Change amendment and modify pensions

An excellent article by Jake Griffin in the June 30 Daily Herald points up a key problem with Illinois' out of control costs. There are 21,794 people in Illinois who receive $100,000 or more in public pensions, a figure which is ridiculous.

I am a retired federal employee, so I believe that retired government employees should receive good pensions. I have nothing against that, since public sector employees tend to be somewhat underpaid while working - you can probably even dispute that today - but make up for it with better benefits. But $100,000 pensions are absurd. Not one person should be getting a six-figure pension.

The first item legislators should do is to get rid of constitutional amendments that don't allow for changing or reducing benefits. While the average public employee pension of $36,000 across the six Illinois pension systems is certainly not out of line, all pensions should be capped at a maximum of $100,000. If you can't live on that, move to Louisiana or Arkansas. In addition, no one, including retired federal employees like myself, gets a 3 percent cost of living increase compounded annually as Illinois public sector retirees in those six plans do. Also absurd.

The experts say that reducing benefits violates the law, but I would argue that allowing a state to go bankrupt also violates the law.

Gary Koca

Pingree Grove