Pensions are for true public servants

It’s a simple, common sense idea: public pensions should be paid only to those who actually work for the public.

But, that’s not how it works in Illinois. Instead, clout-heavy union leaders and other insiders benefit from special deals allowing them to collect six-figure pensions based, not on the work they did for the taxpayers, but on the salaries they collected while working full-time for their unions.

To stop this abuse, I recently partnered with the public interest group “For the Good of Illinois” to file legislation to end these abuses. If these reforms become law, government workers will earn credit in the state’s public pension systems only when they are working at their government jobs.

Although there has been a focus on the city of Chicago pension systems, the problem is not limited to Chicago. In fact, the state’s Teachers’ Retirement System pays its second-highest pension benefit to the former national president of the teachers union. He is collecting his annual $242,657 pension based on his pay working for the union, not on the salary he once received teaching children.

These abuses are fundamentally unfair not only to the taxpayers, but also to the rank-and-file public employees who paid dues to these leaders and are counting on these pensions in retirement, after having spent their careers on the job teaching, maintaining our streets and highways, protecting us from criminals and protecting at-risk children.

Illinois needs pension reforms to establish an affordable and secure retirement system for public employees. Ending this abuse by a handful of highly-paid insiders does not replace the need for comprehensive reform. But it does send a critical signal that, as we ask public employees to share in the cost of reform, we will also aggressively root out abuse and waste by the privileged few.

State Sen. Matt Murphy

27th District

Palatine