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Login to post Forums » Off-topic discussion » City of Chicago Pensions - WOW for Some

Sept. 22, 2011 9:31 a.m. pete240z SuperDork
This has been all over the news - work a few years and collect a giant pension. Of course we are talking about a FEW people and not the hard working union guys that keep Chicago running. But after I read this I think:
1. It feels like these guys are thieves - taking $158,000/year pensions along with working as the union head dude for another $300,000.
2. Where can I sign up for this program? I could easily spend the $158,000 pension.........
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-pensions-gannon-20110922,0,913026....
Sept. 22, 2011 9:48 a.m. oldtin Dork

Illinois is very generous with taxpayer money when it comes to pensions.
Sept. 22, 2011 11:26 a.m. Salanis SuperDork

Why the hell is someone able to draw a government pension for being a Union leader?
Sept. 22, 2011 11:28 a.m. DoctorBlade Dork

Salanis wrote:

Why the hell is someone able to draw a government pension for being a Union leader?

Who's going to stop them? The people of Chicago? They've shown they'll put up with an amazing amount of corruption.
Sept. 22, 2011 11:29 a.m. mtn SuperDork

Salanis wrote:

Why the hell is someone able to draw a government pension for being a Union leader?

Dis is Chicago we're talkin about here, okay? You leave da logic der to da Mayor.
Sept. 22, 2011 11:47 a.m. aircooled SuperDork

Hmmmm, having the same people who get the pensions decide on how they get them and how much.... maybe a bad idea.
Sept. 22, 2011 12:41 p.m. pete240z SuperDork

The Tribune has done a slew of articles on these guys. Apparantly a lot of the union leaders are drawing large City of Chicago Pensions - this is not the only guy.

Illinois must be the most corrupt state of them all.
Sept. 22, 2011 1:11 p.m. integraguy SuperDork

While not as bad as Chicago, Jacksonville, Fl. is faced with a HUGE unfunded pension liability. In the last mayoral election, one of the candidates ran on the platform that he would trim the pension "fat"/reform the pension system. I'm guessing one of the reasons why he LOST, even though he promised no more taxes, is because enough folks found out he helped change the pension laws to favor himself and a handful of other politicians.
Sept. 22, 2011 3:29 p.m. spitfirebill SuperDork

Don't you remember the small communites in Cali that did the same thing?
Sept. 22, 2011 4:18 p.m. DILYSI Dave SuperDork

pete240z wrote:

The Tribune has done a slew of articles on these guys. Apparantly a lot of the union leaders are drawing large City of Chicago Pensions - this is not the only guy.

Illinois must be the most corrupt state of them all.

As long as we don't elect a president from there, we should be fine...
Sept. 22, 2011 4:24 p.m. trucke New Reader

DILYSI Dave wrote:

pete240z wrote:

The Tribune has done a slew of articles on these guys. Apparantly a lot of the union leaders are drawing large City of Chicago Pensions - this is not the only guy.

Illinois must be the most corrupt state of them all.

As long as we don't elect a president from there, we should be fine...

Does anyone really know WHERE he's from?
Sept. 22, 2011 4:36 p.m. mad_machine SuperDork

Did we have to go there?
Sept. 22, 2011 4:47 p.m. pete240z SuperDork

mad_machine wrote:

Did we have to go there?

LOL
Sept. 22, 2011 5:05 p.m. Josh Dork

Salanis wrote:

Why the hell is someone able to draw a government pension for being a Union leader?

Well, because if the government employees are in a union, and the union needs leadership, some of those government employees are going to be pressed into service as union leaders. If those employees were then compelled to refuse service as union leaders by the employer revoking the pension which they would have received had they stayed in their current position, that would essentially amount to the employer acting as union breakers. It seems reasonable to me that they should not lose the pension that they would otherwise have earned. The perversion in this case is that the pension is based not on their public employee salary but their union employee salary, and that it seems some sort of back door deal was made to secure the pension.
Sept. 22, 2011 5:14 p.m. aircooled SuperDork

spitfirebill wrote:

Don't you remember the small communites in Cali that did the same thing?

These guys are amatures compared to Rizzo (he went about it purely through the normal pension system though):

Marcia Fritz, who heads the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility stated that at age 62, when Rizzo could have begun receiving Social Security payments, his annual pension and benefits would have risen to $976,771, topping $1 million two years later. "This guy would be our first seven-figure retiree," said Fritz

Rizzo also received an unusually large package of benefits, including paid vacation, sick and personal time of 28 weeks off per year

The end of August 2010 ended the California legislature’s law-making season, and the bill (AB1955) that would have strictly regulated elected officials’ income levels died while in the Senate.[36] All the related bills were vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.[37] A piece of legislation that had passed before the legislature’s deadline, was AB1987, which would have put an end to the public employee practice of pension "Spiking", the accumulation of vacation and sick time until the end of their tenure so their retirement benefit is increased, sometimes by tens of thousands of dollars per year,[36] was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger

Robert Rizzo (and two other former councilmen) persisted in their claim that they are entitled to reimbursement from the city of Bell, for his legal fees, spent in his defense against his charges of defrauding the city of Bell out of millions of dollars. He filed more than 400 pages of additional paper work to support his allegation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Bell_salary_controversy

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