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| Mike Zalewski |
Southland Savvy
Lawmakers charged with figuring out a solution to the
state's growing pension crisis are warming to a proposal promoted by university
presidents to provide full funding for the State University Retirement System as
a possible framework for the state.
"The SURS plan is one which we feel might be something
all four caucuses could live with," said state Rep. Michael Zalewski
(D-23rd), of Riverside, one of the lawmakers named to the Joint Conference
Committee by House Speaker Mike Madigan.
"We all sort of agreed that it was something to look
at," Zalewski said Monday before the committee held its third meeting.
The SURS Six-Step Plan, as explained by Southern Illinois
University president Glenn Poshard, is designed to provide full funding for the
state university system in 30 years. The measure would increase employee
contributions from 8 percent to 10 percent over four years, adjust the compound
COLA for retirees to half of the Consumer Price Index, place new employees into
a hybrid pension system that combines defined benefits and defined
contributions, change the way to calculate the effective rate of interest used
to determine a range of benefits, refunds and service credits set annually by
the SURS Board and the State Comptroller, shift the normal pension costs from
the state to the universities at a rate of 0.5 percent per year, and ensure
that the state and/or universities make their payments into the pension system.
Zalewski said conference committee members like the proposal
because it deals with COLA increases "which are the biggest cost driver of
the pension crisis."
He said that savings under the SURS proposal would probably
fall "somewhere in the middle" between the projected savings of the
competing pension reform bills sponsored by Speaker Madigan and Senate
President John Cullerton.
Poshard called the SURS plan "shared sacrifice,"
but said it had the backing of every university in the state.
He said that while crafted for SURS, its main components
would go a long way toward creating a solution for the state's other pension
systems, including the Teachers Retirement System, the State Employees
Retirement System, the General Assembly Retirement System and the Judges
Retirement System.
Zalewski said the conference committee was waiting for
actuarial reports on the projected savings and that he would have a better idea
on when a compromise bill would be available once those reports were received.
"We're working as hard as we can on getting those
reports back," he said.
Not fast enough for Gov. Pat Quinn apparently.
The governor, who set July 8 as the deadline for a
compromise, said Wednesday he would use his budgetary veto powers to hold back
paychecks for state legislators until they come up with a solution to the
pension crisis.
Zalewski, a staunch supporter of the Madigan proposal to
solve the state's pension crisis, said he was mildly surprised to be named to
the conference committee.
"I had been doing a lot of work on pension
reform," he said. "Maybe somebody wanted me on the committee because
I was familiar with the proposals."
