible right wing fanatics. This is the same fellow who said Saint Ronald Reagan never made a single reference to the diversity in our great United States. Stay tuned…80 days…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock, meow, meow, meeeeeoooooowwwwwwwww…
On other sites I have to prove I am not a robot every time I post.
Comrade Bred, you’re not a robot?
dentbla in person: https://i2.wp.com/www.legitscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/054.jpg?resize=333%2C321
And here’s AlabamaShake: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e0/78/51/e07851261835987938664cfa60353037.jpg
and Angel LLamaboy: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=%2fr0HWxTl&id=931BB60273AB8E28B71834602A6E6C29B7414382&thid=OIP._r0HWxTlmEdGHQiAD1vP2gHaLL&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fcdn.smosh.com%2fsites%2fdefault%2ffiles%2f2015%2f04%2fface-taturday-tribal.jpg&exph=755&expw=500&q=creepiest+tattooed+faces&simid=608048667335069159&selectedIndex=44&ajaxhist=0
Bet that’s an almost impossible job for you cal.
Ronald Reagan is probably the greatest President since Abraham Lincoln. He should be on Mount Rushmore.
Calypso… glad to you know that you’re obsessed enough with me to bring me up on a thread that I didn’t even comment.
But, your picture is close, but I have a much better beard.