The rumor patrol
Monday, Jul 16, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller
* I’ve received e-mails and calls about rumors on how much state retirees will have to pay for their health insurance as well, and they’re simply not true. The SJ-R takes a look…
Kelly Kraft, spokeswoman for Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget office, said no information will be released about future premiums while the state is still engaged in contract negotiations with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest of the unions representing state workers. One subject of those talks is the cost of retiree health insurance.
“The collective bargaining process is continuing, and as soon as that is complete, all of this information will be made clear,” Kraft said.
Linda Brookhart, executive director of the State Universities Annuitants Association, said she understands that a decision on premiums will wait until AFSCME’s contract is negotiated. Still, she’s encountered retirees who believe they’ve seen numbers for their premium charges. […]
“I have heard a premium amount from different retirees calling into our organization,” [Rudy Kink, a retired state worker who heads the Illinois State Employees Association Retirees] said.
The likely source of almost all the rumors is a bill proposed by SB 3918, which went absolutely nowhere…
That proposal, introduced late in the legislative session by Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, lays out percentages (although not actual dollar amounts) that retirees could pay for health insurance premiums. However, the bill was never called for a vote and consequently is not state law.
The bill was eventually tabled by its own sponsor. Several commenters here truly freaked out not long after Righter introduced his bill, but there was no way it was going anywhere. All Righter did was bring enormous heat down on his own head and create a lot of confusion.
* Other stuff…
* Both sides right — kind of – on health care’s cost to Illinois
* Editorial: Wisdom, compassion can work in conjunction
* Editorial: The competition - Quinn wants to shift money from prisons to abused kids. Some people have other ideas.
* Editorial: Veto this defiant bill
* How ComEd defections are killing green power in Illinois
* Gov. Quinn Pardons Former Niles Trustee
- Marina City - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 12:21 pm:
I believe Kelly Kraft used to be on Fox 32. She and Michelle Leigh were great. Good hire for Gov. Quinn.
- Really? - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 12:42 pm:
In the SJR…Brookhart said. “Learn how to shop, find out what’s available to you. Then you can do a comparison where your better cost for your money is going to be.”
-So Linda Brookhart, executive director of the State Universities Annuitants Association, is suggesting that state retirees might find better/cheaper health insurance somewhere else?
- cassandra - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 12:58 pm:
It would be great for state retirees if the Quinn admin could hold off on the changes in retiree health care until ACA is implemented, as we know now it will be in Illinois. Then they would have a real choice. Depending on how much they are charged, they could choose to get coverage on the private market. Some might be eligible for subsidies as well.
As to DCFS, are all of the reforms proposed by the new director on hold until the $50 million from closing prisons appears or doesn’t appear at the end of the year? We’ve been hearing about the director’s plan to shift headcount out of middle management and other desk jobs and into the depleted front lines for months,now. According to a recent Trib article, the state’s child welfare agency has a higher percentage of administrative employees than is the case in other nearby states. But has this change actually happened. Are the frontlines getting relief or do they have to way for this corrections money to appear.
If this change, which seems sensible, hasn’t occured, what’s holding it up. Or is this another Quinn initiative that somehow can’t get off the ground, perhaps because of Quinn’s ties to public employee unions. Middle management in Illinois state govt is unionized too.
- Plutocrat03 - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 2:37 pm:
Salaries were paid, benefits accrued and money was spent. Nearly nothing bad will happen to the offenders.
- Crime Fighter - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 2:38 pm:
@ Cassandra= “Ties to public employee unions.” This is right wing mythology - he became and adversary of public employees soon after he was elected. Besides the current contract (assuming he follows it) allows for shifts and transfers within bargaining unit positions. The plausible explanation is that Quinn continues to be an inept manager.
- RNUG - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 3:31 pm:
I and several hundred other retirees listened to the CMS Dep Dir / Benefits talk at the RSEA meeting in May.
While she denied it was SB-3919 (you got the number wrong, Rich) and while she wouldn’t discuss specific percentages, her whole verbal description of the seven payroll tiers, magic number based on years of service and age at retirement, and based on pension amount at time of retirement sounded exactly like SB-3919.
I’m betting the only difference from the SB-3919 proposal is going to be in the percentages that actually get assigned to the quadrant boxes.
- RNUG - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 3:35 pm:
cassandra,
I believe right now the “official” DCFS “position” is layoffs are going to occur in back office operations and, maybe, even on the front lines.
I’ve heard different rumors so what actually happens once all the budget numbers are totally settled may be a bit different …
- Ronbo - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 3:42 pm:
From the numbers that I have heard, and I know (hope) they will be negotiated down, most of us may end up wishing it was the same as SB-3919.
- Negotiations - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 3:57 pm:
Who has given AFSCME, the right to nego?tiate for the retirees ? They are setting themselves up for a lawsuit.
- wizard - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 4:13 pm:
negotiations: i agree. when i retired, the state owed my several thousand in travel. they tried to say it was not covered (eventually they had to pay). i asked the union to assist (as it was incurred while i was a member) and was told as a retiree they could not help-in other words “go pound sand now that you no longer pay dues”. i do not recognize them as my voice in this matter, nor should any other retiree. they will sell us down the river to help current members that pay dues.
- Ronbo - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 4:29 pm:
I can sort of see how they could negotiate for those of us who retired as union members. Especially those of us who are still members of retiree chapters. I just don’t understand how they can negotiate rates for former merit comp employees. Seems to me like they could set merit comp retirees at any rate they wanted, if the courts will allow it. I think it was a good idea for those former merit comp workers to file their own lawsuit.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 4:37 pm:
===I just don’t understand how they can negotiate rates for former merit comp employees===
Without those negotiations, you’d be left to pay whatever the governor decreed.
- Emily Booth - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 5:50 pm:
Isn’t SB 3918 a form of the Mercer Report which was issued May 17, 2011? Schoenberg had been working on this for at least of couple of years.
- RNUG - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 5:54 pm:
By tradition whatever AFSCME has negogiated on the health care is what has been extended to both active Merit Comp employees, straight Civil Service employees (yes, there are a few who don’t fall in the other categories) and to all retirees. In general, the MC people have gone along with whatever the union outcome was because it has been a decent deal.
Now, with the challenge to the retiree premiums, it opens a whole new set of legal questions. If the “free” health insurance is ruled a “earned” pension benefit (protected) as opposed to a “gifted” benefit (unprotected), then I believe under current federal pension law it is illegal for any union to represent any retiree on any pension issue.
The other outcome of a ruling that the health insurance is earned would be that the pending Senate bill would then be offering a choice between two already protected pension benefits, hence no consideration, so the choice would be invalid.
The State may end up wishing it had never opened this particular can of worms …
- RNUG - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 5:56 pm:
Rich,
Your link above correctly goes to SB-3919 but the text itself in the body of your story reads SB-3918 …
- FreeIllinois - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 8:27 pm:
Well, it’s not too difficult to fathom on our own.
Let’s say the Dir. of CMS has been told to find $220 Million in savings.
He takes that amount, divides it by the number of retirees, and VOILA, there’s everybody’s premium payment.
- RNUG - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 8:41 pm:
FreeIllinois,
Here’s a second scenario …
Try using $400M, which is supposed to be 1/2 of the retiree health cost. Then factor in a delay until January while CMS gets it’s act together. The fee will be in effect only 1/2 a year. To get $400M in savings, viola, 100% premium for six months …
- PublicServant - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 8:56 pm:
It better not be retroactive either. Once the rates are set, I get to choose whether I want to be a part of the theft. Open enrollment should coincide with typical open enrollment periods for other insurance options that may be available to the pensioner who doesn’t choose to be a victim of state theft of benefits. Oh, and by the way, AFCSME doesn’t negotiate for me.
- Quinn T. Sential - Monday, Jul 16, 12 @ 9:57 pm:
Given the pending litigation; requesting Class Action status, if I were a retiree any payment I made would include a notificcation in the memo that payment was deing made under protest pending litigation.
- truthteller - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 6:07 am:
AFSCME didn’t negotiate for former Merit Comp employees. That’s why thousands of them joined the union, to get the benefits of a union contract.
Anyone, union represented or not, who retired after 1997 got the benefit of an approximate 30% pension increase thanks to the new pension formula negotiated by AFSCME.
There are many union members who want AFSCME to ask retirees to sign a waiver relinquishing their enhanced pension benefits and allowing CMS to do as Rich suggests, let CMS charge whatever it wants as the law allows. Then AFSCME could negotiate lower rates for those who want union representation.
Raise your hand if you want a waiver form
- wizard - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 6:29 am:
truthteller: apples and oranges. my point is that when i needed assistance afscme told me to go away. afscme represents its members first and formost therefore cannot fairly represent retirees. my priorities are different than theirs.
- wizard - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 6:31 am:
for afscme to negotiate for the retirees is a conflict of interest. grounds for a lawsuit against both the state and afcsme.
- PublicServant - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 7:22 am:
Yeah right truthteller. I can see negotiations now. The state’s offer: for a greater percentage increase in wages, we’d like you to give up some pension benefits…A split second later, the union response…OK. They know who butters their bread and it isn’t retirees. If you can’t see the inheirent conflict of interest, you’re willfully blind.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 7:28 am:
PublicServant, then I suppose you’re eager to take whatever Quinn gives you.
- wizard - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 8:03 am:
how about a negotiator independent of afscme and dedicated to retiree interest? that’s what union members have in afscme for union contracts.
- Bill - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 8:37 am:
Maybe the unions should only negotiate for their retired members and let the merit comp and other non-bargained for employees do the best they can on their own. Look at how well that has worked out for them in the past.
- wizard - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 8:54 am:
Bill, snark as it is, it still remains that the union will not/cannot separate what is best for their members from what is best for us retirees. Guess who loses? Sure as heck is not paying members.
- Chris - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 9:34 am:
“how about a negotiator independent of afscme and dedicated to retiree interest? ”
You signing the engagement agreement Wizard? Or do you know a skilled negotiator who takes charity cases?
- PublicServant - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 5:15 pm:
No Rich, I’m not. But how bout Arbitrator Ed Benn? He seems like a stand up, fair, reputable, independent guy. Retirees pay association dues. I’d be glad to pay for a true voice representing retirees, who could hit the airwaves, and make our case.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 6:04 pm:
===But how bout Arbitrator Ed Benn? ===
The statute says CMS decides. If CMS decides to do it through AFSCME, that’s all you’re gonna get. Sorry, dude, but you have no choice here.
- PublicServant - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 7:32 pm:
So CMS gets to decide who it negotiates with? Yeah, that’s fair.
- PublicServant - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 7:55 pm:
I’d really like to see you opine for, at the very least, an independent voice at the table, or do you feel that there is no conflict of interest with AFSCME representation of retiree interests?
- Mama - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 11:15 pm:
Are all retirees allowed to vote for or against the ‘health-care premiums portion’ of the contract neogiated between CMS and AFSCME?
- Mama - Tuesday, Jul 17, 12 @ 11:21 pm:
I was at the same meeting and I totally agree with this statement. What she told us was the same as SB-3919 excluding the % and $ amts.
~Mama
I and several hundred other retirees listened to the CMS Dep Dir / Benefits talk at the RSEA meeting in May.
While she denied it was SB-3919 (you got the number wrong, Rich) and while she wouldn’t discuss specific percentages, her whole verbal description of the seven payroll tiers, magic number based on years of service and age at retirement, and based on pension amount at time of retirement sounded exactly like SB-3919.
I’m betting the only difference from the SB-3919 proposal is going to be in the percentages that actually get assigned to the quadrant boxes.