Analysis of Quinn Pension Proposal

Governor Quinn certainly made a splash with his proposal to reduce the liability of the various state pension funds.  It is worth taking a critical look at the various parts of the plan to better understand the impact on everyone involved.

Let's look at his idea relative to making the mandatory age to retire at 67.  As a retired teacher I can tell you that having started teaching at 23 years of age, notwithstanding my love of working with students, I would absolutely never be able to work 44 years in the profession!  Never!

Teaching isn't a matter of telling students to do something and then simply sitting to watch them perform the assignment presented to them.  That's not the way it works.

Even teaching until age 60 would be problematic for most teachers and professors.  Stretching it to 67 is simply irresponsible.

Besides, setting the retirement age at 67 will affect other components of the pension system.  By working to 67, it stands to reason that by working longer the state will pay out less in pension dollars overall since teachers are retiring at a later time than those of us who retired at 55.  Now we are getting to the crux of the matter...DOLLARS.

Also, there will be a big impact felt at the local level.  Let's say a teacher gets to the top of the payscale after 17 years of teaching.  By forcing, yes forcing, teachers to teach longer then the local district will have to pay these higher salaries for a longer period of time.  This is bound to impact the tax situation in the various Illinois communities.

Raising the retirement age to 67 is fraught with plenty of negatives.  Let's hope that the powers that be will reconcile these issues prior to implementing them.

Dick