Jay Rehak and Lois Ashford
CTPF PENSION TEACHER TRUSTEE CANDIDATES
Chicago Board of Education Testimony
10/28/2009
CPS THREATENS TO SHORT CHICAGO TEACHERS PENSION FUND BY $100 MILLION
CORE’s Rehak and Ashford Charge Board of Education with Malfeasance
CHICAGO – Chicago Public School Pension Trustee candidates Jay Rehak and Lois Ashford charged CPS with attempting a “back room deal” in Springfield to sidestep the Board’s legal pension obligation.
Rehak had previously warned the Board at the July 22, 2009 hearing that “no pension holidays will be tolerated” to which CPS CEO Ron Huberman replied, “We are not asking for a holiday.”
At today’s Board hearing, Rehak said, “Through SB2011, a last-minute, back-door legislative move, the Board is trying to steal money from its own employees. $307 million is due now and that is not negotiable. By paying 66 cents on the dollar, technically the Board isn’t looking for a “pension holiday”, but it seems to be hoping for a long getaway weekend.”
According to Lois Ashford, CPS’s latest attempt to include the Chicago teacher pension in SB2011, which decreases suburban fire and police pension payments to last year’s levels plus 10%, would reduce this year’s Board’s pension payment from $307 to $205.7 million.
Ashford explained that, “Displaced teachers have suffered the indignity of being terminated from their position for no good reason and are now scrambling to work as Cadre substitutes in the field they truly love. All they have left is their pension and the Board is now threatening that. If they got rid of the “Office of New Schools” that would free up at least $200 million and Mr. Huberman would not have to look for ways to shirk his responsibility to our pension fund.”
CORE is the reform caucus of the Chicago Teachers Union that represents rank-and-file members. The group is comprised of teachers, retired teachers, educational staff and other champions of public education.
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