35 Comments - Bill - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:16 am: When the 1995 ramp was made steeper after the Madigan pension holidays in ‘05-,06, everyone knew that there was no way the state was going to start putting billions in in ‘10-,11. Still, revising the ramp and making it less steep is not a bad idea as long as active and retired members are not hurt by the state’s malfeasance. As ol’ Bobby Molaro used to say, “Don’t worry about it. No one has ever missed a check.” - Quinn T. Sential - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:16 am: {The 2045 goal of reaching full funding for the state’s pension systems is not something handed down from God. It’s just a goal, created by humans. Move the goalposts back ten or twenty years (or more, for all I care) and we can lower the state’s annual payments.} The retirement eligibility age was also established in the same fashion. Instead of moving the goal posts on when to achieve full funding, they could also extend the retirement eligibility ages in order to reduce the total projected amount of payments, and when such payments would commence, and doing so would reduce the amount of the unfunded liability and increase the funded ratio. - Cassandra - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:26 am: But isn’t the proposed change in the full funding goal for pensions just another iteration of kicking the can down the road. And if our fearless legislators decide to do just that thereby effectively reducing the current alleged 11.5 billion deficit, who will reap the benefit of those reductions. Will middle class taxpayers see a lower (or no) income tax increase. Will the corporate sector evade increased corporate taxes and “loophole closing.” Will Quinn lose the plan to have state employees pay more for their defined benefit pensions. In other words, cui bono if this goes through. And why do I think that for the Democrats who run this state, the needs of the middle class will come last when measured against the needs of these powerful special interests which contribute such huge sums to ensure that matters turn out well for them. Despite all the ethics reform chatter, money still talks big when it comes to Illinois politics. - Ghost - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:27 am: Munoz and the other senators are being hypocrites. How many of them refused to support hannig because he had never been an engineer? Do you really need exp as a policeman to head the State Police? No, its about leadership. All those senators who want to boot this guy consider this…. At some point you ran for an elected office for the first time, and had no experience with that office. The ability to lead or manage is not dependent upon having direct knowledge or experience with the underlying nuts and bolts. A good leader hires people with nuts and bolts knowledge and draws on their experience; they apply wisdom to other knowledge in making decisions. I would argue that the State police need somone who can see different perspectives on how the agency should operate. If we draw always from the police culture then we limit the possibilties to those who are steeped in an exisiting police culture. Lack of experience is code for he may not do it the way it has been done in the past. it is code for fear of change. Our elected Senators need to stop being afraid of change and ask the real question, does he have the leadership skills and managment skills to oversee an agency. hands on experience with policing is not necessary. heck most business today is run by people who can not design and build, or program or create the business product; they are run by leaders who know how to obtain the right people for the job and guide them to their best potential. If you think the guy cant lead, then dont pass him, but lack of polic experience, give me a break. - ArchPundit - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:36 am: ===But isn’t the proposed change in the full funding goal for pensions just another iteration of kicking the can down the road. A very realistic fear given our history, but if you take it as a long term debt which is essentially what it is, a realistic long term plan to fund the pensions actually makes it harder to keep kicking the problem down the road. The issue is that when we plan big bulk payments or balloon payments, not unlike the problem consumers are facing, we don’t budget well for them and it’s an easy target to reduce quickly. However, if you make consistent lower goals, the ’savings’ from gutting the plan are smaller and it’s less of a target. It would be even better to create a mechanism that ties the Lege’s hands, but that’s pretty hard to do. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:37 am: ===But isn’t the proposed change in the full funding goal for pensions just another iteration of kicking the can down the road. === Yes. And what’s wrong with that? - tanstaafl - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:39 am: If you keep kicking the can down the road, eventually you kick it against the brick wall at the end of a dead end road. - He Makes Ryan Look Like a Saint - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:39 am: The IDOT raises were for political hacks only. There was a lot of crafty things done out there including the head of Traffic Safety’s wife getting a Bureau Chief Job, other Blago staffers getting buried in the Handley Building. Lets put the raises in perspective, these are Administrators NOT Engineers, they can and will be replaced with the next Governor. - ILPundit - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:41 am: Ghost – 80% of running any state agency is managing expenditures in the current year, and planning and managing budget request process for the coming year. Just about every single decision an agency head makes has to be considered based on those issues. There aren’t many people in state government with better, longer, and more comprehensive experience in this than Gary Hannig. Jon Monken, on the other hand — has nothing in this regard. The first challenge of any leader is credibility. Monken, through no fault of his own, simply can’t clear that bar. This appointment should never have been made, and Quinn should be ashamed of himself for putting this guy in this position. All that will happen if this appointment somehow survives is that the career bureaucrats near the top of ISP - most of whom have been on the job since before this guy was born — will run the agency, and this guy will watch from the sidelines. That’s not leadership, its an embarassment. - wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:45 am: If there ever was a time to kick the can down the road it’s now in the midst of a recession. No one’s missed a check and no one will. It would be wise when times are flush, though, to pump more money into the system to cover future obligations. It would be even wiser in the future to get new hires into a 401K/IRA situation with a set annual state contribution. My guess is that people would still want state jobs. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:46 am: ===If you keep kicking the can down the road, eventually you kick it against the brick wall at the end of a dead end road.=== Nice rhetoric, but it doesn’t match up with necessity. - Ghost - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:59 am: ILPundit, I don’t disagree with that and actually posted a number of commens supportive of hannigs appointment, but I hink Hannig is also a good leader. My comment was that police experience is a non-starter. With IDOT, budget and spending is a lot more critical then with State police. I disagree that budgeting and spending is critical epxerience for that agency, but I think it is critical with an agency like IDOT. As goes IDOT so goes Illinois. Monken has access to a number of budget people throughout ISP that he can draw upon for knowledge and information. BTW ISP is considered a para-militray operation. This means we consider it to operate more like a military unit then a business model. I would suggest that a military leader may be well suited to operating a paramilitary operation. I have yet to see anything substantive that shows me Monken can not do the job. Police experience, age, and budget skills are not critical IMHO. There are highly trained people who can be drawn upon for that knowledge. In fact you could have all those skills and be a lousy leader. I am not saying the process may not reveal Monken is a bad pik; but so far what I see is just comments that seem focused on age and fear of change…. we need an old policeman in the job. I reject that. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 11:04 am: If there ever was a time to kick the can down the road it’s now in the midst of a recession. Right! Kick the damn can! But you do realize that the can is now the size of a 3.8 billion bushel grain elevator, right? - ILPundit - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 11:06 am: Ghost– For me, it’s not about “police” experience, its about experience, period. No more than six years of professional experience, none of it managerial, is simply not adequate for a job of this magnitude. Any private sector job where the manager was required to oversee an organization of similar size, budget, and complexity, and this guys resume would have landed in the circular file. It has nothing to with the guy personally. But if this is considered the minimal experience standard for an appointment to run a state agency, then perhaps we should just start pulling names out of a hat. - Cassandra - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 11:13 am: I’m not necessarily opposed to the pension redo but I’d like to hear the arguments against from some government financial experts. It does seem to me that a redo would increase the long term costs of state employee pensions to the taxpayer because of real added interest costs over and above inflation. As I said above, my real concern right now is that any savings from such a redo would not be proportionately distributed among those being called upon to make financial “sacrifices” to pay down the deficit. If the savings are used to reduce or eliminate corporate tax increases or weaken proposed changes in the pension system, while leaving the middle class at a 4.5% income tax increase, that would be a victory for special interests. I would propose using the savings to increase the amount of personal exemptions to $8000 or $10,000 thereby providing more middle class relief. - Ghost - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 11:21 am: ILPundit, i was would accept that as a fair critiscim and reason not to approve the guy. I would suggest the senate focus less on age and police expereince and travel more along the analysis you mention to support its concern. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 11:50 am: About Jonathon Monken I want to like this guy because I’ve seen the benefits of having new men in charge of our public offices. On the other hand, I am troubled by his particular lack of experience. His honesty and exuberance during this week’s interview was refreshing and candid, which is a plus in many respect, yet a man in his position needs to demonstrate a level of maturity necessary to lead, and I haven’t yet seen that from him. A genuinely nice guy, but isn’t there others who will fit this office better? Kudos to the Governor for demonstrating an open mind and a fresh perspective, but how about someone else? - Mike an Ike - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 11:51 am: Monken sounds like shades of Blago.It’s a police agency so get a police person.Trust me there is a lot of badges that would qualify. - wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 11:53 am: VMan, I don’t even know what that means. I do know, that in a time of record unemployment and an economy contracting at a 6.3% annual rate, my concerns are more of an immediate nature, and not whether the pension funds are at 80% or 90% in 2045. By the way, the funds were at 63% a few short months ago, and now they’re at 45%. That had nothing to do with annual appropriation, but investment loss. Current employees covered by pensions will be paid one way or the other. It’s just a fact. But again, I would hope we would use this opportunity to get the state out of the pension business for future employees. - Leroy - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 12:26 pm: These stories about Jonathon Monken remind me about how we first treated Alexi Giannoulis when he came on the scene a couple of years ago. No experience, questionable business relationships, an outsider, too young etc….. - Anon - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 12:35 pm: ++ ===But isn’t the proposed change in the full funding goal for pensions just another iteration of kicking the can down the road. === Yes. And what’s wrong with that? ++ What’s wrong with it is that a fully-funded pension fund is one that will earn sufficient return on investment to pay the expected pension liabilities. If you do not full fund the pension, you are doing the economic equivalent of borrowing at the rate of investment return assumed in determining the full funding rate — rather than paying $1 today, you will have to pay $1 plus the investment return, compounded, in the future. So there are three basic possibilities — first, the investment return is greater than the interest the state would have to pay on borrowing. If that is true, shorting the pension fund is nothing more than borrowing at a higher-than-necessary rate. Second, the state’s borrowing rate could be higher than the investment rate. If that is true, having any money in the fund is costing the state money as long as it has any outstanding debt. Third, of course, the two could be equal, in which case shorting the pension fund to avoid borrowing is economically a wash, but it’s still questionable legally as a means of avoiding the supermajority requirement for borrowing. Because, long-term, the state’s borrowing rate is less than the investment return, it is fiscally irresponsible to the point of fraud to short the fund. The only excuse for shorting the fund would be to try to time the market swings to earn a better-than-average return (because the fact that the stock market has returned double digits, compounded, over the 20th century despite the great depression and numerous recessions does not mean it won’t suffer losses in any particular year), but since on one has ever shown an ability to do that consistently, I would again say using that as an excuse is hubris or fraud. - Objective Dem - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 12:40 pm: I think it is disgraceful for Quinn to offer the job to Monken and for Monken to accept. He simply does not have the experience necessary for this job. Like Ilpundit, I don’t think someone needs to have police experience; they just need to have relative experience. For instance Hanning wasn’t going to design roads so he didn’t need to be an engineer. He did need to know budget, state politics, budget etc, which he did. Monken has no experience for this position, unless the state police are going to start driving tanks. I have seen no indication that he knows or understands police, how to work with the legislature, public safety policies, budgeting, government operations, etc. I actually have a background in many of these areas, but if I was offered the job as head of state police I would turn it down because I don’t think I am qualified. Thats because I have integrity. This kid clearly is more interested in his own ego and career than in doing what is right. So much for being a man of honor. By the way, I have already heard the jokes about “who is his clout” and “how much did he pay for the job” So Gov. Quinn is not restoring confidence in government as he promised. - Objective Dem - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 1:00 pm: Leroy, There are three major differences between Monken and Giannoulis. First, Giannoulis had significant experience in banking which directly relates to his job. Second, Giannoulis had significant experience in state-wide politics (largely as a product of running for office) which is the second key component of the State Treasurer’s job. Third and most importantly, Giannoulis was elected in a primary and a general election. The public doesn’t have a say with Monken. I also remember in the Sneed interview Monken indicated that he wants to get training in the State Police weapons. That would be great if he was going to be a state trooper, but I don’t think it is necessary as head of the state police. To me this indicates a kid who is interested in the “toys” not the hard work. - Louis Howe - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 2:25 pm: The Cellini lead and inbreed ISP needs a through shake down. Eliot Ness was in his late 20s, why not the kid. He may need some adult supervision but certainly we can count on ethics and cooperation rather than an insular and arrogant my way or the highway approach. - Objective Dem - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 2:52 pm: If ISP has serious problems, it is even more reason to bring in someone (or a team) with serious experience. Someone with no credibility will be easy to dismiss and ignore. Someone with no experience will be easy to BS and fool. - lifer - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 2:52 pm: Had they funded the pension each year as they were supposed to we wouldn’t be in this predicament now. Kinda like not paying your mortgage each month then really not being able to pay the 3 or 4 months of payments that were missed. Pension has been mismanaged for years time to pony up not defer it again.!!! - Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 2:56 pm: lifer, what do you expect them to do? Raise taxes by billions of dollars for state employee pensions? You think that’d go over well? You think that would have a snowball’s chance in Hades? The past is past. What we need to do is figure a way out. Whining and putting the solution fully on sombody else’s back ain’t gonna work. - Louis G. Atsaves - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 3:20 pm: Quinn appointed an experienced individual to oversee State Parks and thought that experience was important. He then appoints an inexperienced person to head up the Illinois State Police and doesn’t think experience is all that important. Huh? - steve schnorf - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 5:33 pm: Rich, you are confusing me here. Yes, if we push the 90% date off farther into the future, we do free up money to spend on base expenditures. The problem is, that’s how we got here. I’ve been telling people for a few years now, that for all practical purposes the pension problem is beyond any practical solution I can think of, but passing on it just compounds it. We are paying 8& for the sins of our past. I hate to be a scold but offering elected officials a less painful way to proceed on a problem by pushing the consequences of their actions off to a future time when they are long since retired or dead,, is, imho, a dreadful mistake. Why not borrow billions (which is what we are doing with pensions) to pay for the day to day operations of government, with the bond payments coming due thirty years from now? At least partially because no one would buy our bonds under those conditions. But because we are borrowing this money from ourselves, we don’t insist on the discipline that would otherwise be demanded of us. The pension ramp-up could have been paid, albeit painfully, if the past few pretty good years had been used to improve the states financial position instead of expanding services and increasing spending on existing programs. Remember, the past administration did not pay the payment due out of recurring revenues 4 of the past 6 years, they spent the money on something else. Is that what you are suggesting we do now? - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 5:56 pm: Raise taxes by billions of dollars for state employee pensions? Paying just a little extra every year to cover the catch up payment would be preferable to kicking the can down the road til it became an oil barrel rolling back at us. Of course it is not politically acceptable to take a big chunk of taxpayer money at this time to pay off the pensions (now that the oil barrel is upon us), and many of these same IL taxpayers are seething with pension envy and acting like a million Mr. Burns’es in a purportedly blue state. So I guess the best alternative is to get a big boot, kick that oil barrel so it slowly keeps moving down the road, and promise we’ll really, really make those payments on time and in full this time, honest, we wouldn’t lie to you. And hope that barrel keeps rolling the right way, instead of coming back and flattening us. - Arthur Andersen - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 6:06 pm: Rich, this pension thing is heading toward a simple “pay me now or pay me later” decision for the State. The market collapse and budget deficit have just forced the question a few years earlier than forseen. If the pensions had not been cut in 06 and 07 and a normal return profile was in place, this conversation would not be happening. Climbing the top step of the ramp would have been difficult, but not impossible. When the first set of “proportional savings” as that idiot actuary from Deloitte named them were enacted, the concurrent funding cuts turned the ramp into a rock climbing wall. The market downturn poured grease all over the rocks. Setting the notion of any benefit changes aside, for better or worse-the experience of the past few years shows us that cutting pensions now to spend tomorrow’s hoped-for savings on something else is a fool’s game. AA highly doubts the GA will be fooled again. If the Quinn/Filan plan goes forward, the only question left is when taxes will be raised to pay pesnions, not if, because they will all be circling the drain, quite ironically starting with the GA System. Take it from this old abacus-packer, they don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades of long-term survival on “normal cost” funding only. - A Citizen - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 7:59 pm: I have great respect and gratitude for those who serve us in the military. I am, however, concerned about the militarization of our domestic police forces. The military is trained to kill and destroy. Our domestic police are trained to protect and serve. There is a huge gap and difference between the two mindsets. I think this appointment should be rethought - although I readily admit to knowing nothing of the individual. - steve schnorf - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 8:29 pm: When Gov Blagojevich took office, John Filan was handed a mathematically impossible task; with tax revenues actually declining 2 years in a row “John, I want you to substantially expand a couple of programs and put significant new money into existing programs such as elementary and secondary education. Oh, and don’t forget, you can’t raise taxes.” So, we have what people (apparently including you, Rich) call Filan’s “schemes”. Where did Filan find the money? Well, fund sweeps, and fee increases, and growing the Medicaid payment cycle, among others, and, by the way, a couple of very clever pension deals, creating spendable money out of cash that would otherwise had to have been paid to the pensions. I told Gov Blagojevich and some of his staff during transition that I didn’t see any way he could get thru his first term without raising taxes. They did, it wasn’t pretty, look where it left us, and now the solution is to use one of those same “schemes” to deal with our current problems? I sure hope not. - Quinn T. Sential - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 9:54 pm: Steve, The “spendable cash” is just code language for increased long term debt - Rick - Thursday, Mar 26, 09 @ 10:28 pm: Mr. Miller Lifer is exactly on point. The tax payers have been living off the state employees pension system for some time and not funding it properly. Year after year I watched as the legislators balanced the states budget using the state employees pension system while you and others said nothing. I guess it was ok as long as it benefited you. Now the problem caused by underfunding or slight of hand accountng used in the pension system has become to large to ignore. It seems to me that you want it both ways. Take advantage of the pension system when it benefits you and the tax payers at large and than dismiss history when it points to what has been done to get us here. Me thinks you are the whinning one. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.