Letter: Chicago retirees: Beware another 'People Soft
May 28, 2008
Substance:
When preparing to retire, teachers meet with a counselor at the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund to discuss the intricacies of retirement. They are given the most accurate estimate available of their pension; those who are single and have no children also get an estimate of a survivor benefit. Those who choose to take the Early Retirement Option (ERO) will get two estimates, one with the ERO and one without the ERO; if they choose to take the ERO they will either be billed for the cost or it will be deducted from the survivor benefit. Most will then develop a budget based on the expected pension payments to determine if they can afford to retire. The CTPF tries to get each teacher an underestimated pension check within three months after the retirement date; this will be corrected and retro when the CTPF receives all of the payroll and longevity information from CPS. Sounds pretty cut and dried. The normal time for processing is about three months.
Enter CPS/PeopleSoft. Over fifteen hundred teachers retired in and after June 2007. Over six hundred who retired last June are not yet receiving their full pensions; the survivor benefits for eligible teachers have not been processed; those who retired after June 2007 are even further down the line. As of the middle of May 2008 the CTPF cannot even give members a date when they can expect to receive their rightful pension. CTPF states that CPS/PeopleSoft has not yet given them the information they need to process final and accurate pension payments. According to a Chicago Teachers Union field representative, CPS blames CTPF and visa versa. He also said that CTU filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) complaint against CPS in April 2007, which after thirteen months has not been acted on. A CPS Payroll Department employee told me that each retiree has to be processed individually by hand. Some retired teachers are only receiving 70 percent of their pension when they were counting on 100 percent. Retirees are depleting savings or have had to get other jobs to make up the difference; and although they have been promised that they will ‘eventually’ receive all back pension payments, they will not get interest on the thousands of dollars owed them.
With an estimated fifteen hundred or more teachers are retiring in June 2008. There is no way of knowing how long it will take, but based on this past year (at an approximate rate of eighty per month) it could take more than two years before get their full pension. In solidarity
Sarah Loftus
2007 Chicago Retiree
