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Ill. Senate prez: Local districts should cover teacher pensions

BY KURT ERICKSON
The Southern Springfield Bureau

SPRINGFIELD - Local school districts could get hit with a multi-million dollar bill under a pension cost-shifting plan being floated by a top state Democrat.

Senate President John Cullerton is proposing that school districts covering the cost of teacher pensions. Those costs - estimated at about $700 million - are now covered by the state.

The Chicago Democrat is exploring the concept as an alternative to a Republican push to reduce pension benefits for teachers and other state employees, which he believes is unconstitutional.

"When school districts in the suburbs and downstate negotiate contracts and salaries, they don't have to worry about the pensions because they, as the employers, contribute almost nothing to the pension funds," Cullerton said in a statement. "I think we need to look at changing that."

As of Thursday, no legislation outlining the switch had been filed. But, Jeff Holmes, superintendent of the Clinton school district, echoed what other administrators were saying about the idea.

"I just don't know how we would absorb that," Holmes said Thursday. "I don't know where they think we'd get that kind of money."

School officials say the shift would result in schools having to find a new source of revenue, whether by raising local property taxes or other means.

"They're going to cut programs. They are going to lay off teachers," said Ben Schwarm, associate executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards.

Cullerton suggests downstate districts follow a model similar to Chicago, which pays into its teacher pension program.

School districts would pay for current teacher pensions, while the state would continue paying down the debt that has accumulated through years of underfunding by the state.

Although the amount varies by school district, downstate school districts pay less than one percent toward teacher pensions, while the employees pay about 9.4 percent of their salaries to pension costs.

School administrators were surprised by the proposal, which comes just a month after lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn raised income taxes by 67 percent.

"I'm not saying we shouldn't share the pain, but if the state had made the proper payments over the years, we wouldn't be in this position," Silvis Superintendent Ray Bergles said.

"They are trying to bail themselves out by making school districts and municipalities bear the brunt of this," Bergles said. "It worries me. That just doesn't seem right."

Rank-and-file lawmakers say there is likely to be strong opposition to the idea in the General Assembly.