Union leaders get generous pensions

Union leaders get generous pensions

Mr. Montgomery’s Fence Post letter of May 9 (“Cutting pensions only delays solution”) once again demonstrates the selfishness of our education community’s leadership. He uses the argument that reducing pension benefits is unconstitutional. Of course, he makes no mention of the fact that not having a balanced budget for the state is also unconstitutional.

As head of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, Mr. Montgomery knows his members enjoy the most generous pensions of all of the state public pension funds. Pension spiking of the past 12 years has enabled our educators to distance themselves from the other public pension funds (except for maybe the state university educators). In my high school district (D214) the average pension in 2010 was $70,382. In my elementary district (D59) the average pension in 2010 was $53,690. Seems to be a far cry from the $32,000 average pension that Mr. Montgomery references.

Of course, Mr. Montgomery will do very well for himself if he remains with IFT until retirement. The retirees who are directly employed by three of the teacher unions are receiving very generous TRS pensions. In 2009 the 24 retirees from the Illinois Federation of Teachers received an average pension of $111,752. The six retirees from the Illinois Education Association received an average pension of $93,951. Fortunately there was only one retiree from the National Education Association. Unfortunately, in 2009 this individual received a pension of a mind-boggling $226,484!

Little wonder Mr. Montgomery wants to maintain the status quo. He states, “There are solutions to our financial crisis, like finding different revenue streams . . .” Maybe they can start charging students to use their lockers by putting a slot for quarters on them. Then again, make it two quarters.

Ken Hofrichter

Elk Grove Village