Ease budget crisis by cutting pensions

Here is a solution to the big county budget shortfall: Eliminate all pensions from all people on the county payroll. The plan to lay off people who provide basic needed services is a travesty when so much money is given away in pensions.

I have worked for companies that offered me pensions and those were all eliminated/discontinued in the early 1990s. DuPage County politicians/employees should have a 401k or 401b like the rest of us hardworking people -- without the benefit of company (DuPage County) sponsored pensions that went out with cassette music tapes.

Collecting pensions for each office held and accumulating them for later is legal robbery. I challenge you to change that law. Offer to match 401k with 3 percent, like the majority of employers. Eliminating tax-paid pensions would open up millions of dollars for Mr. Schillerstrom's and Mr. Birkett's vital budget needs.

Raising taxes is out of the question -- my husband and I work full-time six days a week to keep afloat with our outrageous property tax bill in Wood Dale. Nicor bills, electric bills, tuition bills, gasoline bills, schools, there is no end in sight.

A family member has worked for the water department in a neighboring community for 25 years and he's getting the biggest, fattest pension next year that I've ever seen from his village (taxpayers). It's shocking. And he's just one person. Then he'll probably get another job to supplement his 50K pension!

Stop wasting millions on pensions -- manage your own future retirement monies like everyone else has to. Join the mindset and culture of the new millennium and we'll all benefit.

Jessica Hunt

Wood Dale