Increasing revenue, not cutting services and promised benefits. An idea so crazy it just might work. « Fred Klonsky

Increasing revenue, not cutting services and promised benefits. An idea so crazy it just might work. « Fred Klonsky:

Increasing revenue, not cutting services and promised benefits. An idea so crazy it just might work.

by Fred Klonsky

As the Illinois General Assembly starts a new session, the level of frustration among my retired teacher friends increases.
As much as those in the corporate Illinois Policy Institute and the Civic Committee want to paint the state’s public pensioners as greedy and fat (Hey. I’m working out four days a week), it just ain’t so.
But to many of my colleagues it seems as if the train is unstoppable and the politicians will pass a COLA cut. It will go to the courts, of course. And even though we think and hope the courts will find that a cut to COLA or other benefits violates the pension protection clause of the Illinois Constitution, who can be sure?
In the meantime the Teacher Retirement System has already sent an email to all TRS members informing us that if the General Assembly passes a pension bomb that impacts our COLA, our benefits will be frozen until the