Good afternoon. Earlier this week, the IPACE Executive Committee met to discuss Lobby Day in 2012. AFTER LISTENING TO A RECOMMENDATION FROM A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE IPACE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND EXTENSIVE DISCUSSION, IT WAS UNANIMOUSLY DECIDED TO NOT HAVE LOBBY DAY IN SPRINGFIELD. Instead, our Lobbying will be done back home throughout the spring legislative session.
The rationale for the decision was based on several factors, most significantly the fact that Capitol Building is undergoing a major renovation that would have severely limited the access of our members to the Capitol and their legislators. During the 18 month construction project, there will be limited restroom facilities, the tunnel connecting the Stratton Building to the Capitol will be closed and there
will be limited entrances into the building. Additionally, the back Home lobbying, which we hope will begin in January, since the General Assembly does not come into session until the end of January, will
enable our members more time to meet with their legislators and express their concerns around our critical issues. The committee will be encouraging members to use exiting teams that consist of their Region Chair, Uniserv Director and Grass Roots Political Activist (GPA) to schedule and attend meetings.
There will be limited resources available, based upon need and upon request, to ensure that our members are unencumbered in their efforts to meet with their legislators. To assist members in their efforts, the Government Relations and Communications Departments will work to create fact sheets, and logistical materials to assist members in their efforts.
We are hopeful that this endeavor will result in a positive experience for our members and provide legislators with an opportunity to hear first-hand the interests and concerns of their constituents.
More information will follow in the weeks to come.
Jim Reed, Jr.
Director of Government Relations
Monday, December 12, 2011
NEA Stakes a Claim in Teacher Effectiveness
A National Education Association commission today issued a report today with specific recommendations for upping pre-service requirements, establishing career paths for teachers, and developing new evaluation systems.
The commission, assembled last summer by NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, was charged with examining options and making recommendations about how to help the union promote effective teaching practices.
At a press event this morning, Van Roekel promised that his union would begin a number of new initiatives based on the commission's findings—though how much sway the pronouncement will have on state and local affiliates has yet to be determined.
In a prepared statement, Van Roekel said NEA will support national standards for teacher preparation and licensing. All teacher candidates should have one full year of teaching residency, and pass a performance-based assessment before entering the classroom.
The NEA has supported teacher residency programs in the past, but has not specifically called for all teacher education programs to embrace them. It has long spoken out against alternative-certification routes that permit teachers to learn on the job without a supervised student-teaching experience.
Van Roekel called specifically for the implementation of 50 new residency programs and adoption of performance assessments in at least 10 state licensure systems.
Van Roekel also said NEA would support a career ladder for teachers, with steps including Novice, Professional, and Master Teacher. Those in leadership roles would be evaluated less frequently and earn a higher salary in exchange for working longer hours, mentoring colleagues, and taking on more challenging teaching assignments. In addition, Van Roekel said NEA will help interested affiliates adopt peer-assistance and -review teacher evaluation programs.
Career ladders are permissible under NEA policies, but for a decade, the union opposed nearly all differentiated-compensation programs. That prohibition, listed in resolution F-10, was removed during the union's Representative Assembly in 2011.
The resolution still opposes linking teacher evaluation to additional compensation. One of the recommendations in the Commission's report suggests linking peer review to higher salaries; it was not immediately clear whether the national union will seek to alter this resolution.
Van Roekel's statement did not mention the role of test scores in teacher evaluations. At its Representative Assembly in 2011, the union opened the door to linking the two, but said current tests are not high-quality enough.
The commission report, meanwhile, says teacher should be able to produce student learning outcomes as measured by "classroom, school, district, or state assessments" as evidence of their effectiveness.
Though billed as an independent body, many of the 21 educators and academics chosen to sit on the commission have held leadership positions within NEA affiliates. That said, the commission was provided assistance by an advisory committee, including Tim Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, and Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Both of them have disputed NEA's positions on teacher policy in the past.
Changes to Illinois Teacher Certifications
The Logan-Mason-Menard Regional Office of Education provides the following information on some major changes occurring in the state of Illinois. Senate Bill 1799 has now become Public Act 97-0607. This law revises the requirements for certification, endorsement and assignment of teachers, school personnel and administrators. The below information is draft format only. The changes include the following: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Certification Illinois will be moving to a new system of certification, to be called licensure, as well as raising the fees for application and renewal fees for certificates and endorsements (see chart). Substitute teacher changes
Lapsed certificates
| Coursework
To renew your teaching certificate, go to www.isbe.net and log into your ECS account. You may also visit the Logan-Mason-Menard Regional Office of Education at 122 N. McLean St. in Lincoln or at the Mason County Courthouse, 125 N. Plum St. in Havana, or call the office at 217-732-8388 or 309-543-2192. Please do not hesitate to contact the office if you have any questions or if the staff can be of any assistance. [Text from file received from Logan-Mason-Menard Regional Office of Education 38] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sunday, December 4, 2011
Another Idea for Managing State Pension Costs
You may have read the stories about how next year’s mandatory state pension payment will rise by a whopping one billion dollars.
The new numbers show the state’s total pension payment, with debt service, will be more than $7.4 billion next fiscal year. This year’s pension payment was originally set at $6.4 billion back in March, but is now $6.5 billion.
Not including federal money, the state budget is around $30 billion. So one out of every four state tax dollars spent next year will go to the pension funds, and every last penny from January’s “temporary” state income tax increase will be used for that pension payment next year.
Add an expected $450 million increase for Medicaid costs, plus higher costs for state employee and retiree health care and other natural programmatic growth, and the state could be looking at yet another major fiscal crisis next year – not to mention that last May the state pushed over a billion dollars in Medicaid payments into next year in order to “balance” this year’s budget.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget office expects state revenues to grow by a billion dollars next fiscal year. The amount of the increased pension payment alone will eat up all of it. There’s no doubt that, without some immediate action, more bigtime budget cuts are on the horizon.
The state’s certified pension payment amount can rise for various reasons. The largest increase this time came from the State University Retirement System, which factored in lower future payroll growth, the recently passed two-tiered pension system for new employees and longer life expectancy.
So, obviously, we need pension reform, right? Make employees pay more of the cost and force the rest of them into “optional” 401(k) programs, even though it’s pretty obvious that the Illinois Constitution forbids a solution like that.
A bill to do just that is sitting in the House awaiting a floor vote. But the proposal, crafted by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, would also jack up the state’s annual pension payment next fiscal year by more than a billion dollars from where it is right now.
Yes, you read that right. If the Illinois General Assembly does nothing, pension costs will rise a billion dollars next year. If legislators approve the much-touted reform bill, pension costs will rise a billion dollars next year.
The pension reform bill is designed to ease pension payment increases down the road. But in the short term, at least, costs will actually rise at a higher rate, depriving the rest of the budget of badly needed funds.
Most of the money owed next fiscal year, like every year, is due to a decades-long practice of not paying or grossly underfunding pension obligations, plus paying off loans that were taken out so the state could skip some more pension payments.
This underfunding problem is as old as the pension systems themselves. Way back in 1950, for example, the Teachers’ Retirement System had what’s called an “unfunded liability” of 77 percent. Yet, the system is still taking in lots more than it’s paying out and no teacher has ever missed a pension check.
The unfunded liability is the amount the system will owe to every potential retiree over the next 30 years. A state law passed in the 1990s put Illinois on track to reach a goal of 90 percent funding for all the pension systems by 2045. The ramp started slow, but then shot straight up over the past several years. The state’s total annual pension payment has doubled in just the past three years because it’s tied to that 90 percent goal.
Asked whether the governor had given any thought to adjusting the “ramp” and lowering the 90 percent target, a spokesperson said the current law remains the administration’s goal. However, she added, “If legislators want to have discussions about that, they can bring it to the table, but we haven’t had serious discussions about that.”
It may be time to rethink this 90 percent solution. The state definitely needs to have enough cash to make sure checks are cut, plus a cushion. But if the Constitution stops Illinois from changing employee benefits, then maybe we can have a discussion of setting a less lofty goal.
The new numbers show the state’s total pension payment, with debt service, will be more than $7.4 billion next fiscal year. This year’s pension payment was originally set at $6.4 billion back in March, but is now $6.5 billion.
Not including federal money, the state budget is around $30 billion. So one out of every four state tax dollars spent next year will go to the pension funds, and every last penny from January’s “temporary” state income tax increase will be used for that pension payment next year.
Add an expected $450 million increase for Medicaid costs, plus higher costs for state employee and retiree health care and other natural programmatic growth, and the state could be looking at yet another major fiscal crisis next year – not to mention that last May the state pushed over a billion dollars in Medicaid payments into next year in order to “balance” this year’s budget.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget office expects state revenues to grow by a billion dollars next fiscal year. The amount of the increased pension payment alone will eat up all of it. There’s no doubt that, without some immediate action, more bigtime budget cuts are on the horizon.
The state’s certified pension payment amount can rise for various reasons. The largest increase this time came from the State University Retirement System, which factored in lower future payroll growth, the recently passed two-tiered pension system for new employees and longer life expectancy.
So, obviously, we need pension reform, right? Make employees pay more of the cost and force the rest of them into “optional” 401(k) programs, even though it’s pretty obvious that the Illinois Constitution forbids a solution like that.
A bill to do just that is sitting in the House awaiting a floor vote. But the proposal, crafted by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, would also jack up the state’s annual pension payment next fiscal year by more than a billion dollars from where it is right now.
Yes, you read that right. If the Illinois General Assembly does nothing, pension costs will rise a billion dollars next year. If legislators approve the much-touted reform bill, pension costs will rise a billion dollars next year.
The pension reform bill is designed to ease pension payment increases down the road. But in the short term, at least, costs will actually rise at a higher rate, depriving the rest of the budget of badly needed funds.
Most of the money owed next fiscal year, like every year, is due to a decades-long practice of not paying or grossly underfunding pension obligations, plus paying off loans that were taken out so the state could skip some more pension payments.
This underfunding problem is as old as the pension systems themselves. Way back in 1950, for example, the Teachers’ Retirement System had what’s called an “unfunded liability” of 77 percent. Yet, the system is still taking in lots more than it’s paying out and no teacher has ever missed a pension check.
The unfunded liability is the amount the system will owe to every potential retiree over the next 30 years. A state law passed in the 1990s put Illinois on track to reach a goal of 90 percent funding for all the pension systems by 2045. The ramp started slow, but then shot straight up over the past several years. The state’s total annual pension payment has doubled in just the past three years because it’s tied to that 90 percent goal.
Asked whether the governor had given any thought to adjusting the “ramp” and lowering the 90 percent target, a spokesperson said the current law remains the administration’s goal. However, she added, “If legislators want to have discussions about that, they can bring it to the table, but we haven’t had serious discussions about that.”
It may be time to rethink this 90 percent solution. The state definitely needs to have enough cash to make sure checks are cut, plus a cushion. But if the Constitution stops Illinois from changing employee benefits, then maybe we can have a discussion of setting a less lofty goal.
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