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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

10-15-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:





A campaign rally in search of a candidate. 2,500 rally to take back Chicago.
Several thousand community activists from across Chicago rallied at the University of Illinois Chicago Forum Tuesday night. It was a boisterous political campaign rally aimed at Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his corporate backers. All that was missing was a candidate. When there is this kind of enthusiasm without a candidate, Rahm must certainly be worried that one will step up. Several state legislators


IEA President and Retired Chair speak out about Illinois retiree health care crisis.
  IEA President Cinda Klickna. IEA President Cinda Klickna and Retired Chair Janet Kilgus today issued a statement about the plans to change retiree health insurance in Illinois. Colleagues,   As you know, changes are planned for the state-backed insurance plans for SURS and TRS retirees.   IEA staff and leaders are working hard to get you the latest insurance information and we’r

I filed a FOIA request for the contract between Central Management Services and HMS. I wanted to know more about their demands for dependent eligibility confirmation.
A couple of weeks ago I started hearing from retirees about what they felt were intimidating demands and threats of an audit on those who had dependent coverage – a spouse, a partner by civil union, a child or guardian. Central Management Services, an agency that works for the governor and has oversight of the state’s health insurance programs, had hired HMS. HMS is based in Arlington, Texas. They


Reports Quinn met with unions to discuss pension solutions. Did the unions offer these common sense revenue solutions?
. WICS NewsChannel 20: It’s a $100 billion problem with no easy solution. Gov. Pat Quinn says the state’s pension crisis is still far from being solved–and the fall veto session is just around the corner. The group of lawmakers responsible for coming up with a pension reform solution is still apparently divided. Five Democrats are in favor of a plan that would save the state $138 billion over
Rauner makes it easy for unions to endorse the anti-union Quinn.
State retiree’s future looks dimmer than five Illinois legislators meeting over lunch. You can forgive us older folks living in Illinois if it feels like they’re piling on. There is the constant threat of what they call pension reform – cutting benefits while raising no new revenue. There are the crazy new requirements for proof of retiree health insurance eligibility. And the shift of Medicare a


No deal pension deal in Springfield. Yet.
“Whatever reform we do shouldn’t be solely on the backs of people who didn’t do anything wrong,” Sen. Toi Hutchison, (D) Olympia Fields. Charles Thomas, the local ABC news political reporter says that it looks bad (or good) for a pension reform deal in the veto session next week. Be clear. We want NO bill to pass in this session. That’s because the only thing that is being considered is how much

Why doesn’t this feel empowering?
CPS had to readjust its numbers. They had to explain why only 60% of students from the 50 schools they closed showed up at the so-called Welcoming Schools. They had predicted 80%. Catalyst reports: Also, the new numbers show that the district still doesn’t know where about 5 percent of the displaced students are enrolled. Some 11,729 students were displaced, including preschoolers and special educ




10-14-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Echoes of Washington. Springfield partisan manipulation and the pension hurt.  Chair of the Gang of Ten Illinois State Senator Kwame Raoul. From the Daily Journal: Four Republicans want a pension crisis fix to be more far-reaching. One of six Democrats wants more concessions to unions. With the Illino