UPDATE: To Representative Elaine Nekritz and the other sponsors of HB6258. Glen Brown in two parts. Today: The law protects our pensions. « Fred Klonsky

To Representative Elaine Nekritz and the other sponsors of HB6258. Glen Brown in two parts. Today: The law protects our pensions. « Fred Klonsky:

John Dillon. Let’s hope our leaders don’t take the bait.

by Fred Klonsky

John Dillon:

Ellen Schultz warns in Retirement Heist, offering options is a ploy used in the private sector quite successfully.   “To enhance their chances at success, some companies started to use a strategy…creeping take-aways.“  This involves taking small steps – increase premiums a small amount, or perhaps start charging premiums in the future.  The retirees and unions ignore them.  Then, a few years later, the company cuts benefits in a big way, saying that the retiree’s prior lack 

To Representative Elaine Nekritz and the other sponsors of HB6258. Glen Brown in two parts. Today: The law protects our pensions.

by Fred Klonsky

By Glen Brown.

Defending and Protecting Public Employees’ Pensions against the Legislative Siege

Eric M. Madiar (2012), Chief Legal Counsel to Illinois Senate President John J. Cullerton and Parliamentarian of the Illinois Senate, states: “Pension benefits are under siege for two reasons: opportunity and political motives (p. 179)… [Legislators] frame [the] larger discussion of whether the law provides states with a means to achieve a particular objective: the unilateral reduction of public pension benefits to avoid painful tax increases, service cuts, or both (p. 180)…

“In Illinois, New York and Arizona… by joining a pension system, public employees obtain absolute 

Illinois ranks third in the US in cuts to mental health services. Chicago school kids are being hit hard.

by Fred Klonsky

In a report that is a shocking indictment of the way Illinois and Chicago treats its young people who face mental health issues, Sarah Karp reports in Catalyst:

Troubled children, in fact, are often caught between a mental health system that is stretched thin and a parent who has trouble making time to deal with the problem, says Ashley Fountaine, a project manager with the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Mental Illness. Hospitalization is not always a bad option, Fountaine adds, because it serves a purpose in extreme cases.

Sometimes the assessment teams get pressure from schools to hospitalize a