When the rank and file have had enough

It’s been a bad year for good government so apologies in advance for any undue sarcasm.

So Rod Blagojevich got a bit of a reprieve. A federal judge granted the disgraced governor a month more freedom before he is to report to begin serving his 14 year prison term. He is to report March 15 instead of February 16 so he can help his family move into a new house. That’s nice.

Maybe they should just let him and George Ryan go and reinstate their pensions, too. It’s probably against the Illinois Constitution to diminish their pensions anyway. And I really think we are sending the wrong message.

The message:

“If you’re dumb enough to get caught AND convicted, in Illinois, we will throw the book at you.”

But if you pay to play between the lines of the law, well, this freaking state is golden.

Take the case of the two Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) officials, Steven Preckwinkle and David Piccioli. Over the course of their lifetime the two lobbyists stand to receive more than a million dollars each from the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System — as the state government flirts with bankruptcy. They took advantage of a loophole to get into the state teachers’ pension fund and count their previous years as IFT employees after quickly obtaining teaching certificates and working in a classroom.

From a Chicago Tribune editorial:

Preckwinkle’s one day of subbing qualified him to become a participant in the state teachers pension fund, allowing him to pick up 16 years of previous union work and nearly five more years since he joined. He’s 59, and at age 60 he’ll be eligible for a state pension based on the four-highest consecutive years of his last 10 years of work.

His paycheck fluctuates as a union lobbyist, but pension records show his earnings in the last school year were at least $245,000. Based on his salary history so far, he could earn a pension of about $108,000 a year, more than double what the average teacher receives.

More than twice what the average working teacher is paid. For working one day as a substitute teacher.

According to published reports Preckwinkle applied for his substitute teaching certificate a month before the legislation passed. His one day substitute teaching career was at a Springfield school six weeks before the window to become eligible closed. He signed a witness slip, as a citizen, in support of the legislation during a House committee meeting, As the union employee he lobbied for a different provision in the same bill.

Ahhh, but what Preckwinkle and Piccioli did was legal according to Illinois law at least as practiced under the Delphi methodology of public policy making. The Delphi method is based on the assumption that stakeholder judgments are more valid than individual judgments. Nevermind that the stakeholders are or soon will be collecting pensions. In their judgment it’s not such a good idea to legally challenge Preckwinkle and Piccoli to take away or reduce their ill-but-legally-begotten pension bonanza because the legal defensive team might challenge the constitutionality of taking away or reducing the benefit of a public pension.

Blagojevich must not have been in the right place at the right time.

Across the state the student-to-teacher ratio is spreading. New teachers entering the workplace are in a holding pattern or pursuing a different career. Deferred maintenance is met with reduced physical plant staffing. Rainy day funds are filling holes in budgets deep in the red. Meanwhile declining EAV has property tax rates on a sharpening incline. The problem is magnified by the growing number of vacant foreclosed homes. And one day of substitute teaching gets, the right person, a pension that is double the average salary of a working teacher.

Obviously there is no leadership among the elected strong enough to recognize and deal with pension abuse. Such leadership is then required of the rank and file members of the working class. The system can work only if abuse is not tolerated. Otherwise those on the inside enough to know about the window of opportunity within the loopholes of legislation will remain as benefactors of being in the right place at the right time while others will faithfully fulfill their career obligations only to be left holding the bag.

The rank and file state and local public employees need to stand up and let their bosses and “good people” know that abusing their pension system will not be tolerated. It’s stealing from them. Rank and file citizens must be even more stringent with their elected officials. It’s stealing from us. Exploiting loopholes in leadership positions is a violation of public trust.

Some people get sent to prison for that.