Pension increases unfunded mandates

I read with interest your article on required increases in police and fire employee pensions for the Village of Arlington Heights and other municipalities, imposed by the state of Illinois. Several things came to mind.

First, I believe that police and fire, teachers, and other local government employees should be paid fairly and should have good pension plans. We want high-quality people in those jobs. But that is not the issue.

The issue is why do the state of Illinois lawmakers feel a need to increase the already-lucrative retirement packages of police and fire employees? From everything I have seen and heard, police and fire employees are not leaving in droves to join the private sector because of poor pay and benefits. In fact, the opposite is the case; Turnover rates in police and fire are extremely low, and every time a test is advertised in the newspapers for police and fire applicants in virtually any suburban village,

thousands of individuals show up for the opportunity to take the test and get on the list of eligibles for a very few jobs.

This is yet another example of a situation in which one government body mandates unnecessary requirements on another government body without the first government body being required to pay for that mandate. Sometimes it is the federal government mandating requirements for the states, and in this example, it is the state of Illinois mandating requirements for local governments. In this case, it is particularly appalling because this is a completely unnecessary mandate.

And who has to pay for this unnecessary mandate? The taxpayers in those villages, of course. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Gary Koca

Pingree Grove