By:  Diane Benjamin

I saw this on the agenda for the Town of Normal last Monday:  http://www.normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/2634

The document goes on to appoint the Deputy City Manager as representative to IMRF.

The Town of Normal hasn’t paid the huge penalties Bloomington has from pension spiking.  Bloomington has paid  $1,877,252.40, in August of 2015 Normal had paid less than $30,000:  https://blnnews.com/2015/08/26/imrf-what-did-hales-know-and-when/

It makes sense the City Manager or Assistant should be the representative between IMRF and local government.  There is a huge amount of money involved and proper funding is vital to employee retirements as promised.

Is David Hales the representative for Bloomington?  Is his assistant-Steve Rasmussen?

NOPE!

I received this document by FOIA:  IMRF-Bloomington

Bloomington’s rep works in the HR department – Joshua Hanson.  The employee costing the taxpayers of Bloomington the MOST money  ($358,394.12) with a spiked pension was Emily Bell – the head of HR.

We know that documents were not submitted to IMRF as required.  (https://blnnews.com/2015/09/08/one-more-hales-story/)  Why would the people profiting from spiked pensions follow the rules?  Was David Hales surprised when he got the Emily Bell bill from IMRF?  Probably.  He put the fox in charge of the hen house and got shocked when the chickens (taxpayers) got eaten.

The bigger problem is the Bell fiasco didn’t teach him anything.  An HR person is still the representative to IMRF.

A little more:

I started reading the AFSCME contract that expired with the City of Bloomington in April.  A new contract is being negotiated.  From page 12:  699-Contract–2014-2017 final

It gets better on page 13:

Not only can AFSCME employees accrue sick leave – if they use it they can replace the accrued days at 2.5 times the rate it was previously earned.

Sweet deal.  Keep in mind that Emily Bell wasn’t a union member, she was salaried.

AFSCME has better benefits than the private sector.  To keep salaried employees happy, the City lavished them with benefits the private sector never sees.

The only cure is privatizing government.  This government is costing way more than it should but the roads will remain crap because employees are why government exists.

Unless planning to move out of town, taxpayers should demand every job that can be done by the private sector be done by the private sector.

You are part of the problem if you think a private garbage hauler won’t do the job as well or better than a City employee – and for less!

They would be a good start.

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