Corruption Is the System

The editors of the Chicago Tribune highlight the incredible corruption attendant to public pensions which, coupled with downright malfeasance on the part of elected officials, have put Illinois and the City of Chicago in the positions they’re in:

The Supreme Court continues to interpret the pension clause to the extreme.

The ruling upheld a controversial state law that allowed a lobbyist for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, David Piccioli, to become certified as a substitute teacher in December 2006 by working one day at a Springfield elementary school — and to buy pension credit for his 10 previous years working as a lobbyist. That sweet deal qualified him for a pension windfall from a teachers retirement fund that as of late 2018 carried an unfunded liability of more than $75 billion-with-a-B. Because he also draws a pension from a previous job as a House Democratic aide, Piccioli’s total pension income now rises to nearly $100,000. His pensionable income from the Teachers’ Retirement System is based off his salary from the IFT— another questionable pension loophole, which the Supreme Court upheld last year.

A pension bill signed by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2007 allowed Piccioli to retroactively count his years lobbying toward a teacher pension if he taught for one day in the public schools. He bought service credits for his years lobbying and began collecting a pension when he retired from the IFT in 2012.

This case showcases many of the defects of present law: “double-dipping”, i.e. collecting multiple public pensions, a law allowing people who are obviously not entitled to a public pensions to collect them, and the straitjacket in which Illinois’s constitutional guarantee of the enforceability of public pensions puts us. I could name a half dozen additional abuses in the present system.

For both mayoral candidates, Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle, even commonsensical reforms in public pensions were off the table. That’s particularly punitive for Chicago because, since Chicago teachers’ pensions are paid by the city while other Illinois teachers are paid by the state, we not only pay the pensions of Chicago teachers we pay the pensions of non-Chicago teachers as well. Under a just system what Chicagoans pay to the state for teacher retirement would be credited towards what we pay Chicago teachers.

There’s a “Cross of Gold” speech lurking here somewhere.