Hainesville wants pension opinions

Hainesville residents will have an opportunity Tuesday to advise the village board on which path to take for employee pensions.

A nonbinding referendum asks voters if the village should commit to the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund for two full-time employees and four part-timers.

Joining IMRF is favored by Mayor Ted Mueller, one of the two full-time employees, but opposed by resident Georgeann Duberstein, who collected the voters' signatures needed to put the question on the primary ballot.

Duberstein does not oppose providing a pension for village workers -- she just thinks officials should choose a different plan.

"There was never a question that the employees deserve a pension plan," Duberstein said. "I am concerned that the plan the board is considering is not the right one."

Mueller said the pension plan would cover himself and the village's public works superintendent as full-time employees and four administrative assistants who work part time for the village.

"I have four part-time employees who save this village at least $80,000 a year because their effort keeps us from having to hire a village administrator," Mueller said. "It would seem to me that the least we could do is offer them a pension."

Mueller favors the straight IMRF plan, under which the village would be obligated to contribute about $20,000 per year to cover the total cost of the program.

That contribution would be mandatory every year, a financial obligation Duberstein says the village should not take on.

"The taxpayers should not be forced to buy into a program they can never get out of once they are in," she said. "This does not seem to me to be the time to place a permanent requirement for spending on the people of the village."

Instead, she said, the village should look at a plan offered under IMRF that requires employees to make contributions to their retirement fund if they wish to participate.

The IMRF 457B plan allows the village to match contributions if the board decides to do so but does not mandate a contribution.

She said employees can contribute up to $15,000 per year, and employees can transfer their contributions to another plan should they leave government employ.

Mueller said the village board looked at the 457B plan when considering their options but decided the traditional IMRF was the way to go.

One of the things that influenced the board's decision, Mueller said, was a survey of 20 Lake County communities that indicated 17 were participants in the traditional IMRF program.

The three villages that did not participate in traditional IMRF are all smaller in than Hainesville, Mueller said, and only one of those communities has the 457B program.

The other two communities have no pension programs at all, Mueller said.

He said the village board has tabled all action on a pension plan until after Tuesday's election so that the results of the referendum can be considered.