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Teachers oppose Board of Education's attempt to reduce pension payments

Jay C. Rehak - October 30, 2009

[Editor's Note: As the audio tapes of the Chicago Board of Education meeting of October 28, 2009, now show — available at WBEZ radio — it took more than two minutes for Whitney Young High School teacher Jay Rehak to deliver the two-minute speech reproduced below. The reason was that both Chicago Board of Education President Michael Scott and Chief Executive Office Ron Huberman interrupted Rehak constantly in order to confuse the television audience for whom they carefully script the Board meetings. Despite the interruptions, evasions, non sequiitors and outright lies by both Scott and Huberman (example: Huberman claimed that CPS will have a '$700 million deficit' for FT 2011 even though he has never explained his claim that CPS was facing a '$475 million deficit' for fiscal 2010), Rehak managed to get his words told and his questions asked, if not answered, during the truncated public participation at the Board. George N. Schmidt, Editor, Substance].

Whitney Young High School teacher and pension trustee candidate Jay Rehak reads from his prepared remarks at the October 28, 2009 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education just before Board President Michael Scott and Schools CEO Ron Huberman began interrupting him. Despite the harassment from the two most powerful officials in public education in Chicago, Rehak completed his remarks and continued his challenge to the misleading financial picture being presented to the public by Scott, Huberman, and their supporters in the city's corporate media. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Jay Rehak’s Statement to the Chicago Board of Education (October 28, 2009).

My name is Jay Rehak. I‘m a 20 year veteran Chicago Public School Teacher, a father of a CPS student and a home owning Chicago taxpayer. I am also a future pensioner, a man who hopes to some day retire, and receive a pension for my years helping to educate the children of Chicago.

It’s déjà vu all over again. Ladies and gentlemen, you may recall I was here in July, and noted that the Board of Education has no right to shortchange the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, through what is euphemistically called “A Pension Holiday” wherein the Board does not fully pay what it owes to the Teachers Pension Fund.

At that time, CEO Huberman and President Scott, both called me out, claiming that the Board of Education had not asked the Illinois legislature for a Pension Holiday. Lo and behold, it’s October, and the Board is now asking for such a holiday, asking for legislative relief that, if not a Pension Holiday, is a very long, expensive, getaway weekend.

I know members of the Board of Education include bankers and businessmen, so I’d like to speak in a language they all understand. Dollars and common sense.

Chicago Board of Education President Michael Scott tries to argue with Whitney Young High School teacher (and pension fund trustee candidate) Jay Rehak during the a heated exchange at the Board's October 28, 2009 meeting. In July 2009, Scott and CEO Ron Huberman had interrupted Rehak when he stated that the Board was requesting a "pension holiday" — a year when it did not have to pay its legal obligation to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund. As it turned out, CPS had changed its strategy from asking for legislation requesting a so-called "pension holiday" to one of asking for a permanent reduction in its obligation to the CTPF through legislation in Springfield. When Rehak pointed out that the distinction was really no difference — in both cases, the Board was trying to dodge a legal obligation that it had entered into years earlier — Scott responded with a barrage of words that took the exchange well beyond the two-minute time limit Scott claims to enforce. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt. Let me be clear: the Board of Education owes the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund $307 million this year. That number is not in dispute. Through Senate Bill 2011, the Board is proposing paying $205 million, or roughly 66 cents on the dollar.

This means the Teachers Pension fund will be shortchanged 102 million dollars this year, and anyone who understands actuarial projections realizes that such a shortfall will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in additional losses to retired teachers over the life of the Pension Fund.

Every banker, businessman, and data cruncher in this room understands that through SB2011, a last-minute, back-door legislative move, the Board is trying to “legally” steal money from its own employees. $307 million is due now and that is not negotiable.

My question to the Board of Education, and to you specifically, Mr. Huberman as the CEO, is how can you, in good conscience, continue to support Senate Bill 2011 when you have not cut discretionary spending or looked for other revenue sources to make up the budget shortfall this Board created? 

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