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:
Jun 28, 2011 at 10:03 PM
Reader Comments (113)
Published June 14, 2010 by:
Nancy Tracy
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5478638/is_meg_whitmans_blood_too_blue_for.html?cat=8
Yes, these Government Employees now are the Puppets of politicians and when we ask questions, these employees Bully us. I am screaming from my personal experience. Fat corrupt Governments keep giving themselves raises and keep raising taxes on us. Now these thugs becoming too creative to find ways to tax scam us.
USA is now ruled by Corporate Elites and Wall Street Thugs
Fellow Americans: we are again doomed in California
One seasoned Politician scum bag and other corporate elite
why would Meg Spends $80m+ for a $250k? Job?
How did she make her Fortune?? Wake up now
Whitman Meg already showing True colors
Open letter here by Ramie Zomisky Deleted and no answer to my letter in the email yet?
Dear Meg, We have two set of Rules in Corporate world for Salaries and Compensation
take the time to read it...there is one guy who will get more than $17 million in pension from taxpayers...that is a crime...
Obama Wants $26 Billion For Bailout Of Teachers' Unions
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/05/17/obamas-latest-payoff-another-bailout-for-teachers-union/
http://dailybail.com/home/students-are-trapped-by-selfish-greedy-disgraceful-teacher-u.html
NJ Gov. Christie Tells Complaining Teacher: "Unlike The Fed, The State Of New Jersey Can't Print Money" (WATCH)
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/06/public-union-parasites-move-to-bar.html
Are Journalists Finally Getting Over their Pro-Teacher-Union Fetish?
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/06/obama-once-again-wants-to-buy-union.html
A showdown is scheduled in Albany today as the Legislature decides either to approve an emergency spending bill or possibly let New York state government shut down.
The Senate went into session around 1:30 p.m. and the Assemby is due to meet at 2 p.m., with a vote on the so-called extender bill coming sometime this afternoon.
Sources tell NBCNewYork that weekend negotiations appear to have avoided a shutdown. Senate leaders say they will keep the state running and Gov. David Paterson was cautiously optimistic Sunday night.
Senate Democrats -- including Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx -- sought to assure New Yorkers and the state's 200,000 employees that a government shutdown will be averted today.
DB! You've missed one elementary fact. These are not TEACHER'S pensions, they are administrator pensions. The average teacher is lucky to get $50,000 a year. The highest teacher pension I know of personally, for 35 years of service with a master's degree, was $36,000 and that was in the San Francisco Bay Area where an average house still costs about $600,000.
Teachers unions have nothing to do with these bloated administrator pensions and salaries. Most teachers don't believe they need all this administration and would be happy to administer their own schools with the help of a friendly principle, a handful of secretaries and a lot of counselors who are paid about the same salary as they are.
It is important to get angry at the right people. I agree that at least 90%, and I don't think I'm exaggerating, of these administrator jobs should be eliminated but I think we need MORE good teachers and the only way we can get them is to make teaching conditions better and to pay teachers a middle class wage. And a middle class wage depends on geographical location, obviously.
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James...there are hundred if not thousands of teachers with pensions greater than 75k in california...it's all in there...follow the links...especially this one...
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/02/bloodcurdling-tales-of-horror-how.html
Also read the story again... i wrote 'administrator' to distinguish them from teachers...i thought i made that clear in the story...i realize that I also wrote 'educators'...by this i was trying to distinguish from teachers...that part wasn't clear...you are right...
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the numbers are fine in many states...but in the states that need bailouts FROM taxpayers, the numbers are off the charts...california, illinois, new york...check the numbers...they are in the links provided...
http://www.businessinsider.com/if-you-thought-new-york-was-bad-check-out-the-ridiculous-public-sector-pensions-in-illinois-2010-6
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same effect on me...i've been sitting on this story for 6 months waiting for the right time to post it...i almost forgot about it until yesterday when i saw the new bailout proposal from obama...
I said I don't know of any TEACHERS who get more than $50,000 per year retirement. There might be some but I don't know any.
I would like to know what percentage of teacher retirees pull down more than $75,000 per year in retirement and I would be surprised if it's more than 5%, even in California, New York or Illinois. They would have to be PhD's with about 40 years of teaching years.
And please don't call administrators educators. They are simply administrators and have virtually nothing to do with education, unfortunately. Teachers are the only real educators. As I said, virtually 90% of all administrators are unnecessary and could be eliminated.
I meant to say Illinois teachers making 75 k pensions not california...
Here is the link...there are 34,000 teachers and administrators in Illinois who have pensions greater than 50k per year...many greater than 100k...
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston/news/2361978%2Cpp-pensiondb-061010-s1.article?appSession=10566486932831
You have to go through them individually to find out the details...
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-04/states-shrink-unaffordable-benefits-to-bridge-1-trillion-gap.html
Here's more on the problem...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2534503/posts
http://www.salarymap.com/weblog/?m=200705
For U.S. Citizen: I think if we had a more elitist system where only the top 10% of students were educated beyond the sixth grade, we could solve most of these problems.
I'm throwing numbers around pretty loosely but I think 90% of the people only need to know how to read and do simple math, because, de facto, that is all they know how to do now. Anything beyond the sixth grade is unnecessary.
If we got rid of 90% of the administrators, that would save a very large amount of taxpayer money.
Let the masses do what they've always done, fight each other for the crumbs that fall from the tables of the privileged and wealthy. It's what is happening already today anyway. Bleeding heart liberals are just people who can't stand to look at this reality and therefore give an army of thieves and administrators the opportunity to steal from them while pretending to make things better that can't be made better.
http://www.cristyli.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Barack-Obama-SnowCone.jpg
Follow the money...
http://www.capradio.org/articles/articledetail.aspx?articleid=7939
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/18/illinois-pension-liabilit_n_467693.html
I live in France.
I find it very unfortunate that a somewhat moronic form of populism (you heard me, I am NOT saying that ALL populism is bad, after all "populism" is in relation to "the people", and whether we (or I...) like it or not "the people" are a large chunk of our current political ideology) makes us mouth off in a rant at the drop of a hat without taking the time to connect our neurons for the larger issues.
The ranting against the school system does not differentiate the ranting against administrators and teachers.
Bad plan in my book.
In France, this kind of ranting allows belligerent and entitlement feeling people in the private sector to go into an apocalypic, envious fit at the idea that SOMEBODY out there could have any kind of job security, whereas THEY do not.
It allows people to mouth off in a moronic fashion about just how bad government is.
As though... THEY would be happy to see civil war in our industrial world.
I am not against critique.
But I don't think we know very much about critical thought any more.
We are reacting like snails being poked whenever we hear something we don't like these days.
THAT is NOT critical thought.
Do we NEED critical thought ?
Well... at least we need to know the difference between critical thought and epidermic reactions.
Do we these days ? I'm not sure.
It takes a little bit of effort, discipline, and the desire to understand the complexity of issues for critical thought.
And... we have become a collectively lazy, undisciplined AND UNGOVERNABLE citizenry.
For the most part.
And... not even ashamed about it, to boot...
Bad plan in my book.
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Debra...it's not focused entirely on the school system...the problem is public sector unions...this bailout is for them...take the time to understand the large numbers at stake...as i wrote, we have several mini-greece fiedfdoms...too big to fail states, as it were...and each of them is being bankrupted by public employee pensions -- promises made when the money was flowing like honey...
Perhaps you don't see the reality of these numbers...
An older friend of mine just retired after 35 years as a radiologist...private practice...his total retirement plan was $2.2 million....the average school administrator on the list has a pension 4 TIMES that size...
So I went looking for more info on Neil Codell...and I found that the exact language i used is calling him an educator and then later an administrator was used by Education news...
http://www.ednews.org/articles/pay-for-some-educators-tops-record-400000.html
So not only did I NOT make the mistake you accused me of originally, (confusing teachers with administrators), but my choice of 'educator' and 'administrator' was correct...
I love you man, but don't let my style fool you....i am pretty intense about my craft...there is way too much editing and background before a story like this gets posted...
taxpayers who work for a big company have no one looking out for us?
I know a guy who works for fed mogal (big GM supplier who kept them going) All his pension was in stock.
GONE now he has to work until he dies .So why in this economy do the people have to continue to work
for lower wages year after year But the gov takes our taxes and gives it away to people who made mistakes.
After alll isnt the definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting different results ?
These statistics are shocking and they demonstrate how our society has an agenda that seeks to destroy the middle class. Its nice that they allow a few public sector employees in Illinios to become part of the other side of the fence, the elite side, though many teachers only can afford to teach because they come from the right side of the tracks already and ironickly hardly need a pension at all. This information is shocking but alas not suprising
By by middle class...
i remember the same thing...the $800 hammer and the $5,000 toilet...that was big news for months...and then...nothing changed...
I was simply casting my vote for the belief that administrators are not truly educators, in the sense that teachers are.
Again, I think that if we could get rid of 90% of the administrators we could move at least half way towards solving our education problems.
And, even though it sounds radical and therefore not serious, I think if we could allow at least half of American children to leave school by the sixth grade and enter the job market as bus drivers, garbage collectors, taxi drivers and other unskilled workers, we could move the rest of the way towards solving the education problem. Another 25% of children could be set free by age 14 to become secretaries, auto mechanics and other semi-skilled workers.
Only about one quarter, and possibly only about 10%, of the American population is needed for intellectual tasks which require training beyond the 9th grade.
The goals of the public secondary education system are based on Utopian ideas that come from the post World War II period and are unrealistic today.
Even the American university system couldn't survive, as it exists today, without basketball and football revenue, and the tuition from wealthy foreign students and from foreign governments who pay the tuition for their talented poor students.
Far too many American students attend university without the least benefit to themselves or society and far too many advanced degrees are awarded without the least chance that they will be utilized by the American society.
house roof it fix my hvac run my Business with profit hunt my own food.
If you had any idea how much school i attend each year .Yep just another brainless worker.
Oh wait Gomp will be by soon you have also insulted him.
When we was in school they promoted vocational .Witch i didnt go to automechanics.But i see your BASIC view
of blue collar .What you are saying is stupid.Now if a kid does not want a education than cut them loose.
sorry dude you just rubbed me the wrong way i get talked down by people who i make twice as much as.
and am smarter .But im just a grease monkey doing a almost a million a year gross out of 4 bays.
Everyone today thinks he is worth 10 times more than he can produce. And the higher you get, the more you think your worth. This is why were top heavy in bussines, and goverment.
We are the problum, not the goverment. We, us, were neaver taught how to be good Americans. Let me know if I hit a home run on this piece..........?
He made me feel ashamed for not doing more other than the last 2 years. I dident give a shit before that. As long as my bus was on the road doing shows, and my bus payment was made,
I could care less what the rest was doing. Im in this world to make a great life for my self taking care of my family show and crew members. Hell with goverment and big bussiness.
Althoe I was all for helping anybody in show bussiness make it If They wanted to work 24/7 on thier own career. BUT, Im just as Guilty............!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNUc8nuo7HI
Administrators are probably paid too much but I doubt if cutting their numbers in half and their pay in half would change the big picture.
The public school system is being dismantled as we speak and I believe that within one or two generations it will be finished as we have known it.
As I said, 90% of Americans and their children don't want it or need it.
Sure wish my shit worked that way .
I live on a fixed income unless its fixed i do not get paid.LOL
i remember the same thing...the $800 hammer and the $5,000 toilet...that was big news for months...and then...nothing changed...
June 15, 2010 | Registered CommenterDailyBail
I remember it was a 60 minutes episode .
Writing in Economic Affairs in the mid 1970s, R.E. Pahl and J. T. Winkler described corporatism as a system under which government guides privately owned businesses towards order, unity, nationalism and success. They were quite clear as to what this system amounted to: "Let us not mince words. Corporatism is fascism with a human face. . . An acceptable face of fascism, indeed, a masked version of it, because so far the more repugnant political and social aspects of the German and Italian regimes are absent or only present in diluted forms."
Adrian Lyttelton, describing the rise of Italian fascism in The Seizure of Power, writes: "A good example of Mussolini's new views is provided by his inaugural speech to the National Exports Institute on 8 July 1926. . . Industry was ordered to form 'a common front' in dealing with foreigners, to avoid 'ruinous competition,' and to eliminate inefficient enterprises. . . The values of competition were to be replaced by those of organization: Italian industry would be reshaped and modernized by the cartel and trust. . .There was a new philosophy here of state intervention for the technical modernization of the economy serving the ultimate political objectives of military strength and self-sufficiency; it was a return to the authoritarian and interventionist war economy."
Lyttelton writes that "fascism can be viewed as a product of the transition from the market capitalism of the independent producer to the organized capitalism of the oligopoly." It was a point that Orwell had noted when he described fascism as being but an extension of capitalism. Lyttelton quoted Nationalist theorist Affredo Rocco: "The Fascist economy is. . . an organized economy. It is organized by the producers themselves, under the supreme direction and control of the State."
One does not need to know the end of the story to know that we are heading at a rapid pace away from the principles of American democracy towards the dark hole of power with impunity, to the sort of world in which, as Rudolph Giuliani has calmly asserted, "freedom is about authority.", now that is certainly freedom, isn’t it?
In Hitler’s utopian dream, those to be educated beyond a certain level were chosen by the state (elitists). The books had already been burned, so education was based on indoctrinization.
6th grade cab drivers, bus drivers, garbage men, wow, the insurance companies would love this, I can already see bodies piling up, but it would be in the name of the state, right? “Overmen” (elitists) picking our future educated and indoctrinated “overmen” is just what we need, LOL. If it was that easy, every champion racehorse would be guaranteed to sire nothing but champions, and anomaly’s like Pharlap would never have existed.
Yet somehow all people seem to think that the laws of animal husbandry do not include the homo sapiens. After all, everyone is a “overman” in their own eyes.
Many today even believe in a caste system, as they look down their superior noses at everyone else.
I guess we just need to scrap all worker (including teachers) retirements and benefits, which were NEGOTIATED WITH, AND AGREED UPON BY THE MANAGEMENT, AND THEN HANDLED CARELESSLY BY THE MANAGEMENT FROM THAT POINT ON, and support all rich benefits and bailouts and golden parachutes ( which includes administrators and managers) which is what we have now. After all, to the plunderer goes the spoils. And we all know it is the workers fault (sarcasm emphasized) right?
By the way, some of you may not realize that small business is being decimated in the quest for Corporatism, and both parties are responsible for this most treasonous form of Fascism.
If a nation wishes, it can have both free elections and slavery.
Gary Wills