By: Diane Benjamin
Unit 5 has two unions. One is teachers – UFEA, the other is for professional staff – UFSPA.
Both recommended three candidates for the Unit 5 School Board in the April 2021 election. They got two of the three elected: Stan Gozur and Kentrica Coleman.
From their websites:
In 2023 FOUR seats are up for election. That is enough seats to take over the board. Start thinking about running NOW.
The NEA, which Unit 5 union teachers are affiliated with, has pledged to teach Critical Race Theory even where legislatures have made it illegal. They also support Black Lives Matter, a self defined Marxist organization. Unit 5 can claim they don’t teach CRT, but some teachers will be.
You can see the Teacher’s Union contract here: https://ufea.org/contract/
93 pages long! Do you realize the School Board negotiates the contract and sends the bill to taxpayers?
Remember this pension story? https://blnnews.com/2021/07/21/top-local-monthly-pensions/
Normal’s former City Manager, Mark Peterson is showed receiving less pension for 2020 than previous years. I FOIA’d IMRF for an explanation. Peterson opted for an optional pension when he retired from Normal:
https://www.imrf.org/en/members/tier-1-regular-plan/pension-options
He can collect Social Security at 62. Mark probably thought living on just his monthly pension would be too difficult, so he inflated it until he could get SS.
Just a point of clarification on the former city manager’s pension. If I’m not mistaken, his pension is with the IMRF, Illinois municipal retirement fund. He’s eligible for social security, but sworn personnel (police and fire) do not participate in Social Security for their public safety work. In both Normal and Bloomington those are separate pension funds, funded in large part by a property tax levy and at the present time they are severely underfunded in spite of years of tax increases. It’s the city manager of each local municipality who oversees the police and fire pensions.
IMRF funding is excellent, wonder why!