The in box. Teachers respond to ABC pension lies.
Among the responses I received responding to ABC’s lies about teachers not paying into our retirement system:
Hey Fred -
This is what I wrote to abc7 “news” yesterday:
Your story titled “Intelligence Report: Most Illinois teachers pay little or nothing toward retirement accounts” includes false information. All Illinois teachers in the TRS system pay 9.4% of their salary toward TRS retirement. Some districts negotiate some of this expense along with their compensation package just as health insurance costs might be bargained. The ISBE website states “Salaries include tax-sheltered retirement contribution paid or deposited by the district on behalf of the teachers to the Teachers’ Retirement System.” The districts collect the money out of teacher paychecks and send it in to the state.
Just as any employer pays to the government half of their employee social security costs, teachers in the State of Illinois expect their employer, the state, to pay their agreed upon amount. You may want to check into the history of TRS and how the state begged off of social security back in the 40′s so they could collect the money themselves. The savings to the state by not paying into SS has been huge. They never would have been able to borrow from SS like they ha