By: Diane Benjamin
I was looking for something else when I came across this again on my computer: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-municipal-pension-padding-met-20150816-story.html
The story is from August 2015. It is where we found out for the FIRST time that City employees were allowed to spike their pensions, and then taxpayers had to make additional payments to IMRF (the retirement managers) to cover the increased costs.
Bloomington’s own Emily Bell took the State prize for costing taxpayers the most: $358,000.
She just happened to be the head of HR, so she knew how to spike.
Later we found out the Council never approved the payments that had been made via Wire Transfer because wire transfers had been left off Bills and Payroll reports for more than a year. (draw your own conclusions)
If you still don’t understand the hoops employees must jump through to get the spike, this part of the article describes the procedure:
Who pays off employees 4 months or more before they retire? Government.
Here’s the part that applies to Bloomington:
Hales was relatively new in 2014? Really? That’s when Bell retired.
Note the last line!
Priority?
Nope, nothing has changed. Taxpayers are still the suckers thinking government has their back.
One more note: Those same HR people who creatively gamed the system to get bigger pension payments are the same ones who set up the gold-plated health care coverage for employees!
Maybe outsourcing should start with HR!
Where else can you configure your own benefits?
Why are they allowed to cause great harm to taxpayers?
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.
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Here is some information from the IMRF website…just a few clicks to find it if they were interested.
https://www.imrf.org/en/publications-and-archive/general-memos/2011-general-memos/general-memo-620
https://www.imrf.org/en/news/2015/10-october/imrf-not-impacted-by-illinois-budget-stalemate
Recently IMRF held a workshop for employers to educate them how to avoid spiking by paying the accumulated sick day and vacation time AFTER the retirement date. The “new” city ordinance requiring the pension spiking to be reported to the public is actually from the memo sent in 2011 and relates to the OMA. Opps!! Bloomington/Hales failed on that front again.
Here is the “how to prevent spiking” source from IMRF website.
https://www.imrf.org/en/employers/employer-resources/pension-spiking-and-the-accelerated-payment-webinar-resources
It’s all very clear, the City just didn’t care. What’s a couple million bucks when they already threw away MUCH more on a never used fire station and water tower?
One would THINK that when a city manager is hired, THEY should be aware of these things, otherwise it’s time to 1) STUDY up on the laws or QUIT.
Which is David doing??