Reinvent Illinois

Pension Reform

Posted on 23. Feb, 2010 by Rayme in Reform Ideas

Pension costs are growing and represent a huge annual cost for the residents of the state. As far as I know, it is possible for an employee to retire, begin to recieve their pension payments, and then be rehired (even for the same position) allowing them to collect their pension AND payment for their work.

This seems to me to be wasteful. Pension payments should be postponed to people who have been rehired.

Another consideration should be that pension payments made prior to the retirement age of 65 should be lower than the final payments, if they get paid at all. Prior to age 65 these people should be working and if they want to retire early then the individual should fund that early retirement, not the taxpayers.

The retirement age should be increased to 67 to start with and then gradually raise it even more. People are living longer and are healthier. Therefore, they should be able to contribute for a longer period of time. Again if people want to retire earlier there is no problem with them saving to obtain that goal. It should not be given to them.

In looking at how the government budgets it is apparent that the process is broken. The current process is setup to incent those responsible for the budget to ensure that the entire amount is spent. If they don’t spend it then they’ll get less the next year. Incentives should be created to identify a way to foster savings in the budgets.

Saving a million dollars here and there is all well and good, but until the REAL problems are addressed those other efforts are not worth worrying about.

Inefficient workers cause the state to employ many more people than necessary. An independent group should be created to review all state government departments with the purpose of reducing headcount and driving efficiencies. The member of this group MUST be serious about their task and must NOT be political in nature. Any effort in this area that becomes political will be doomed to failure before it even begins.

Speaking of efficiencies, union rules MUST be changed to allow for more efficient day to day operations. It doesn’t make any sense for contracts to get bogged down dealing with cubicle size/color/etc. Workers must be able to do simple tasks that are not in their job description. Any “normal” employee should be willing to pitch in and assist in a task that is not specifically spelled out in their job description. Union workers should be no different. Job descriptions are not the bible, instead they are a basic description of the types of tasks that one could reasonably expect to perform in their job. They do not cover any potential eventuality.

That’s probably enough for now. Like I said above, any reform that does not cover the major problems is no real reform. I would also think that if the state government got serious about tackling these problems and made some actual progress then the citizens would not be as strongly opposed to a tax increase as they would be. I know that I would be willing to pay more to get IL on a stronger footing, but that is contingent on the politicians doing their part too.