While the conference committee on pensions works behind closed doors on a pension bill, we wanted to keep you in the loop on the latest news from the WE ARE ONE coalition.
Sign Our Petition!
Have you signed our petition yet? Thousands of people have signed, but we need more signatures to have a bigger impact. It takes less than a minute to voice your support for the coalition-endorsed pension solution, Senate Bill 2404, and for closing wasteful corporate tax loopholes.
Click the link below to take action and sign the coalition’s petition in favor of SB 2404 and closing tax loopholes. If you’ve already signed the petition, there’s no need to sign again, but please be sure to ask supportive friends and family to do the same by sharing this link with them:
http://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/8864/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=9336
Opposition Mounts to University Presidents’ IGPA Plan
In other news, opposition is mounting to the proposal advanced by a group of university presidents, often called the IGPA plan (because it’s associated with a group of authors at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs). Insiders believe that the conference committee on pensions will use this plan as the foundation of a new pension bill.
But the IGPA plan has several serious problems and cuts pensions deeply. Our coalition has warned that cutting the cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) to half the inflation rate would be essentially as bad as Speaker Michael Madigan’s Senate Bill 1. The plan also proposes a partial defined-contribution plan for new hires and a cost-shift onto colleges and universities (with school districts potentially to follow).
Others have now joined our coalition’s warnings. The former head of the IGPA opposes the Half-CPI “Diet” COLA. Also, two economists recently released a report that found the COLA cut would give Illinois seniors some of the worst inflation protection in the nation. They further found the defined-contribution plan could actually worsen the state’s pension debt while providing less retirement security.
We have a lot more information on the flaws of the IGPA plan on our website, so please click this link to learn why the IGPA plan is just like SB 1.
Thank you for your continued interest and advocacy. We will continue to provide updates on our website and Facebook page.