In print or online Wednesday, this newspaper's latest expose of rampant public pension abuse ought to stir your fury, and your sympathy: fury that pension officials enabled this corruption, and sympathy for the rank-and-file union members, as well as the taxpayers, who are victimized.
You'll learn how Chicago labor leaders eligible for grossly inflated city pensions also stand to receive union pensions for the same work periods. One labor leader stands to collect about $450,000 a year from three pensions — a city fund for laborers, a union district council fund, and a national union fund — all for the same stretch of his career. The actuarial computation is that his three pensions, over his expected lifetime, will pay him some $9 million.
What you won't learn from the news story is what we hope federal investigators will explore in lavish detail: Why did some of City Hall's top finance officials allow these outrages to occur? How could they, in their oversight roles at city pension funds, expose union members and taxpayers to future calamities? How could they permit themselves to have fiduciary responsibility to protect the public purse and responsibility to pension funds that draw vast sums from that same public purse?
We're talking about a city pension system that is underfunded by approximately $20 billion, maybe more.
We're talking about public officials in positions to realize that the implosion of city pension funds (1) would profoundly hurt union workers who expect to collect stable pension payments, or (2) would extort vast sums from taxpayers to cover the obligations of empty pension funds, or (3) would do both.
We're talking, then, about the abandonment of professional and personal responsibility by pension fund officials who had to know the real story here: A foolishly loosey-goosey interpretation of state law permitted de facto public pension payoffs to union leaders who, in return, delivered labor peace to City Hall.
That state law attempts to prohibit double- and triple-dipping from public and union pension funds. If you're a union official who draws a city pension, you can't earn a separate pension from a "local labor organization." The way city pension fund officials have been reading the law, though, it's OK for you to draw that second pension, and maybe a third, if they come from your union's district council or national headquarters. Those, you see, aren't … labor locals.
A lawyer for city pension fund overseers says the law is vague. Maybe so. How did fund officials react to that vagueness? Did they sound an alarm and demand clarity? Did they tell labor leaders that the law's intent to block double- or triple-dipping is obvious? Did the fund officials, in short, act to protect pension funds for future retirees and act to protect taxpayers from future obligations?
For now the answers appear to be: No, no and no. Instead, the pension fund overseers — they're all city officials and union officers — aided and abetted this scandalous looting of city pension funds.
With each new revelation, the need for independent investigation of egregious pension-rigging grows more obvious. We'll stick with the tripartite recommendation previously prescribed on this page:
• FBI agents can assess whether any pensioner fraudulently claimed benefits when he or she asserted eligibility for a public pension. The feds also need to probe the conduct of city pension fund officials, and of city officials who directed payments into these funds.
• The city of Chicago's inspector general has authority to explore the use, and potential misuse, of city funds. We'll be watching Wednesday to see whether Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposed budget for 2012 increases or decreases funding for that office.
• The U.S. Department of Labor has responsibility to protect union pension funds. This situation screams for investigation by Labor.
These authorities can decide whether any of this conduct is illegal. But even a dictionary knows it meets the definition of corrupt: contaminated, morally unsound, debased, venal.
Who should pay for this? We're counting on three prompt and aggressive investigations to provide that answer.
Copyright, Chicago Tribune
"If you ask me what I am, I'm a reformer, and I support reformers," Feinberg, also chairman of Chicago-based Maxim Revenue Management Solutions, said in an interview Monday. "What's happened is that Illinois' political leadership has ignored the obvious in recent history and, as a result, has plunged Illinois into this self-perpetuating cycle of debt."
ReplyDeleteDURING THE LAST MONTH THE LEADERSHIP AT IBEW 134 HAS BEEN DECIMATED BY THIS. HALF OF THE BUSINESS MANAGERS HAVE BEEN FIRED AND OTHERS HAVE QUIT.
ReplyDeletedaley should be charged and put in jail!
ReplyDeleteThis problem can be straightened out if everyone agrees to take a 25% reduction in their pension, starting today.
ReplyDeleteThats just a bunch of BS. They promised me............... A deal is a deal.
ReplyDeleteHow much of a reduction will Maloney take? Will it be just one of his pensions or all 4?
ReplyDeleteHas anyone seen Dart on TV. He is reopening the Gacy investigation. How much is this PR stunt costing the taxpayers?
ReplyDeleteNBC News and msnbc.com
ReplyDeleteupdated 10/12/2011 11:45:07 AM ET
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A labor leader in Chicago is expected to receive pension payments of nearly $500,000 a year, while another could get about $438,000 a year, according to reports Wednesday.
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The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, which obtained information about union pension benefits during a joint investigation, said at least eight union officials in Chicago were eligible for what were described as inflated city pensions on top of union pensions for the same period of employment.
The news organizations said this was due to "a charitable interpretation" of Illinois law by officials representing two city pension funds.
"Can you name any place in the world where someone can get two pensions for the same job?" state Rep. Tom Cross, a Republican, told the paper. "Even by our standards here in Illinois, it's beyond belief. It's insane."
Chicago and Illinois are facing financial trouble, in part due to pension shortfalls.
On Tuesday, state Sen. Mark Kirk released a report on Illinois' debt that said it had the worst credit rating of any state and that its debt was rising, NBC Chicago reported.
Kirk said the state was nearly insolvent and said he doubted there would be any help from Washington.
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"It's highly unlikely that the federal government would ever bail out a spend-thrift state. Therefore, Illinois needs to fix this on its own," he said.
Amid the city's financial woes, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has reportedly proposed a budget that would see three of Chicago's oldest police stations closed. The budget was due to be unveiled Wednesday.
$9 million over lifetime?
The Tribune said the official who was expected to get about $438,000 a year would do so from three pensions covering the same work period: a city laborers fund, a union district council fund and a national union fund.
It said an analysis showed that this 59-year-old union official, Liberato "Al" Naimoli, would get a total of about $9 million if he lived to his expected lifespan.
Another official, Charles LoVerde III, a former trustee of the city laborers' pension fund, stood to receive three pensions for the same time period totaling nearly $500,000 a year, the investigation found.
The Tribune said he took leave of absence in 1998 from a job with the city's water management department, which paid $44,000 a year, to work full time for the local.
The paper said the law states that union leaders with city pensions cannot "receive credit in any pension plan established by the local labor organization based on his employment by the organization."
But pension fund officials say a union district council is not a local labor organization, the paper said.
"The Legislature never told us how to administer this thing," the city pension fund directors' attorney, Fredrick Heiss, told the paper. "They could have said 'no second pension at all,' but they didn't say that."
The Tribune said the joint investigation with WGN-TV found that Naimoli, president of Cement Workers Local 76, was receiving a city pension of about $158,000 a year. It said his city pension was based on his union salary.
Naimoli, who retired in 2010 from the $15,000-a-year city job, is also now eligible to receive a pension of about $60,000 a year, the paper said, from the Laborers' Pension Fund for Chicago and Vicinity.
He also will become eligible for payments of about $220,000 a year from a third pension, provided by the national union, LIUNA, on his 60th birthday next year.
The Tribune said he had not worked his $15,000-a-year job with the city for a quarter of a century.
sickening
ReplyDeleteNo labor leader should make more that double the average wage of their members. I'm sorry but if they want to rich they need to be on the business side. As far as these pensions, everyone should be entitled to one government pension and thats it. Lets leave something on the table for everyone else.
ReplyDeleteWill we ever get out pensions? If we do will it be enough to live off of ?
ReplyDeleteany one have a list of whats these 19 Ward polaticians get in for their retirements. I read some where dat they are all gettin 2 and 3 retirement checks every month.
ReplyDeleteI fear this scandal is much bigger than anyone can imagine. Our pensions have been looted by the very people who were supposed to protect us.
ReplyDeleteDart is going national. Major national press for a closed case file. Showboater.
ReplyDeletejerry joyce is the culprit who drew up this bill back in 1991 so the union leaders would be encouraged to get there members behind Daley,now its payoff time,Daley retires.That whole thieving Daley family and friends deserves jail time and to pay pensioners restitution.
ReplyDeletethe Problem for all of these politicians is that Daley is gone, and Rahm is in.
ReplyDeleteRahm is out for himself, he will not cover any old deals and now they politicians have no one to protect them. Rahm will break all old deals and make the new deals for his own benefit and money.
i would very very scared if i were the political elite and their cronie friends who made scores of millions over the last 30 years.
FBI = JAIL
we voted for and worked for daley. now we find out he fumbled our pensions. wtf were we thinking.
ReplyDeleteJJ Sr. moved out of the ward a year ago.
ReplyDeleteMayor Daley just got old and burned out. He just let everything go to pot.
ReplyDeleteNo one is going to jail.
ReplyDeleteWrong, someone is / needs to go to jail.
ReplyDelete