Suburban Republicans push back against pension shift
House Republicans led by state Rep. Ed Sullivan of Mundelein had a news conference at the Capitol today to push back against the idea that's floating around out there about having local school districts pay more toward teachers' pensions.
Sullivan noted that no one has formally proposed this, and it's unclear if Gov. Pat Quinn will go for it during his budget address Wednesday. But top Democrats are talking about it, and local lawmakers and districts are largely pushing back.
The contend that if districts across the state have to jointly pay $800 million more for teachers' pensions, they'll have to come up with that money somewhere.
"You're either going to lose teachers or have a massive property tax hike," Sullivan said.
There aren't any details of how it'd all work yet, but we outlined for you a a couple weeks back how Senate President John Cullerton envisions it.
Under the status quo Rep. Sulllivan supports, affluent school districts can pay teachers six-figure salaries that lead to six-figure pensions. But that pension liability gets passed on to state taxpayers, most of whom live in school districts that can't afford to pay 150,000 dollars to a driver ed teacher.
Republicans like Sullivan tell us they favor fiscal responsibility. How about holding school districts at least partially responsible for the pension liability caused by eye-popping teacher salaries approved by school boards?