Page 34 - Robert Martwick News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Mayor Lori Lightfoot didn't directly address whether she still supports an elected board in comments Wednesday.

Sun-Times file photo Mayor Lori Lightfoot is urging Gov. J.B. Pritzker to veto a bill boosting pensions for thousands of Chicago firefighters, arguing it would saddle beleaguered taxpayers with perpetual property tax increases and cripple a pension fund dangerously close to insolvency. It removes the “birth date restriction” that prohibits roughly 2,200 active and retired firefighters born after Jan. 1, 1966 from receiving a 3% annual cost of living increase. Instead, they get half that amount, 1.5% — and it is not compounded. Martwick has argued the “birth date restriction” already...

Time for an elected CPS board (snark). Sometimes hard to distinguish the Mayor from a regular Illinois Republican. - Essential State Employee - Friday, Feb 19, 21 @ 12:39 pm: =Sometimes hard to distinguish the Mayor from a regular Illinois Republican.= Or from Pat Quinn. You remember, that guy and his sidekick Squeezy who claimed they were “put on earth” to “fix” pensions? I do not understand why Chicago does not participate in the pension funds that other municipalities in the state do. Probably should just blow up the CTPF board and start over. Or better yet, merge that and TRS. -...

WBGZ Radio 2/16/2021 | By Greg Bishop - Illinois Radio Network Illinois taxpayers pay more than $2.1 million a month to retired state legislators or their surviving spouses from a fund that’s only 16% funded. The individual monthly payouts are as high as $18,000 per month. Some pensioners aren’t actually retired but still getting paid. There are 425 people drawing off the General Assembly Retirement System, ranging from $122 a month to $18,000. At 16% funded, state Rep. Mark Batinick, R-Plainfield, said GARS is the worst of the state’s five public sector pension funds. “You got ther...

Rich Hein; Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools officials say they will lock out preschool teachers and staff who work with disabled children from remote work if they don’t return to schools Monday, reigniting the potential for the city’s second teachers strike in 15 months. If the mayor and school district follow through with a threat they’ve made then backed off from several times the past two weeks, a Chicago Teachers Union walkout would likely be triggered, plunging the school system into deeper turmoil during a pandemic that has upended educatio...