An appeal to the Illinois Governor to change the pension system

 May 10, 2025

Dear Governor Pritzker, 

I am writing to urge you to support SB2/HB2711 Fair Retirement and Recruitment Act aimed at improving Tier 2 public pension benefits.   The bill includes aligning Tier One and Tier Two average salary calculations, retirement age and  implementing a 3% cost of living increase, legal compliance and workforce sustainability.  

Tier Two affects employees hired after January 1, 2011.   It has created inequities in retirement security and undermines the recruitment and retention of essential public employees.  This bill is a matter of fairness but it also has legal and fiscal importance.    

Tier Two was enacted to reduce long-term pension liabilities to curb the state’s growing retirement liabilities due to the pension not being fully funded.   Public service employees that are newer have disproportionately lower retirement benefits.   In many cases these benefits fall below the safe harbor standards exposing the state to potential penalties and litigation.   These disparities between Tier Two and Tier One are a threat to retention and on the job morale, especially  affecting workers in education, law enforcement and state agencies.   This has to be fixed; staffing challenges are abounding and will continue to increase without action.   

The Fair Retirement and Recruitment Act would adjust the final average salary and retirement age thresholds, provide actuarially responsible enhancements to bring Tier Two benefits closer to parity of Tier One benefactors.   Public service worker are the backbone of our state.   Supporting this reform is a valuable step toward restoring trust and fairness in the pension system. 

Your support of the public service employees across the state that ‘make Illinois happen’ everyday.   You have the power to protect all employees retirement without regard to when they began working and as a natural result continue to attract qualified professionals for state public service.   By backing this legislation, you signal your commitment to long-term fiscal responsibility and respect for the people who server our state 

Please support this legislation and work with the General Assembly to ensure its passage.  

Sincerely, 

[Student]

Your three arguments for why the Governor should support the Fair Retirement and Recruitment Act are:

1) fairness; Tier Two benefits are unfairly lower than Tier One benefits.

2) risk; Tier Two benefits do not meet safe harbor status to allow the state not to collect Social Security payroll taxes from state employees.  If successfully sued, the State of Illinois could owe the Social Security Administration retroactively 12.4% of every paycheck it has paid to a state employee under Tier Two going back to 2011, and owe interest and penalties on all these payments.  This would effectively bankrupt the state, and there may be people in the current federal administration who would love to bankrupt the state (and thus, destroy the governor's hopes of being a presidential or vice presidential candidate for the Democrats in 2028). 

3) recruitment of a good workforce; Tier Two benefits are so bad that many potential state employees will seek employment elsewhere to avoid taking a job with such terrible retirement conditions.

I think your line about “commitment to long-term fiscal responsibility” is a powerful point to make with this specific politician. 

I think you could point out how ridiculous it may be for some types of state workers to tell them that they cannot qualify to retire until they are 67 years-old. Should school teachers be in the classroom for 43 years?  Should laborers in the Department of Transportation be working on road crews for 45 years? Yes, some state workers may want to work into their late 60s or even into their 70s, but requiring this of all state workers is creating situations that are obviously ridiculous.  The lack of cost-of-living adjustments to pensions in Tier 2 also creates horrible situations, especially if inflation rises significantly for a few years as it did in 2021-2023. 

Your request that the governor support the legislation and work with the General Assembly is also important.  The Governor needs to be encouraged to be more vocal in his support of specific bills, and this is a bill that you want him to support.

It seems to me that with this politician, you could emphasize the point that pension obligations in Illinois would now allow us to increase benefits to state employees hired in 2011 and later without putting the state's financials in danger, whereas failing to do so leaves our state vulnerable to fatal lawsuits.

With this politician, I would never miss an opportunity to explain that we need more revenue, and I would add that our sales taxes are too high, and our income taxes are too low, so why not raise the income tax and eliminate the general sales tax in such a way that we get enough of an increase in revenue to pay for pension reform, take care of mass transit infrastructure in Chicago, adequately fund higher education and K-12 education, pay for improved mental health services, implement the state's plan to end poverty, and pay for the creation of affordable housing to end homelessness in the state. I actually had a conversation with J.B. before he was even officially a candidate (he came to a demonstration when Rauner was governor, and he gave me about four or five minutes of his time for a short discussion, in which I complained about the structural deficit in the state and the need for politicians to be honest and explain that they needed to raise more revenue to do what is necessary).