Teachers are pension scapegoats
No one could express the problem with the state pension shortfall more precisely and concisely than did Mr. Randall in his letter May 9. He said "... Illinois has the worst pension funding record of any state in the nation, at a paltry 54 percent."
The pensions are a liability of the state every bit as much as a mortgage is a liability to your lender, and yet the politicians haven't made the state's full payments into the fund for years and years. And now they are standing around trying to find someone to blame. Do you think you could go for years and years without paying your mortgage, using that money for other things like the state did, and the bank would accept that? Of course not. Can you imagine what your current balance would be?
This is what the state has done, and now wants to blame it on the teachers, saying their pensions are exorbitant. Had the state made its legal payments into the fund, there wouldn't be a problem today. Remember, the teachers paid 10 percent of their salary into the fund over their working career and are only collecting a pension on the average of a little more than $43,000 a year.
Sure, many unethical school boards and superintendents and administrators had administrators' salaries hiked enormously in their last four years before retirement so they could receive payouts equal to what they were making when working, and in some cases this amounted to more than $200,000 in retirement pay.
While it appears the legislators have finally fixed this problem, the fact remains that because of these irresponsible politicians and the greedy administrators with their hiked salaries, the teachers now suffer in reduced benefits, such as having now to teach until they are 67 years old.
Illinois has the "... worst pension funding record in the nation?" I would add to that Illinois also has the worst and most irresponsible politicians in the nation as well. Yes, Mr. Randall, it is time to thank all the teachers for all that they do. And to you politicians, quit scapegoating them.
Leo A. Dietrich
Lake Villa