Maybe I should have written, the Chicago Union way. I'd be spitting mad if I was a taxpayer in Illinois.

Illinois pension system: 2 teachers union lobbyists used loophole for fat pensions

(Emphasis mine)

Quote:SPRINGFIELD —— Two lobbyists with no prior teaching experience were allowed to count their years as union employees toward a state teacher pension once they served a single day of subbing in 2007, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has found.

Steven Preckwinkle, the political director for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and fellow union lobbyist David Piccioli were the only people who took advantage of a small window opened by lawmakers a few months earlier.

The legislation enabled union officials to get into the state teachers pension fund and count their previous years as union employees after quickly obtaining teaching certificates and working in a classroom. They just had to do it before the bill was signed into law.

They know who butters the bread and how to work on the inside. Look for the (public sector) union label. In this case it's not the teacher's union, but LOBBYISTS for the union that took advantage of their poorly written legislation.

Quote:Over the course of their lifetimes, both men stand to receive more than a million dollars each from a state pension fund that has less than half of the assets it needs to cover promises made to tens of thousands of public school teachers. With billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System, which serves public school teachers outside of Chicago, is one of several pension plans that are in debt as state government reels in a fiscal crisis.

They still must pay for the years of service credit. The entire teacher pension system was created by liberal democrats.

Quote:"The people that are on the inside and understand the process are going to be able to make the system work for their advantage," said Kent Redfield, who teaches political science at the University of Illinois Springfield. "That this legislation got a hearing and got considered and passed is a reflection of that close relationship between the IFT and the Democratic leadership."

"It feeds into the cynicism about all the deals, that it's an insider's game and that the system is rigged."

J. Fred Giertz, a University of Illinois economics professor and a trustee of the State Universities Retirement System, said teachers pensions for Preckwinkle and Piccioli undermine already meager public confidence in the state's retirement systems.

"It's outrageous," Giertz said. "The pension system was designed for schoolteachers and not for union employees to piggyback on at the end of their years."

I'm really not at all surprised by any of this. I'd imagine those in Chicago and Illinois that hate this are resigned to it. That's what you get when one party controls a city and state for many decades on end - rampant corruption and lack of any real accountability.

The way I'm reading it, this could/should amount to some sort of insider trading.