By: Ted Dabrowski
I was researching the pension of my recently retired Wilmette elementary school district superintendent when I ran across something confusing in a DeKalb School District 428 news release.
Dr. Raymond Lechner, retired from Wilmette SD39 in 2019 and already drawing his $218,000 pension, was named as the 2020-2021 interim co-superintendent of DeKalb 428. The district is reportedly paying him up to $120,000 for his half-time role. Retired or not?
Lechner is participating in a well-worn tactic known as double-dipping, where a public employee retires with a pension and then goes back to work part-time, collecting a salary on top of that pension.
Double-dipping on the taxpayer dime isn’t fair – but it isn’t illegal. In fact, some retirees have turned the practice into a long-term racket.
Lechner is currently employed by the DeKalb district half-time, splitting the role with another retired superintendent, Griff Powell. Each is paid $1,000 a day and will work for no more than 120 days.
Why are they half time? Because Illinois law allows teachers and administrators to continue drawing their pensions as long as they work less than half the school year.
For Lechner and Powell, it’s the ideal double-dipping situation. Team up with another retired superintendent and get the job as interim co-administrators. Six-figure pay for part-time work, all the while collecting a six-figure pension.
And all allowed under Illinois law.
Lechner’s combined pension-salary combo for 2020-21? Up to $338,000. Powell’s? A maximum combined $360,000.
Ok, but this is a one-year, one-time thing, right?
As it turns out, no. The Lechner/Powell combo already worked together during the 2019-20 school year. They teamed up as interim co-superintendents for Center Cass SD 66, where they each received $94,400 for their part-time work.
Powell, in particular, has made a second career out of being an interim administrator. In the previous five years he has served as an interim or part-time superintendent at five other school districts besides DeKalb 428: Riverside SD 96, Glenview CCSD 34, Country Club Hills SD 160, Taft SD 90 and Center Cass SD 66.
Two of the previous superintendents Powell shared his positions with are also double-dippers with six-figure pensions: Patrick Patt (current annual pension: $172,000) and Patricia Wernet (current annual pension: $120,000).
Another example of double dippers includes Dr. Phil Ehrhardt (current annual pension: $79,000) and Dr. Heidi Wennstrom (annual pension: $205,000), two retired administrators who received $120,000 each to serve as co-interim superintendents at Evanston/Skokie School District 65 in 2020.
All of the double-dipping retired administrators above took subsequent school district jobs in Illinois, which means they are restricted by the state’s requirement for half-time work only.
Retired superintendents who move out of state to start a new job have no such restrictions and do far better. They’re able to receive their Illinois pensions while simultaneously working full time for a district and earning a second pension on top of that.
For example, Henry Bangser (current annual pension: $341,000), former superintendent of New Trier Township HSD 203 and Max McGee of Wilmette SD 39 (current annual pension: $265,000) both retired in their 50s and have spent at least a decade outside of Illinois collecting their pensions while simultaneously collecting six-figure paychecks from a series of school districts.
In the grand scheme of Illinois’ pension problems, double-dipping is a niche issue. But it’s emblematic of Illinois’ corrupted retirement system. Double dipping works because Tier 1 public sector workers can retire with full pensions while still in their 50s, young enough to get other lucrative public sector jobs.
Add to that salary spiking, pension credit for unused sick leave, 3% compounded COLAs and free retiree health insurance and you have Illinois’ overpromised, unaffordable pension system – one that only benefits the public sector but that all Illinoisans have to pay for.
Read more about pensions and public sector benefits in Illinois:
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Next topic: is it LEGAL to execute incestuous crony-hiring of high-paid admin positions at schools, in violation of federal and local fair hiring practices laws?
If not, what is the legal recourse available to taxpayers, parents, and other applicants who are discriminated against by not being of the appropriate ‘political DNA”?
These stories are infuriating. These grifters are just doing what they can to get the most they can from tax payers. The boards that hire them and the state legislature who set the pension rules and pay outs are also the problem. None of these people working in public education is worth anywhere near this money…pure grifting. But hey, our president is nothing but a know nothing-do nothing grifter too…so…time to move to Tennessee.
Yep pure grifting indeed. I know folks down my street who moved to Tennessee last year, the Conways, great people, they love it there. God Bless them.
The surname Conways strikes me as the perfect pseudonym for a family of grifters.
Biden’s call for a $3 trillion infrastructure plan is ridiculous. The Suez Canal disaster with the 200,000 ton ship is a reminder of our own crumbling levees and roads and the fact that no state with big pension bills can afford to fix them.
It’s another rape of the treasury to funnel money to unions and democrats
When presented with the fact that private workers like nurses cannot legally accumulate $3 million in retirement savings over 20 working years earning around $60,000 (not because the nurse cannot save more than her gross earnings, which is the case, but because the IRS limits the amount which private workers may defer for pension benefits), here is the public sector response (see comment below from James): “To do nothing at all during one’s working life toward that end, then whine about it in retirement isn’t the answer. For anyone of middle class means to whom these concepts can be taken… Read more »
So true and right Susan.
What a crock. The joke is on us, the private sector worker.
A level playing field it is not, for now and maybe forever with Illinois political hacks in charge and voters with no interest in fairness.
I wish I could refuse to pay taxes, cut off the head of the snake.
All young people joining the workforce should seek public entitlements jobs. When not hire (due to embedded patronage practices), they should litigate at the federal level.
Meanwhile, charter cities (allowed independent governance and self-school- and-police funding policies) such as crypto-driven efforts in senegal and nevada, and prospero in Venezuela, would offer a parachute for rural Illinois taxpayers desperate to survive Illinois ‘ corrupt government.
Charter cities – now I like that idea!
This is the way.
Correction, Prospera is in Honduras
Prickster where is that pension reform?
We all know that if these political hacks in Illinois ever did do pension reform, they would exempt their special interests (government workers) and stiff the private taxpayer again. Had the Governor’s Progressive Tax Scheme (PTS) passed, he would have taxed private sector pensions and income only. Government workers would have been exempt, albeit with whopping pensions of $218k they would have represented a higher proportion of revenue raised! The PTS will come back. Watch. In a different form but still protecting government workers at any cost. We now have a utterly lawless society in Illinois now. Corruption free for… Read more »
And who do we blame for this lawless society, I’ve said it before and hope and pray it doesn’t happen but we are headed for a civil war in this country people have had enough of Washington and state governments.Look what Washington politicians just did, they passed a law allowing them (selves) to use campaign funds to hire personal security guards for themselves. Does this tell you something is forthcoming?? Washington is scared shitless and they know it
The Glorious Revolution, also called “The Revolution of 1688” and “The Bloodless Revolution,” took place from 1688 to 1689 in England. It involved the overthrow of Catholic King James II for political and religious reasons.
A wise person once told me “good always follows good”. The common people of the USA are good people.
Civil wars happen, as do revolutions.
“The best is yet to come”.
It is not legally possible for private sector workers to accumulate anywhere near the annuity value of public school benefits entitlements.
401k contributions are capped.
To match the benefits value of a teacher contractually entitled to $60k pension, vested after 20 years at age 55, guaranteed with full faith and credit and with COLA and OPEBS represents an annuity value of about $3 million.
Nothing close to that amount can be accumulated in IRAs or 401k plans in that period, given maximum contribution limits.
I take your point, but anyone in private employment can do other investments to help with the shortfall you nentioned. Tax deferred investments can be done with investments not inmediately derived from earned income, too. Then, there are all kinds of other, normal investments anyone can make with tax deferral or avoidance as a required feature. All of them require either enough discretionary income, gifted weakth or inherited wealth to make a solid difference, of course. Again, I’m not saying these are necessarily going to wipe out the present-value difference compared to a public emoloyee’s pension rights, but done early,… Read more »
Did you really just suggest that the rest of us were too stupid to accumulate a $3 million retirement fund, although we could have done so if we tried hard? And that we should stop whining about it?
And then you wonder why there is so much resentment against public pensions?
I didn’t say everyone can do it, or that maybe anyone can make up that difference completely. I only said anyone of solidly middle class means can substantially reduce the difference given enough priority to attend to it, time, luck and persistence in the effort. So, if your response suggesting otherwise is any clue, yes, that adjective in your first sentence may well apply to you even if your family and friends are too timid to say so.
Please don’t ever say anything about name calling on this site again.
Of the literallly dozens of truly bad name calling responses I’ve seen on this website over many months of monitoring it you call me out on this guy’s exaggerated misinterpretation of what I had said–generally implying that I meant anyone could do what I said that some could do? If he can’t read my clear representation of what’s possible for some of a willing mind and adequate means, then I can’t begin to think he’s much above the median I. Q. level. Besides, I only repeated a term that might apply to him, one he had used first. Others here… Read more »
He did yes.
“but anyone in private employment can do other investments” – so can public sector workers. Have public sector workers who don’t participate in social security been depositing 6.2% of their gross pay into a Roth IRA? No reason not to.
Some do and and some don’t like every other segment of the employed public.
It is common for retired Illinois public PreK-12 administrators to get a wide variety of contract or consulting gigs directly, working for a vendor, or through a recruiter (and some become recruiters too). The practice is rarely reported because no one has time to look through board packets or submit FOIA requests to determine who is doing the contract or consulting work. And further complicating such research, it is not uncommon to draw a pension from one state while working in another state. Various employees and board members know but they typically do not want to draw attention to such… Read more »
So if someone has a 401k with a private sector employer, retires, gets another job and then also makes systematic withdrawals from his former employer’s plan, is that not similarly double-dipping if the 401k balance was accumulated, in large part, from employer contributions? That can be done starting at age 55, without penalty, upon separation of service. I fail to see how this is conceptually different from retiring from a public sector job and taking a pension while getting a new job at a different employer.
It isn’t different Andrew. Pensioners are entitled to their pensions every bit as much as a private sector employee is entitled to his or her 401k. Both are free to pursue employment after they start collecting from their respective retirement. This article was just more red meat to feed the people that hate public sector employees. These people don’t like that public sector union employees exists let alone get paid a salary and pension.
I completely agree with Andrew, speaking as a lifetime private sector person who has never wanted to work for any Government for all the tea in China. My issue is the old chestnut; the $218k pension that as a taxpayer I am legally obligated to fund and pay for. I do not hate public sector employees but demand their pay and benefits align with those in the private sector. Fair is fair right? Not too much to ask? With 401K’s all the market risk sits with me so if the market crashes so does my pension. No so with these… Read more »
Wolfnight, I have no problem with changing pensions moving forward. People were promised that if they worked so many years that they would receive so much in pension benefits. I don’t want to pull the rug out from these people who have no ability to go back in time and change their career based on some perceived fair payment amount. Many jobs pay more than what I would deem is their worth. It doesn’t mean I think we should go back and claw back their wages or worse call them corrupt before you steal their retirement. How would you feel… Read more »
“I fail to see how this is conceptually different from retiring from a public sector job and taking a pension while getting a new job at a different employer.’ You’re right, most ‘retired’ pensioners take a part-time job at a big box store. I know quite a few collecting pensions and working part-time on the side. But for dishonest greedy pensioners in IL, ‘part-time’ has a completely different meaning. Part-time work for $90,000 a year is quite a perk! I can’t think of any industry, other than education, where you can retire, collect your pension, and still earn $90,000+ a… Read more »
Yes, but its legal. If it should be otherwise, that’s a matter for the IL legislature. No amount of social shaming is going to deter those eligible and readily employable not to go for it if they wish. In short, all who deride it while doing nothing else are tilting at windmills.
“In short, all who deride it while doing nothing else are tilting at windmills.”
This is true. But I still enjoy shaming them.
Let’s talk about “earned pension money”. Someone who retired from the state in 2010 w/ a $50,000 pension would have $69,200 pension in 2021 w/ 3% compounded AAI. If that same pension were indexed to CPI it would be $60,700. Would it be totally unreasonable to cut that same pension to $65,000? Would it be that much of a hardship? They’re already coming out far ahead. Talking one time cut here, then they continue down their merry path as they always had. Each state pensioner just received an automatic 3% raise during a pandemic. Worldwide crisis, massive death toll, job… Read more »
As others have said here from time to time when the 3% AAI was finally agreed as to what was a reasonable boost to IL public employee retirees back in 1989(?) those represented the pensioners were asking for a CPT adjustment and gave in reluctantly to the idea that it should be a 3% automatic adjustment regardless of the CPI change from year to year. My point is that they were amenable to a CPI increase in retirement adjustents each year or probably even some reasonably close percentage of it but lost the battle. Since inflation was much greater in… Read more »
PPF – I agree with your direction of flow however nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. I know of several folks in the private sector who were once in defined benefit schemes (like the public sector) in private corporations that have since gone bankrupt, and with it the obligation to pay them their pension. I also know many whose plans were changed midstream to defined contributions, thereby transferring the pension risk to the employee. Not fair right? I know private sector folks who lost almost everything through no fault of their own and who, like you say,… Read more »
PPF–you write “I have no problem with changing pensions moving forward”. So your for a constitutional pension amendment?? Eliminating the 3% COLA?? do tell
I’m a retired railroad worker and if I elect to work after retirement I’m capped as to how much I can make if I go over the capped limit I have to return 1.00 for every 2.00 made back to railroad retirement. I never elected to go back to work after 40 years, working outside in brutal weather was enough and why pay into the system again and support the free stuff army. Railroad workers never draw social security even though we pay into the system, my wife works and of course pays social security when she retires she gets… Read more »
Typical democrap leech. No, public union employees shouldn’t exist. Unionized employees only exist in public employment because your democrap government exported all other jobs jackass.
I think debtsor made a good point on this topic. I think he sees the system as legal but corruptly so, aided and abetted by the “good old boy” network of people who socialize and have similar skills in other organizations. The point he made is that people of like skills at the higher managemen levels have numerous ways of becoming friends and may well promote a retired buddy’s qualifications for taking on a new job similar to the one for which is drawing a pension. Yes, I feel confident that happens and maybe quite a lot, but I also… Read more »
“If that’s “corruption” is everywhere.”
The corruption may be everywhere, but it just pays much better in Illinois!!!
That would be double dipping except the majority of 40lK balances are from employee contributions not employer contributions so that’s a little different. I don’t know anyone with a large enough 401K balance that would be able to draw on it at 55 and have it last more than 15 or 20 years.
I think you are splitting hairs here. If, someone does a wrongful act it should be addressed in some manner while recognizing their are degrees of such acts. Parents tell their children that stealing is wrongful behavior. Period. End of story.
It’s called an employer match, as is my employer contribution can meet but not exceed my personal contribution. So it is mathematically impossible for my 401k to be comprised “in large part, from employer contributions.” The large part will always be my contributions. Not to mention those funds, unlike a defined benefit plan, are finite. They earlier I withdraw, the less money I have to withdraw in the future.
That a professor of Finance fails to grasp the basic concepts of finance startles me.
Withdrawal from a personal pension results in diminution of pension value for private sector. Not so for public entitlements beneficiaries.
If I interpret your thought correctly I have to disagree. Any public employee who leaves such employment can withdraw his contributions prior to retirement while simultaneously forgoing his right to the retirement pension it may have given him if he did so while already vested. Such withdrawals usual return the employee’s personal contributions and only sometimes include a small interest rate accrual on that balance. Its generally not recommended because the public employee in many states would have made no Social Security contributions from his paychecks during that time either! In later years any such former employee can have that… Read more »
You are making up a different question and then obfuscating that made-up question. Let me be very simple so you can understand: If a person saves for retirement in a 401k or ira, and withdraws from that savings, the amount of the total benefits which that person “owns” drops by the amount of the withdrawal. 55-yr.-old double dippers ‘withdraw’ by collecting benefits a full decade before anyone else may do so. Their total pension benefits entitlements are nether diminished or impaired. a 55-yr.-old withdrawing from IRA or 401k would suffer penalties and great loss of value of that savings value.… Read more »
Okay, your explanation clarifies your earlier posting well enough, and my posting wrongly assumed you meant something else. The only place I want to comment regards your last paragraph immediately above as to those who seem to be almost literally required to have the “political DNA” to be hired again as a school administrator while already drawing a public employment pension for a prior, similar job. You may well be right that any such public institution must by law adhere to fair hiring practices and presumably more so in the private sector where buddies hiring each other is done all… Read more »
They act as substitute school superintendents at about $300-$400 or more a day if the actual super is off for some reason. Where I’m at now the local HS district super took his vacation in February right in the middle of the school year and a sub super filled in. Total BS because the super didnt like winter when he could have vacationed June, July, August when he wasnt needed. Biggest scam out there is the teacher gig.
$218k pension is outrageous !
Bottom line, there’s way to many illinois units of gov (+8,900??) for all these legalized double-dipper scam artist to ply their trade…
The school supers assoc (& maybe ppf?)is currently fighting house bill 7 to allow school district consolidation advancing on bipartisan basis according to ipi
Doesn’t this also include lifetime free medical care?
Yes
They’re profiting handsomely off their immoral greed.
Are these retired administrators or their school districts (via pension pick-up) still required to contribute to the pension system while they’re working and collecting a pension?
No. These “part-time” retirees in fraudulent “jobs” do not contribute to the pension system, otherwise they would be able to draw yet one more fraudulent pension.
I don’t think you are right on that topic. But, sometimes when a job candidate is particularly desirable the job is “reclassified” as a favor that person so its covered by another pension system. The general rule, as I recall it at least, is that if a retired public employee in IL returns from retirement to a job covered by the same pension system from which he retired he still pays into that pension system in his new job. Even if he does get that job reclassified under a different pension system he still has to meet the number of… Read more »
The retired scholar who returns as a teacher’s aide or lunchroom monitor often contributes to the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF) while collecting from the Teachers Retirement System (TRS). In Chicago it is the Municipal Employees Annuity and Benefit fund coupled with the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund. Those wily educators know their angles.
I’d wager most of these return-to-work-retirees will work around 5 years, so there’s no benefit for them to contribute to another pension system in which they won’t vest. And they won’t want to convert that time to their current pension system as it’ll jack up the average salary calculation.
If they contribute nothing, they get a paycheck devoid of any withholdings besides fed and state taxes. Quite lucrative.
Vesting happens very quickly. The benefit may be small after only 3 or 4 years, but it is their forever with a 3% increase for inflation. While the retiree is working his new position he has medical insurance covered by the employer.
Ted, don’t know how you do this and not scream as you write. It’s infuriating. Now do Village and Park District employees. My neighbor was a director of the park district. Retired at age 58, and has a multi-million $$ pension. Meanwhile, private sector workers who pay taxes pay for the grift. Democrats push this grift, so WATCH HOW YOU VOTE THIS ELECTION. They may say it’s “nonpartisan,” but that’s theatre. The Leftist Democrats use the government and taxpayer money to virtue signal. Vote JULIE CHO (New Trier High School Board), CHAD PRODROMOS (New Trier High School Board), BRIAN LOCKE… Read more »
I know there are many engineers and custodians who work for the county who also serve as township trustees for years, collecting pensions from both funds for keeping all levels of Illinois government functioning(?).
https://tinyurl.com/8rrb6k but take down these offensive monuments; until citizens, corporations, civic orgs, and houses of worship stand up with outrage to the teacher’s union who is running this charade, nothing will happen
The headline uses the word “corruption” and then admits that “Double-dipping on the taxpayer dime isn’t fair – but it isn’t illegal. Where is the corruption? Pensioners are allowed to work up to 120 days. They followed the law to the spirit and letter. Why create a headline that is clearly a lie? Even if you eliminated the 120 day allowance where is the cost savings? The district would still need to pay for an administrator only they would have fewer people of experience to choose from. The administrator if they want to continue to work would be forced to… Read more »
“In the grand scheme of Illinois’ pension problems, double-dipping is a niche issue. But it’s emblematic of Illinois’ corrupted retirement system. Double dipping only works because Tier 1 public sector workers can retire with full pensions while still in their 50s, young enough to get other lucrative public sector jobs.”
Changing the headline from “corruption” to “scam”. You think that makes it more accurate? Yes double dipping works because pensioners can retire in their 50’s. That’s not a scam nor is it corrupt. They were offered a pension plan when they were hired that offered these benefits. They have a legal and contractual right to these benefits. I get that people don’t like these pensions but nothing illegal or corrupt is happening.
“Yes double dipping works because pensioners can retire in their 50’s. That’s not a scam nor is it corrupt. They were offered a pension plan when they were hired that offered these benefits…”
Oh my young Padawan, your public employee “Entitlement Mentality” runs deep.
#1- YES, this IS a scam and YES it IS corrupt.
#2-These were NOT the pension plans offered to you when you were “hired”. ALL of the IL pension plans have been spiked, gamed and fraudulently increased- retroactively. Nice try. BAM!
Thanks for playing Dr. Lechner 🤮 🤮 🤮
It’s legalized corruption. Everyone knows it is dishonest (except PPF) but it is still legal. That is, quite literally, the Harvard Center for Ethics definition of legal corruption.
I prefer to call it institutionalized immorality. Just like counting two years of sick days as “time served” towards a pension. Is it legal? Sure. Moral? No, because the original intent of accruing sick days is job security, financial stability, and overall wellness of the employees, not monetary gain or early retirement.
Where is corruption used in the headline? I only see the word “corrupt” used once at end of column referring to “Illinois’ corrupted retirement system” which is true. Let me know what I missed
They changed the headline middle.
This is classic legalized corruption. The Harvard Center for Ethics defines “…legal corruption as the political gains in the form of campaign contributions or endorsements by a government official, in exchange for providing specific benefits to private individuals or groups, be it by explicit or implicit understanding.” Merriam-Webster defines corruption as dishonest (or illegal) behavior by powerful people. Double-dipping pensions is most certainly dishonest and it makes regular taxpayers angry when they read about it. It may be legal, but it’s legalized dishonesty. Powerful superintendents support the same politicians who let them double dip. The IL legislature allows it, the… Read more »
PPF – given the enormity of Illinois’ pension problems, the not you are picking at us boring and interesting beyond belief.
“They followed the law to the spirit and letter”
Don’t tell us, you’re a PUBLIC EMPLOYEE. Hi Dr. Lechner, nice to see you here on Wirepoints 🤣🤣🤣
“The district would still need to pay for an administrator only they would have fewer people of experience to choose from.”
There are plenty of people to choose from.
Then, debtsor, what’s the motivation of many elected boards in public institutions (fire departments, police departments, school boards and others) for hiring these retired people if not for the fact they clearly have the most direct experience doing the same sorts of things elsewhere. Are you implying experience doesn’t matter and any employee of lesser-experience generaly is likely a better candidate for a fire chief or school superintendent? Surely many people don’t see it that way since what I’ve described here is a fairly common occurrence. By the way, don’t large businesses do essentially the same thing and often rehire… Read more »
Many of these officials announce their retirement years in advance of their actual retirement dates. That announcement should trigger a thorough transition plan whereby the replacement is fully brought up to speed and duties are fully documented.
That we keep re-hiring recent retirees tells me that knowledge transfer and employee training within these institutions is either insufficient or non-existent.
James, they rehire the administrator after retirement specifically so they can double dip. It’s cronyism as the superintendent, and often school district employees he supervises, supports the very same elected board that awarded the sup the in the first place. They all pat each other on the back with double dipping pensions.
“Even if you eliminated the 120 day allowance where is the cost savings? The district would still need to pay for an administrator only they would have fewer people of experience to choose from.” This is the problem with Public Employees, they not only have no connection or anchor to real life work and real employment, but they lack common sense (and have NO business sense whatsoever). Tell us Dr. Lechner, what is the current U-6 Unemployment Rate in IL? Are those receiving UI and social services using local, state and federal taxes while unemployed? Is not your “Double Dipping”… Read more »
Harry Briggs who was superintendent in the Granite City school district till elected Madison County superintendent who after retiring from the County put in a short stint back at the school district to what I assume was to spike the district’s pension. To think people like these get elected on a regular basis.
This is a by-product of allowing people to fully vest in their pensions in their 50s. If working in the public sector is the grind they say it is, then how do these early retirees garner the strength and energy to keep working in their respective fields? And while they cash their 2nd paycheck, their main source of income – their pensions – goes untaxed.
This is a by-product of allowing people to fully vest in their pensions in their 50s.
There is no problem with “vesting” at age 50, or at any age, the problem is allowing them to COLLECT the pension at any age before 65-67. Especially when these public pensions are literally 5-30 times what the FEW private sector employees receive (3% match for the lucky few).
Just another example that this state is one big racket for the public sector unions. They’re practically rubbing it in our face.