Pure and simple: It’s THEFT

By:  Diane Benjamin Luckily IMRF actually cares about transparency.  Yesterday I filed a request for all the Accelerated Payments charged to the City of Bloomington because they are to chicken to change the Sick Leave Buy Back policy.  Instead of the precious government employees being told the golden goose got cooked, employees are told it’s […]

More proof: Budget Task Force was a joke

By:  Diane Benjamin See Bills and Payroll for Monday night – the LAST page:  http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=242&parent=9535 Remember how Bloomington was exposed in the Chicago Tribune paying massive penalties for allowing employees to SPIKE their pensions?  http://blnnews.com/2015/08/26/imrf-what-did-hales-know-and-when/ Remember when the Budget Task Force recommended fixing the problem but never did? Well, it just cost you another $122,735.32! […]

Throwing away $49,152.21

By:  Diane Benjamin Even though Bloomington’s Springfield attorney (Jeff Jurgens) knew on August 24th that stopping pensions spiking wasn’t a violation of the Illinois Constitution, the policy still hasn’t been changed.  See his email and IMRF response here:  http://blnnews.com/2015/09/18/who-knew-and-did-nothing-imrf/ The agenda for Monday is on-line, nothing about stopping the rip off of taxpayers that is […]

Who knew and did nothing – IMRF

By:  Diane Benjamin The below are from a big pile of information I received from IMRF under the Freedom of Information Act.  They all pertain to pensions spiking that David Hales allowed to keep happening and is still allowed today.  Remember this when your taxes get raised Monday!  I may be posting more, I haven’t […]

Tonight’s bottom line

By: Diane Benjamin David Hales gives frequent interviews on WJBC, I’ve posted links to many of them.  I remember one of his lines about the budget – but I’m not going to re-listen to find it.  He claimed any cuts to the budget now are cuts to “muscle”, not fat. Of course he was lying […]

Proof: They lied!

By:  Diane Benjamin Another taxpayer asked IMRF for information about the City of Bloomington’s policy allowing pensions spiking.  Remember this cost you more than $1.2 MILLION dollars. See the email below FROM IMRF. The RED and BLUE are from me.   From: John Krupa <jkrupa@imrf.org> To: (redacted) Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 10:53 AM Subject: […]

What did Hales Know? Plenty!

By:  Diane Benjamin A LOT more information on pensions spiking is coming.  Citizens deserve better than Bloomington throwing away $1.2 Million when it could have been avoided.  This won’t be the last post, but I have to lay out what I know slowly so you can understand the facts. First, let’s review.  For DECADES employees […]

Thanks for the laughs Pantagraph!

By:  Diane Benjamin In the continuing quest by the Pantagraph to prove yet again they are not real media: Today they CHEERED Bloomington and Normal for working to stopp pension spiking! WOW!  Why didn’t they include how great it is that Normal WASTED $29,939.10 and Bloomington THREW away $1,215,177.70 before being exposed by the Chicago […]