One word comes to mind: greed

The news of the excessive pay raises and resulting pension spike granted to Illinois Association of Park Districts Executive Director Peter Murphy provoked a real gut reaction in me. This situation exemplifies the problem with the state's out of control public pension obligations. What's worse, Mr. Murphy is not even a public employee, he's a lobbyist.

The Daily Herald reports Mr. Murphy's pay raises averaged 9 percent (9 percent!) a year from 2005 to 2014, all paid for by struggling Illinois taxpayers. Did you get 9 percent raises for the last 10 years? The cumulative effect of these raises was to more than double Mr. Murphy's pay and vastly increase his future public pension.

The Herald says if he retired today, Mr. Murphy would be eligible for a $227,500 annual pension, again, paid for by Illinois taxpayers.

One word came to my mind in reaction to this outrage and the word is greed.

Larry Bahr

Elgin