Pension system critics research flawed

The Civic Federation and the Better Government Association, in their quest to reduce or destroy public pensions, have been selectively choosing facts to give a misleading picture of the Teacher Retirement System (TRS).

Did you know: TRS reported a 23.6 percent rate of return and generated $7.2 billion in investment income in fiscal year 2011 and averaged a 9.3 percent return between 1981 and 2011? (The BGA picked the two worst years of the recession, 2008 and 2009, and reported annual returns of 3.7 percent)

Teachers hired before January, 2011 pay 9.4 percent of their salary towards the pension system. Between teachers’ payments and investments, the state’s payments only amount to about 25 percent of the total cost, less than it would have had to pay had teachers been on Social Security.

For years, Illinois residents have paid a lower income tax because money that should have been paid to cover the state’s cost of pensions were used for other reasons.

According to an article by Greg Hinz on Crain’s website, the Civic Federation’s President, Ty Fahner, started the “We Mean Business PAC” whose purpose is to “reform public pensions in the state of Illinois through non-federal political activity.” It makes you wonder why Mr. Fahner was accorded such a prominent place in the discussion regarding the Illinois Constitution and public pensions.

Research done with a foregone conclusion on what that research will say is flawed. Yet our government officials and news media have embraced the conclusions presented by the Civic Federation and the BGA without checking any of its veracity.

This issue is too important to too many people — not just school teachers but also recent college graduates who will find limited employment opportunities if a later retirement age is imposed — to base that decision on misleading information.

Linda Dickey

Lombard