Today is the final day of regular session for the General Assembly, here is a summary of the major issues:
Pension benefit reduction - yesterday the Republican House
Leadership withdrew its support for pension changes due to the
shifting of pension funding burden to local school districts. Late last night,
Speaker Madigan changed his position on the issue and turned the lead on
pension reform to House Minority Leader Cross. It is expected that the
bill will be amended to take out local funding of teacher pensions. We fully
expect the new legislation which impacts state employees and retirees to pass,
but will continue to fight. This will call for both state employees
and retirees to choose between a new COLA that significantly reduces benefits
or maintaining the current COLA and retirees losing healthcare benefits.
Pension bills are as following: House Bill (HB) 1447 (Senate Amendment 2), HB
3076 (Senate Bill 2) and HB 3865 (Senate Amendment 3).
Budget - both the House and Senate budgets contain the
funding to keep open Tamms, Dwight, Joliet and Murphysboro, unless
something happens today, the facilities will be funded. The bad news, the
Governor will be able to control which facilities stay open and which
close. We will continue to fight to keep all facilities open.
Collective bargaining - the bill to remove the rights of
certain state employees to be covered by a union contract resurfaced
yesterday. We are analzing the bill and its impact on our membersd. Last
night Senate Executive Committee passed the bill moving it to the
floor. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT ALL MEMBERS CALL THEIR STATE
SENATOR AND ASK THEM TO VOTE "NO" ON SB1556.
Please make one last call to your legislators and ask them
to vote "NO" on all three issues!
Call them at 1 888 412 6570
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