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Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Tom Miller on WJPF’s Morning Show to compare Illinois’ education system and funding to Florida. The Sunshine State serves 800,000 more students than Illinois does, but has 785 fewer school districts. Illinois has 859 districts, while Florida has 74.
Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
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Audio and summary
If the basis of a plan is “We should be more like Florida,” you should probably go back to the drawing board.
What’s wrong with Florida? It’s attracting far more residents than IL is attracting these days. Gov. Desantis is approaching folk hero status these days while Pritzger is quickly become the evil, progressive villain, reviled and hated by everyone who isn’t a beneficiary of his selective and racist progressive policy initiatives. I won’t be in IL much longer, and FL is high up on my list of places to relocate.
Feel free to relocate to the hillbilly alligator joke of America as soon as you like.
People also extol the beauty of AZ, UT and NV, but I find all three not that agreeable to me as places to seek a new place to live. You have to like where you live. Isn’t that the bottom line?
I was kind of hoping Illinois wouldn’t get any federal money now it’s delayed yet another year while JB can claim victory. Addicts get better when they hit bottom, Illinois needs to quit digging and hit bottom so something can actually be done. The first goal would be to eliminate 1/2 the school districts setting a guidance on the number of schools and distances between them and CUT the funding in 1/2, let them figure it out. There’s clearly many school districts with 1 or 2 schools next to another district with the same. The need to merge and dump… Read more »
More relevant are the hundreds of different school districts outside cook county Chicago purview. There are either grade schools and high schools, or consolidated unit districts. If separate gs/hs, each has highly paid superintendent and his support admin staff. The argument is that if grade schools and hs districts would consolidate under a single superintendent there would be money saved by obviating superintendent redundancy. However, that argument fails to consider that consolidation will typically require that the lower paid teachers’scale (grade schools) need to be raised to the higher paid scale (hs teachers). This increased cost typically dwarfs any savings… Read more »
Be careful what you wish for. I’m not so sure the New Trier parents want their children in the same school district as CPS. I’m sure Chicago would like nothing better than combining their district with the well off surrounding suburbs. They and the city voters could then control an even larger budget and ensure that all that money goes to the kids that are most in need. Sure, maybe we save some money but I don’t think the families from Wilmette would be happy about fewer school districts. Who knows, maybe they could even allow inner city kids to… Read more »
You laugh, but you make a good point. With what I’ve seen in the last couple years, I don’t doubt that these Leftists have designs on stealing the last vestige of the “white privilege” suburbs — the good schools.
They are on the march for everything, and that includes our children. They hate us, and if they can indoctrinate the value system that we’ve taught our children they will absolutely do it. All that limits them is their creativity and the power that we give them.
This is a culture war to them, and nothing is sacred.
“They and the city voters could then control an even larger budget and ensure that all that money goes to the kids that are most in need. Sure, maybe we save some money but I don’t think the families from Wilmette would be happy about fewer school districts.”
Really, the only benefit of small school districts/high property taxes are that most tax money stays local. Take away the ability for local school to spend their own communities tax dollars and there is no longer a reason for most parents to remain in the state.
“Really, the only benefit of small school districts/high property taxes are that most tax money stays local.”
Agreed. That’s why I don’t understand why I would want to emulate Florida and have fewer school districts. I don’t believe the savings would amount to much and instead my tax dollars wouldn’t benefit my community. The suburbs are already only getting 20-25 cents of their tax dollars back. This would only make it worse.
We’re getting more than 20-25% of my tax dollars back. My local schools (elementary, high school and community college) are 60% of my bill, my municipality is 8% (and they remind us of that every 6 months); and the remainder is a mix of the county, mosquito abatement districts, township, water reclamation and a sanitary districts IIRC. It’s the pension and high salaries for the educators that are the major cause of my high tax bill. The rest of course contributes, but pales in comparison…Mosquito abatement district tax? OK, water reclamation, OK, pay them less. Take 60% of my real… Read more »
Let’s just say it – public education in Illinois is a racket.
School District Admin positions are the brass ring for obsequious, handle-of-the-big-front-door polishers. Example Case Study Woodstock CUSD 200 hires ‘retired’ (male Caucasian)admin pulling 6-figure defined benefits aged 50’s-early 60’s to admin position earning 6-figures. ALERT: Woodstock CUSD admin is startlingly non-diverse. Might a well alert a new gang of predators to feed on Woodstock taxpayer population because the current group of predators has been particularly cruelly sociopathic. Even if we suffer as much or more under other ‘masters’, at least we have made a historical record of the practices of these predators on Woodstock CUSD 200 school Board and Administration… Read more »
Woodstock aside, nothing like the taxpayers chipping in to pay retired rural superintendents $150K per year + 3% annual raises for maybe thirty years.
Most Illinoisians are aware the educators/admin have nice pensions, but they are totally oblivious to what extent. Is anyone reading this a retired middle manager from private industry with a pension approaching that?
I understand that is what their contract calls for, that doesn’t make it any easier to make the tax payments. But one must (grudgingly) give credit where credit is due: that was one hell of a union bribery job for all those decades.
Check out http://www.taxpayersunitedofamerica.org
https://taxpayersunitedofamerica.org/15th-annual-illinois-pension-report/
click down to $100,000 pensions.
Thanks Freddy, that’s an eye-opener. Too bad that most Illinoisans are unaware of their generosity. One sentence jumped out at me . . .
++For the year 2021, estimated employee contributions to their own pensions are down an estimated $35 million from last year.++
Don’t those Tier 2 employees understand how a Ponzi scheme works? If the taxpayers are digging deeper to fund all of those six figure pensions, Tier 2 folks need to step up and share the responsibility.
Aa regards the issue you’ve raised what I see mostly discussed here is how greedy IL public school teachers and retirees are. The highest pension for a TRS person in IL is just short of $400,000 for 2021. I agree that’s outrageous, but that’s ONE person’s pension. Then, there are numerous public employee pensions that are in a range much higher than that with the largest in the mid-or-upper $600,000’s. Those are not public school teachers! They are from other pension categories paid by the state of IL–mostly state-level governmental and university administrators. I mention this because if you’re going… Read more »
True-The figures given on their website are broken down to include TRS-Gars-Sers-Surs-Imrf not just teachers but various groups. If I’m not mistaken TRS has the most employees and retirees but not sure. Do you have some info? Professors in general have the highest pensions. Did you notice Leslie Heffez under to view all $100,000+ pensions? I did some digging and he was a professor of oral surgery and made approx $9.3M salary in his tenure at the university and is working in private practice now. His annual pension is $654K and with 3% compounding is $19,600 added per year. Most… Read more »
I didn’t know the name of the highest public employee pensioner, so I’ll have to guess the name you mentioned is the same man to which I referred as having the highest (mid-$600,000 range) pension. The data can be reconfigured in various ways and has been done if one takes the time to look for it. I know a few people who draw such a pension and can find them. In most cases I have some personal knowledge of what their job was and how good they likely were at it. I don’t begrudge those really high level pensioners whom… Read more »
Thanks for the link and info Freddy really makes you wonder how much longer this can go on before it all ends and is unsustainable.
It also does on more thing if a bit inadvertently in regard to the “Pension Clause” in the 1970 IL Constitution: strongly imply the truly large number of IL public employee retirees, spouses, extended family, etc., who will fight public pension reform until “death do us part.” Then, add in those who are still among the active workers along with their families in those same public employee pension systems. What results likely will be a battle royale with those obviously entitled interest groups focused on retention of the pension clause as is vs. the public at large’s vote, many of… Read more »
James, your previous point regarding college administrators is well-taken. If anyone cares to check out the below link, they can see the aforementioned “Leslie” who retired at the ripe old age of 55. It’s good to be “Leslie”. And note that Leslie’s lifetime contributions to his/her pension were only slightly more than what he/she gets per year.
https://taxpayersunitedofamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Top-pension-over-100000-2020.pdf
It’s good to be “Leslie.” It’s not so good to be a taxpayer contributing to the $600,000 per year pension with annual raises. Anyone feeling like a sucker?
I agree. The one thing that galls me the most is this sort of truly outrageous pension. “There oughta be a law.” My version of that is to cap the amount of wages subject to a pension and cap the active worker’s contribution based upon that figure. Its arguable, of course, as to what that maximum ought to be for the eventual pension that results. But, surely we can agree that someone who likely earned something nearing $1,000,000 annually as a wage ought to be able to save substantial sums on his/her own beyond what the maximum state-supported pension ought… Read more »
I don’t foresee any meaningful pension reform in the near future. If anything ever gets on a statewide ballot those on the receiving end will vote en masse probably to the tune of 1.8M+ which includes at least 800K public employees/retirees plus spouses/extended families to keep status quo. What may help somewhat is to have some in house arguments between Tier 1 prior to 2010 which could spike the sky/Tier 2 which are limited to 6% spiking but is exceeded many times vs Tier 2 who are subsidizing the other two by contributing more,retiring later and no 3% compounding and… Read more »
You are correct Freddy. The current legislature just put a collective bargaining amendment on the 2022 ballot with over 60% of the Republicans in the Senate supporting. Supporting state workers and their right to collectively bargain has bipartisan support from our elected representatives. Somehow, I don’t see any appetite by these same individuals to go after these same union constituents.
I think what would be easier to get passed may be pension management fees which are very high relative to returns. These fees come off the top. You still want good fund managers but exploring the fee structure could be money well spent. Another idea I have is with the 6% spike firmly in place that anything owed to a retiree to be is anything over 6% could be rolled over to an IRA/401K/ Roth or the value over 6% can be cashed out immediately and taxes paid. The rollover is seems the best deal overall. Reason is Rockford school… Read more »