Guest post: Glen Brown on what some legislators really want to do to the teacher pension system.
Besides other egregious changes to the teachers’ pension, with the creation of a Second-Tier, teachers hired after January 2011 cannot receive their pension benefits until they are 67 years old; this is the highest retirement age in the nation.
Teachers were stunned last spring when Senate Bill 1946 passed in less than 12 hours. “It is estimated that [the Teachers’ Retirement System’s new] Tier-Two benefits will be 30 percent less than benefits for Tier-One teachers, if the final average salary and creditable service time for both are equal” (Illinois Education Association, IEA); moreover, teachers retiring with “10 years of service credits under [the] Tier Two [plan] would actually earn more benefits from Social Security” (IEA).
What could be the effects if Senate Bill 105 proposed by Senator Chris Lauzen, et al and HB 149 proposed by Representative Tom Cross, and others are also passed this spring? Even without discussing the third incongruous part of this “fire-breathing” Chimera, which also includes a Tier-Three Defined-Contribution option, presumably, many young teachers will not continue to work in
