* After House Speaker Michael Madigan said this week that he wanted to start looking at legislation to reduce pension benefits, Senate President John Cullerton told reporters that he opposed the idea…
Illinois Senate President John Cullerton on Wednesday tossed cold water on the idea of reducing future pension benefits for current state workers, but House Speaker Michael Madigan appeared to forge ahead anyway.
“We’ve asked our staff to do research on it,” Cullerton, D-Chicago, said in an interview. “I’m pretty clear that it would be unconstitutional.”
However, Cullerton left open the possibility of the Senate considering a bill that comes over from the House.
“We’re not going to initiate a bill in the Senate,” he said. “I’d vote against the bill in the Senate. If the House passes a bill and the speaker wants it to be called … we’ll certainly talk.”
Perhaps a more difficult question is whether it is fair. From a state employee’s standpoint, absolutely not. The employees have held up their end of the deal all along. The underfunding has come from the state skipping payments into the system.
From a private sector standpoint, however, it’s hard to argue fairness. Employees in the private sector have seen defined-benefit pensions end and employer matches of their 401(k) contributions discontinued. They’ve suffered under an economy that was nearly killed — through no fault of their own — by careless Wall Street daredevils who, by and large, have gone unpunished.
After failing to confirm top gubernatorial appointees in the previous legislative session, lawmakers are now looking to tighten Senate rules to prevent a string of government employees from working without proper authorization.
A Senate panel on Wednesday approved Senate Bill 1, which bars future holdover appointees and acting appointees from serving without confirmation after 30 days. Temporary appointees will be allowed to serve until the next meeting of the Senate.
Holdover appointees are those who have finished their term, but continue to serve until someone new has been nominated.
The bill passed the Senate this morning on a unanimous roll call.
Advance Illinois executive director Robin Steans said progress is being made in some areas.
“There’s been a high level of agreement that it is time for performance to play a role (in staffing),” Steans said. “The devil is very much in the details. Are they going to do that in a way that’s really serious and meaningful, or is it more of a fig leaf? That’s what the negotiations are about now.”
Lightford said talks are focusing on how to bring performance evaluations into staffing matters rather than rely solely on seniority.
“I think we should look at it this way: Seniority should count, but to what degree? What part does performance count?” she said.
Couple that with issues about who should conduct performance evaluations — a school principal or a panel of the teacher’s peers.
“There’s a lot of moving parts to it,” Lightford said. “We’re trying to set up a system where personnel evaluations are impactful, they matter. Just because you’ve been a teacher for 10, 15, 20 years doesn’t mean you are OK if your performance in a lot of other areas is not up to par.”
* Senate President Cullerton talked with reporters about several of the above issues yesterday. Listen…
