MAKE THIS STORY GO VIRAL -- You Thought California State Pensions Were Out Of Control? Wait Until You See This List From Illinois

UPDATE:  Since we published this story yesterday it has been picked up by Glenn Beck, Business Insider, Patrick.net, and several other sources.  As of 5 AM this morning it has been seen by 322,000 unique visitors.  Keep it going!

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Meet Neil Codell an Illinois educator with a $26 million state pension. 

Look for 'Codell, Neil C' -- 4th from the top of the list.  His estimated career pension is $26,661,604.  That's almost $27 million for a single administrator within just one local Illinois school system (Niles, to be exact).

Read about his benefits package HERE

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More detail:  Source

While the California teachers' unions are effectively destroying one school system after another, an alert commenter pointed me to some even more shocking news from Illinois. Their pension system for educators is -- if you can believe it -- even farther off the reservation.

Using actuarial calculations from the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS), Champion News reports that the total estimated pension liability for the top 100 retirees will equal...

Click the table to see a larger version. 

Make sure you're sitting down.

Seriously.

$887,925,790.00

You read this right. The top 100 retirees, by themselves, will cost Illinois taxpayers nearly one billion dollars.

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Slideshow with great photos:

• The 11 States Most Likely to Default in the Next 5 Years

Comments

[TR]

Everyone here is just JEALOUS.

NANNY NANNY BOO BOO

[Dave Diesel 81]

The Sheeple will do nothing except bleat, but not to worry, the system will collapse before they collect much.

All the politicians are offering is FREE BEER TOMMORROW

Remember the song SIXTEEN TONS ? PLAY IT AND BLEAT

[Harry Johnson]

This clown is not a teacher and it is doubtful he is under union contract. You conservaclowns keep blaming the unions for the trash pulled by the executives you love so much. Till we start cutting back on administrators, salesboy trash, marketeering trash, lowlifes who think they should live all their life on trading paper and other non productive parasites, things will not get better.

I am absolutely disgusted every time I hear some wrong wingnut conservaclown salesboy or stock trader whine about working for a living. They would not know work if it bit them..

[DailyBail]

Harry...Neil Codell is under union contract...he is an administrator...I have done the background research...

[Helen Goldberry]

I see all of your information about the top end of the pension scale for IL employees, but where may I ask is your list for the BOTTOM of the list of pension recipients? It is skewed and bigoted reporting not to post those figures as well and most of the IL employees do not fall under the golden parachute. They didn't get paid fabulous amounts so that they make other investments to supplement their golden years. They were too busy living hand to mouth trying to care for themselves and their families. If you want to present a fair and balanced view publish the bottom earning state employees right along with the top ones. But somehow I just don't think you will...

[DailyBail]

helen...the story is what is is...it's about abuse at the top...everyone intuitively understands that not everyone makes anywhere near these numbers...but the point is NO ONE should be making these kinds of figures...go get a job in the private sector, and you will be laughed at if you ask for a pension...they just don't exist...

and DON'T call me bigoted...EVER...i abhor racism, and that has nothing to do with this story...you proved yourself to be a first class idiot with that comment...

[brachiosaurus]

Now seriously, can you please, please, PLEASE actually follow the links that are given for this article and READ them?!? These pensions are NOT for the teachers; they are for the administrators and superintendents of the schools. Quit demonizing teachers! They're not the ones ruining our educational system and raking in huge bonuses and pensions.

Here. Check out the average teacher salaries:
http://www.educationworld.net/salaries_us.html

Now check out the superintendent salaries:
http://www.aasa.org/content.aspx?id=3030

Now, you tell me: what looks more like that chart up there, the teachers, or the superintendents?

It really irks me that the authors of these articles fail to differentiate between the teachers and the administrators of our schools, and frame the problem as having to do with the "teachers' unions." Give me a break. Beginning wages for a teacher with a BA or higher in most states is more than $10,000 LESS than I made in the corporate world with a HS diploma ten years ago.

Let's get real, here, and quit trashing the folks who spend all day with our kids, trying to teach them in spite of a system that's fundamentally flawed, stifles their creativity, and tries cutting their pay all while placing huge demands on them.

[Jim Pearson]

Codell's pension is indeed big, but I think it's based on his projected 800K salary, rather than his current 350K salary. Many state pension plans were fully funded, or over funded until the market crashed 10 years ago. If the stock market recovers, as it has in the past, this problem will disappear.
In Oregon, state salaries were compared to private sector salaries, and at the lower end, state salaries won while at the higher end the private sector had higher salaries. Benefits were higher in the state jobs, but when salary and benefits were combined, private sector compensation was higher in all jobs except minimum wage jobs. A comparable job to Codell's would likely pay over a million in the private sector, and the pension would be off of the books. In the private sector, executives often have a non-qualified pension plan in addition to the qualified plan which all employees have. The qualified plans have been gutted recently, which is why many private sector employees have bad pensions these days. The change started in the late 80's, when the high interest rates had the pension plans sitting with too much money and employers switched to 401k plans so that they could pocket the extra money. In the early 00's, the bad stock market left the pension plans with too little money, so many plans were changed to reduce employee benefits.

[Chris]

Yes this is bad: But hey where is the rest of the info? Why only the selected few? I thought the district had 100,000 employees?

[LiberatedCitizen]

Teachers aren't the only one's it's public employee's in general they vote themselves the purse. They should be abolished. The original purpose of a Union was to fight business as workers had no say. Public unions are different from private unions whose employee's pay the majority of their own retirement with a contribution from employer's via a contract. When private unions have a problem they make cuts and change policies public unions think they are above that. They also make more in the majority of the states then the taxpayers median income who are paying their salaries.


The Trouble with Public Sector Unions
snip

Even President Franklin Roosevelt, a friend of private-sector unionism, drew a line when it came to government workers: "Meticulous attention," the president insisted in 1937, "should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government....The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service."

http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-trouble-with-public-sector-unions

Five-Million-Dollar Pensions Enjoyed by Illinois State Cops

http://www.taxpayersunitedofamerica.org/commentary/itef/five-million-dollar-pensions-enjoyed-by-illinois-state-cops-part-2

[SKINFLINT]

Totally off subject except this is about schools. http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/news/local/new-computerized-technology-with-palm-scanning-machines-is-being-installed/article_b48bbf3a-dceb-54a7-94ba-58b32f5a3192.html My kids go to these schools, now I will have to go in there to tell them to keep their eugenics to themselves.

[Michael]

So now that hunting humans is legal as Diane Feinstein says, killing those top 100 IL pensioners will save the state $1 billion dollars? Pinky to the mouth. Did I get that right?

[Guy]

LET THE SYSTEM FAIL...Let them get ZERO PENSION... BANKRUPTCY!