We must manage school pensions better

Any balanced vision for the future of suburban schools must look at steady increases in spending and how to control them.

These increases are driving up property taxes faster than income and, unfortunately, the topic of controlling expenses was not mentioned in your Jan. 2 editorial talking about fulfilling the promise of public education.

Without a focus on cost control, we run the real risk of buying more education than the community can afford. Suburban schools' inability to control labor costs is also contributing big time to our state pension problems.

Here are just two examples from District 220:

1. Recently our superintendent “retired” only to take another superintendent position out of state, even though his six-figure contract has recently been extended. Imagine how much his retirement contributed to the liability of our already underfunded responsibility for public pensions.

That's a direct result of the contract our district negotiated with our superintendent. We've got to do better.

2. Our current teacher's contract gives all those approaching retirement the opportunity to sign up for a “retirement incentive” that boosts their pay 6 percent each year for the last four years of service; i.e., a compound increase of more than 26 percent.

Is that really necessary? We've got to do better than that.

Willard Bishop

Barrington Hills