Posted on 07/31/2015 8:25:53 PM PDT by Beave Meister
Cook County Cook County Board Toni Preckwinkle Government and Politics Infrastructure More + Preckwinkle-seeks-pay-hikes-following-Cook-County-sales-tax-increase.com Photo by Manuel Martinez Just two weeks after raising the sales tax to pay for pensions, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is moving to give tens of millions of dollars a year in pay hikes to county workers.
Legislation introduced yesterday by the county chief would extend raises of up to 6.5 percent throughout county government. Only those who make more than $200,000 in annual salary would be excluded.
The proposal, sent to a Cook County Board committee for review, extends to other unionized employees new contracts with some county unions that were negotiated earlier this year.
It then goes a step further: It proposes granting raises to nonunion workers, too.
The price tag totals roughly $130 million in raises over a five-year period—$50 million alone in fiscal 2016.
(The union contracts run from Dec. 1, 2012, through Nov. 30, 2017, so this deal is retroactive, too, and those figures are included in the totals here.)
But the county says the proposal also includes nearly $30 million in health care savings, reducing the net cost to taxpayers for the deal to "only" $100 million or so.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagobusiness.com ...
We can name ourselves any salary we decide to, and then we’ll come take your house if we have to so as to pay for the bill at the end of the day. And there’s nothing you can do about it, as we’ve made these agreements that stand forever.
Just contemplate that - using this theory, tomorrow a city council could sit, dictate what the budget would be forever, then just pack up and call it a day. Wouldn’t matter if a new city council was elected, as if these pensions can survive future councils, why couldn’t any arbitrary budget item?
If a city council (or county, or state house, etc) actually holds the budgetary strings, then these pensions aren’t ‘forever and ever’ liabilities. They are a budget item subject to cuts during lean times, and perhaps increases when times are better.
Any other solution effectively makes every government body superfluous.
Crook county getting raises of 6.5%.
Just damn.
It is never enough. No matter how much you give govt, they will want more.
Conserve on your water use and then the rate will rise due to low usage
Recycle your ‘waste’ requires more people and an increase in cost
add your own
bkmk
More good news for Indiana.
The Hoosier side of the Ill/In border is really booming these days.
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