August 24, 2010, 7:19 pm
Illinois SURS to sell off $1.2 billion in investments
By Barry B. Burr
Source: Pensions & Investments
Date: August 23, 2010
Illinois State Universities Retirement System, Champaign, expects to sell $1.2 billion in investments this fiscal year to raise liquidity to pay pension benefits to participants, said Daniel L. Allen, chief investment officer.
SURS could undertake an asset-liability study next year because of the liquidity stress, Mr. Allen said. Its last asset-liability study was three years ago.
Illinois SURS, with $12.2 billion in defined benefit assets, has not received any of the $850 million in state contributions the system requested this fiscal year, which began July 1, Mr. Allen said.
Read more at Pensions & Investments…
August 23, 2010, 4:18 pm
Your UPI negotiating team met with the administration and their new attorney, Andrea Waintroob, for approximately 90 minutes this morning. Your team passed counter proposals on several articles that have a negotiating history but never reached tentative agreement (TA). We grouped these articles as an evaluation package. Included in this package were articles on evaluation of Teaching and Resource Professionals, evaluation of Instructors and Academic Resource Professionals (ARP), retention of Academic Support Professionals (ASP), status statements for Instructors, ARP and ASP and the two articles that address sanction and termination of bargaining unit employees.
We had anticipated a response to our July 27 counter to the administration’s compensation proposal. Unfortunately, the administration’s response on compensation passed today was incomplete so we will have to wait for the administration’s finished document.
Our lead negotiator, Jamie Daniel, suggested several options for future negotiation sessions: Tuesday mornings, Thursdays, Fridays after 10:30, evenings and weekends. The administration offered the following dates through September so if you are counting days until we reach agreement, mark your calendars for August 31, September 14, September 21 and September 28.
August 19, 2010, 11:44 am
Ed Geppert, President of the IFT, and Ken Swanson, President of IEA, have written a response to the Tribune and the Commercial Club of Chicago continuing onslaught on the Illinois pension system. The union leaders suggest that the Tribune has been used as a tool of terror. Please find below the commentary by Geppert and Swanson, response by Eden Martin (Commercial Club) and the Tribune.
Teachers: Don’t blame us for mess
By Ed Geppert and Ken Swanson
August 19, 2010
Dennis Byrne’s Aug. 10 column on Illinois’ financially imperiled pension system struck a nerve. The presidents of the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers have responded with an essay that says the Tribune is being used as a “tool of terror.” The IEA Web site says the Tribune is “waging a relentless war against public employees over state pensions” and claims the “real author” of Byrne’s column was Eden Martin, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
In the interest of debate, we present the essay from the IEA and IFT, and a response from Eden Martin.
How much longer will the Chicago Tribune allow itself to be used as a tool of terror by millionaire Eden Martin in his quest to deprive hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans of the reasonable retirement they, in large part, have paid for?
The Aug. 10 opinion piece, ostensibly written by public relations specialist Dennis Byrne, is a blatant attempt to frighten and intimidate innocent people who simply expect the State of Illinois to keep its promises.
Byrne/Martin’s claim that the state pension shortfall was caused by overly-generous pension benefits paid to state employees and teachers is provably false. And they know it.
Read more at the Chicago Tribune…
August 17, 2010, 2:58 pm
Here’s a response to the Tribune article of last week “pension check may not be in the mail.” This was posted by Center for Business and Public Policy at UIUC.
Why That Illinois Pension Check Will (Most Likely) Be in the Mail After All
Posted by Jeffrey Brown on Aug 16, 2010
As an economist, I often get annoyed when lawyers with no training in economics try to act as if they are experts in economic policy. As such, all the lawyers out there should be equally annoyed with this blog post, because I – an economist with no legal training – am about to make an observation about state constitutional law.
Read more at the Center for Business and Public Policy…
August 17, 2010, 2:31 pm
Perhaps some of you heard the news reports yesterday that Northern Illinois U and Northwestern U scored an F on a review of their baccalaureate core curriculum. What wasn’t reported was that NEIU scored a “B.” Here’s the link to look at the report on NEIU which allows you to review the “grades” of more than 700 colleges and universities. I’ve included the article from the Washington Post that discusses the study.
Colleges come up short on what students need to know
By Kathleen Parker
Sunday, August 15, 2010; A13
It is generally true that you get what you pay for, but not necessarily when it comes to higher education.
A study scheduled for release Monday about the value of a college education, at least when it comes to the basics, has found the opposite to be true in most cases. Forget Harvard and think Lamar.
Indeed, the Texas university, where tuition runs about $7,000 per year (Harvard’s is $38,000) earns an A to Harvard’s D based on an analysis of the universities’ commitment to core subjects deemed essential to a well-rounded, competitive education.
Read more at the Washington Post…
