Teacher Retirement Cost Shift Proposal Governor Quinn and the Legislative Leaders have been discussing the Teachers' Retirement System cost shift. At the last meeting, the group asked staff to prepare an analysis of two different cost shift scenarios. Below is the analysis:
Both scenarios call for the shift of the state's share of the normal cost of future pension benefits to begin in FY 2014 which starts July 1, 2013. They both call for phase-ins as well with Scenario 1 occurring over a six-year period and Scenario 2 over nine years.
Percentage of Normal Cost To Be Shifted from State to School Districts Per Year
Fiscal Year Scenario 1 Scenario 2
2014 17% 10%
2015 36% 21%
2016 55% 33%
2017 75% 45%
2018 95% 57%
2019 100% 70%
2020 100% 83%
2021 100% 96%
2022 100% 100%
The analysis provides data on all 856 elementary and secondary school districts in the State in alphabetical order. Click here for the link to the report.
Besides the cost shift scenarios, other data that you might find interesting in the spreadsheet include:
- a district's FY 2011 payroll and average employee salary
- the number of students it served that year
- whether it picks up the employee pension contribution (NOTE: it has been reported that approximately 56 percent of the school districts pick up the employee share as negotiated in their labor contracts
- end of FY 2011 fund balance and the number of days the balance covers.
(NOTE: the Sun-Times reported that more than half of the State's school districts have fund balances large enough to cover more than a year's worth of operating expenses, a year being the 180-day school year.)
