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Teachers need honest answers about Board's approach to pension obligations

Jay Rehak - July 22, 2009

[Editor's note: The following are the remarks prepared for delivery at the July 22, 2009 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education. These remarks were provided to Substance by Mr. Rehak]

Whitney Young High School teacher Jay Rehak (above at microphone) told the July 22, 2009, Board of Education meeting that teachers will oppose any "pension holiday" or attempt by the Board to create a two-tier pension plan such as the one Ron Huberman did while he was at the Chicago Transit Authority. Rehak is flanked by CORE members Kristine Mayle, Kenzo Shibata, Carol Caref, Norine Gutekanst, and Betty Smith. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.My name is Jay Rehak. I have been a classroom teacher for 25 years. For the past 20 years, I have worked in the Chicago Public School system. I currently teach advanced placement English at Whitney Young High School.

My three children have attended the Chicago Public Schools, two of them have graduated; one from Mather High School, the other from Whitney Young. My youngest daughter currently attends Walter Payton High School. I mention all of this because I want the Board to understand that for much of my adult life, I have been committed to and been involved with CPS, not only as an employee, but also as a parent. And so I speak to you today, not as someone who has worked in the system for a few years and then hopes to move on, nor as someone who claims to believe in the Chicago Public Schools but chooses not to send his children to them...

I come before you not only because my past and present involve Chicago Public Schools, but also my future. Specifically, I hope to some day, God willing, retire from CPS. In that retirement, I hope to receive the full pension that I will have earned. I am concerned about the financial health of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, not only for myself, but also for my brothers and sisters in the system who hope to retire both before me and after me.

I am concerned for a number of reasons. First, because over the past two years, like all major funds, the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund has sustained large financial losses, in the billions of dollars.

Additionally, I am concerned because the City and State routinely threaten to not meet their financial obligations to the fund, choosing, instead, at this crucial time in history, opting for political expediency and proposed “Pension Holidays” which amount to underfunding the pension system.

I am also concerned because currently the Chicago Public Schools are actively hiring new teachers who, as a group, do not anticipate long careers in the Chicago Public Schools. Because of the high turnover rate of these teachers, and because new teachers work at lower salaries than veteran teachers, the Pension Fund is not generating the revenue it should from the new employees to cover the pensions of retirees.

Finally, I am concerned that the Board might be considering a two-tiered pension system, one in which new employees will be given less of a pension than veteran teachers. I am concerned because such a two tiered system, recently put into place at the CTA, is inherently unfair to younger workers, who will be required to work longer, and will ultimately receive less of a pension than older workers.

My question to the Board is: What plan does the Board of Education have in place to meet its current and future pension obligations and is a two–tiered pension system under current consideration? 

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