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Voice of The Southern: Why target school teachers, community college professors?

Posted: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 1:00 am

Our view: Any efforts to cut state contributions toward teachers’ health insurance should be across-the-board to all state retirees getting a similar benefit.

Not to be a wet blanket on Gov. Pat Quinn’s recent discovery that Illinois financially is a teetering house of cards, but the governor’s recent budget address needs a little tweaking.

Take the idea of eliminating state contributions toward health insurance benefits for retired school teachers and community college professors. It sounds like a solid move in the governor’s conversion to fiscal sanity, and anyone whoever successfully maintained a bank account will see the merit of saving the state $92 million.

As The Associated Press reported, “The cuts are part of the budget proposal Quinn unveiled last week during a speech in which he said Illinois could not avoid ‘a rendezvous with reality’ if it is to forestall a financial meltdown over rising pension and health care costs. The governor’s plan also would trim the budgets of most state agencies and close prisons and mental institutions to save money.”

It’s without doubt the most bare-bones budget proposal yet from Quinn, with broad financial goals that are uniformly acknowledged and saluted. Our state cannot promise services to every aggrieved group, or create programs without funding sources or continually spend beyond its means.

After listening to Quinn, it was obvious that everyone in Illinois is going to be impacted. We’re all going to need to tug our belts a little tighter. That includes state pensioners, employees and those dependent on state services.

But it’s hard to single out school teachers and community college professors for cuts in health insurance contributions. They aren’t the only state pensioners who receive state contributions towards their health insurance.

As first reported by the Chicago Tribune, the cuts would affect two insurance programs covering retired teachers. Educators who oppose the proposal cite the financial difficulty of finding more money for health insurance on pensions teachers unions say average $43,000 a year.

About 77,000 retired teachers and their dependents outside the city of Chicago are covered under the Teachers Retirement Insurance Program and the Community College Insurance Program. State funding for similar contributions for retired teachers’ health insurance costs in Chicago was eliminated last year.

Perhaps the previous cut for Chicago teachers will drive the statewide plan forward. Consistency is desirable in government, but why limit the health insurance contribution cuts to the retired men and women who taught the state’s children? Is there no way to spread the pain around and lessen the impact on teachers and professors — including many who might have earned much more by working in private sector careers?

There is a way to do it, one that should be considered by Quinn and state lawmakers. Let’s cut the health insurance contributions to every state retiree who receives such a benefit — including lawmakers, state office holders and well-paid department heads. If the pain is spread around, perhaps some of the cuts can be pared or spared.

If that’s the case, the state should look first towards easing the pain for teachers and professors. It’s not the right group to target for benefit reductions. It may be an exaggeration to say, as some union officials have said, the additional costs will force retired teachers to choose between eating and having health insurance. But with an average pension of $43,000 per year for retired teachers, it may not be far off the mark.