Unit 5 is paying the 6% to encourage employees to retire. To qualify teacher’s have to be eligible under the Teacher’s Retirement System rules and have 10 years working for Unit 5. Remember when there was a teacher’s shortage? It’s brilliant to encourage experienced teachers to retire. I still have no explanation for all the additional compensation.
Why is some amount listed for every employee if the incentive is meant to encourage retirement? NO answers available.
By: Diane Benjamin
Don’t forget the 1st installment of property taxes are due soon!
Why does Unit 5 teacher and County Board member Corey Beirne think the current teachers contract is the best he’s ever seen?
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Keep reading and you will find out!
This intrigued me, it was posted on X:
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Teachers don’t get Social Security when they retire so they aren’t paying into it. While you get money taken out of your checks for Social Security and Medicare totalling 7.65% of your earnings (15.3% if you are self employed), nothing comes out of teacher’s checks except maybe Medicare.
Next consider the meager amount you will receive from Social Security when you retire verses a pension teachers get when they retire. Within 10 years payments will be equal to what they made while working. (3% increase every year even if your investments don’t earn 3%)
Are local teachers paying the required 9%?
I asked Unit5’s lawyer/FOIA officer, Curt Richardson, on Thursday some questions and didn’t get a response.
See the Unit 5 2024-2025 Total Compensation Report here: https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1758291452/unit5org/j9jreonccucjcwey7it5/FY25CertifiedSalaryReport.pdf
Snippet:
I hope you can read the column titles.
None of those columns are paycheck deductions, 3 columns on the right are all additional income.
What is a Retirement Enhancement?
For that I looked at the union contract: https://ufea.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/UFEA-Contract-2023-2027-complete.pdf
Instead of funding their own pension with 9% of their salary, taxpayers get the bill for 6%. Since Unit 5 gets income from property taxes, where do you think they get the 6% so teachers don’t have to pay 9%? Hint: HIGH property tax bills.
I’m sure Unit 5 will say that’s how they attract teachers. When the school board consists of union endorsed members, you think negotiations have anyone but the union in mind? Like taxpayers?
Excerpt from the contract: (PDF page 29)
Unless you work for government, you will never retire with the money teachers do. You do get to fund their retirement and they don’t return the favor..
Go back to PDF page 29 of the union contract if you think this isn’t about pensions.
I don’t see the same in the District 87 Teachers Union Contract: https://bea87.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/BEA-CBA-2024-2028.pdf
How much are subsidized pensions costing Unit 5 taxpayers via higher property tax bills?
$4,787,514
See the other columns to the right of Retirement Enhancements: Other Benefits & Other Compensation.
What are those? Since Curt Richardson hasn’t answered my questions, I don’t entirely know. At least part is employee health insurance Unit 5 pays for. From the union contract:
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None of the numbers total $765 x 12 months. “Other Benefits” comes closest. What is Other Compensation? Good question that I don’t have a good answer to. I know teachers get extra pay for after school activities, but almost every teacher gots some amount of “Other Compensation”. Look at the full report, some got $15,000 or MORE.
No wonder Corey Beirne thinks the contract negotiated in 2023 is the best he’s ever seen! It sells out property owners to save teachers 6% of their salary – including him.
Re-elect Corey Beirne? He will sell you out on the County Board just like Unit 5 did. Don’t forget Beirne celebrated the four year contract.
Some leaders are focused on asking more from taxpayers, and for many of us it feels like it’s never enough. When people raise concerns, they may be dismissed as “ill informed” or “doom shouters,” which doesn’t help foster constructive dialogue. Rather than labeling constituents, elected representatives should work to represent all of their constituents, including those who disagree. As we continue to shoulder higher costs, it’s understandable that many want their concerns taken seriously. Be sure to vote district 10!
Did you just make this up? You’ve got a three year old social media post and a scary nonsense article from Illinois Policy. Seems like you’re reaching a bit here.
What’s the alternative? At least Beirne is showing up and helping people. Is anyone even running against him?
I know this is difficult, but it’s a 4 year contract. How is he helping people? Redistribution of wealth?
He’s been the only one to talk to residents of Colonial Meadows about our terrible water, he got the government to bring us water and portapottys when our water main broke last month. He got us access to showers at the Y when we had no water for three days. My neighbor’s kid is in his class and says he’s the best teacher in the school. He’s very transparent about what goes on in the government and is against data centers.
Is anyone even running against him?
All Marxists are transparent. Did you notice your country taxes went up?
Firefighter Matt Steinkoenig is running against Bernie.
https://www.votesteinkoenig.com/
Sorry, forgot to mention that
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He’s not a Marxist? What does that even mean? Yes, my country taxes did go up. How is that Beirne’s fault?
You’re not presenting an alternative and you’re moving the goalposts.
He’s on video saying if teaching kids about sex was illegal he’d do it anyway. He’s a music teacher! He made those comments at a school board meeting
You bash teachers constantly. Whereas you write misinformation on science and medicine and education. Your website source of disinformation on just about every subject you write about
.The fact is you do not have the education to teach anything. Most teachers have masters degrees in their subject. Teaching is not easy and it takes dedication and love of learning to be a teacher. You also don’t know the work that goes into teaching, lessons planning, grading papers, making up tests, lecture planning, reading assignments and even at times buy classroom materials for their children.
You don’t have school age children and you don’t live in Unit 5. Why aren’t you writing about Tri Valley?
You must be super bored to bring up teachers salaries again. They are paid to educate their students. If you think teaching physics or chemistry is easy then you have no idea what teaching is all about and perhaps you need to shut up about a subject you know nothing about and it shows.
Thanks for letting Unit 5 properly owners know they are immaterial
😂😂😂
Bernie voted to raise everyone’s county property taxes (5% increase), and then he turns around and tries to vote himself a pay raise, along with almost all the other Democrats on the county board. Thankfully the a few of the Democrats missed the meeting, otherwise they would have been able to out vote the nos from the Republicans.
Corey “Tax hikes for thee, pay raises for me” Bernie.
This is pretty typical. There is no real competition in McLean County elections between the parties because the candidates floated by the Dems and GOP operate so differently. I don’t see GOP candidates doing this kind of legwork and door-knocking and lobbying on issues that really matter to voters; I do see them losing. I have long said that if the party would vet better and younger candidates, the county would become competative. But instead, comments like yours get dismissed and the average person is poo-poo’d for wanting anything substantive out of a GOP candidate besides anything culture wars related. It’s maddening.
So creepy him and his ilk are so obsessed being loud and proud about what makes someone’s genitals aroused, especially when it concerns children.
@julian mark ist < the best teacher I ever had was my father. He had an 8th grade education, grew up during the depression. Father and mother raised three children all of whom were successful enough to fully support them selves and live comfortable lives. Your claim that a degree is necessary to teach is one of the dumbest things I ever heard of.
Wow that escalated quickly. Pretty sure none of what you said is true, it sounds like you made it all up to inflame people. If anyone of that is true then why is he still teaching?
Also his opponent says absolutely nothing. His website says nothing and there’s nothing else out there. How is this an improvement? I’m a Republican but holy shit we’ve got to put up decent candidates. Mark Claus is our other rep and he’s done nothing at all. I’m gonna vote for the guy who actually gets stuff done.
Links are difficult for the blind, so sorry for your disability
Diane, you’re really off base here. Our society isn’t crumbling because of teachers. As conservatives, we know it all starts in the home. Parents are failing to connect with and support their kids, leaving schools to deal with anxious, depressed, and in some cases suicidal kids and teens.
It breaks my heart to hear of young people in those situations, and I can’t help but think that its easier for many parents to look to blame and attack others for those types of situations than own-up to the fact that most parents spend most of their time on social media, blogs, and watching cable news than actually raising their own kids.
Teachers are important, yes. And they can have a positive or negative effect on our kids. But, ultimately, we as parents are responsible for who our kids become and what they do in life.
See a successful young person. What’s the first thought you have- “wow, they were raised right!” See a young person make bad or tragic decisions and whats your first thought (hint: it isn’t that they had bad teachers). It’s- “Yikes- something was off with their upbringing. Their parents really let them down.” Thats just the facts of how us conservatives look at things.
Blaming teachers is just a defense mechanism that allows parents to feel better about their own crappy parenting
Where did I say society is crumbling because of teachers?
If anything, it’s the people in charge failing.
Teachers….. Teachers unions…..never should be such a thing as a UNION of the most influential force,, outside family, of children there is. Tenure is a huge mistake …..a lousy teacher gets tenure and you can’t hardly get rid of them, as in a music teacher bent on teaching about sex! Teachers unions are far too powerful …. just looking at that crazy loon leading the national group scares me! They drive Chicago politics, thus state politics. Bloomington is becoming Chicago South. It spreads like a disease.
The next time the Unit 5 Superintendent has her hand out for more of OUR tax money, tell her NO Way. Let the overpaid Unit 5 employees fund their own pensions.
P.S. Student proficiency at every grade level is abysmal.
Oh yeah. Don’t forget the retirees we pay so much for (and their higher tax funded degrees in education) that get all the gigs and jobs back at the colleges and universities to basically double and triple dip as “educators and experts” and consultants and get post retirement jobs in the sector (of some sort).
This, blocking many normal people and candidates from getting jobs at all this $ and public service funnel continues.
This is the strategy and legacy cycle while most normal people will never retire and go broke but then a less as ” financially irresponsible”. Nor are most people able to live sustainably on SSI and get zero public funded pensions or benefits.
These non tax funded constituents are the most underepresented and most vulnerable in Central Illinois and usually the most exploited by the system. The excitement watching the retirement celebrations gets some nauseous lol.
It’s big in McLean and Champaign and Central Illinois Counties. The system is broke.
Watching the public/private early retirees “Living their best lives” at early retirement and then in their post career progression seems odd. I guess it entises people to become public servants and union members and keeps the money and select jobs rolliing.
We dish it out and have to watch the fiasco. The public private pay to play projects/games are a huge part of the issue too. Recruiting and hiring are a big problem locally and in Illinois.
No wonder they love the contracts!!!
Cheers for keeping us in the loop!
Beirne and his wife Abbey Scott are both an integral players in a much larger movement to transform central illinois. Progressive DSA/democrat is the banner under which these 2 march. Unions are just a vehicle for their financial grift.
Both can be stopped easily if people will bother to vote.
20 years ago when I was on a school board I said public school is a lost cause and needs to be abolished. The teachers union absolutely hated me. Feelings mutual!
The only way to deal with the union is to end public schools and get them off of the back of property owners. The audicity of forcing the public to pay for their retirement is appaling to say the least. Pay for your own d*** pension!
I’d support anyone running for office to eliminate public schools. It would be the best thing for America to get back on track of educating our youth by moving it to the private sector to do a much better job. Monsanto green grass, monolith gymnasiums, football fields and swiming pools do nothing for education.
I just read an article about New Orleans school system since Katrina. They let the union contracts expire and fired over 7000 employees!! Went to a Charter School system and are now in the top 99th percentile in reading and 98th percentile in math. Not everyone is happy according to the article, but of course, there are those that don’t like being held accountable! One ex teacher lamented the …..”no excuses discipline policies and endless tests prep”…at the expense of arts and culture studies. They’re turning out contributors instead of losers and some don’t like that.
Oh, oh, oh …. you ill informed, doom shouter!
This miraculous change took a lot of School board AND legislative backbone! But now the New Orleans students are averaging about 1.35 of grade level attainment….before the change to a Charter System over 60% of their public schools were rated as “FAILING” Today NONE are failing and 92% are rated A or B level!
It’ll never happen in Illinois…. the teachers union basically runs state through the Democratic party.
Mississippi took education seriously with amazing results. Some states care, Illinois is failing
It’s a crazy cycle….educate poorly, graduate illiterates that can’t even speak decent English and set them on a career path of asking ,”do you wants fries wit dat”? ….then force a ridiculous minimum wage on the public and hand out more welfare benefits. Why not educate well and turn out contributers instead of losers? Turn working at a burger stand back over to kids working their way through school like it was before it became a career.
Educated are harder to control
Another educational success story is the resurgence of private Classical K-12 schools. A Classical school is one where Christianity and Western values are core. Bloomington is fortunate to have a few.
One thing they don’t want to do is introduce competition for excellence into education. Union controlled education would die on the vine. Corey would be out of a job.
Exactly right FROMHERE! There is measurable proof that getting rid of teachers unions pays huge divide for students. Two states, Louisiana and Mississippi both were always wanting in standing as long as ratings were measured, got rid of unions and flourished! It’s not the demographic make up….its the unions!
Typo…..pays huge dividends….!!!!