 An Illinois Senate committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a plan
that would fix a loophole in the furlough law that had some state
workers paying huge amounts of interest to maintain their pension
contributions.State workers, university employees and prison
guards have either been required to take a furlough or given the
option to take a day without pay. Gov. Pat Quinn's office said
furloughs are part of the plan to save Illinois millions of dollars
over the course of the next year.
To ensure that any furlough would not affect their pensions,
workers are required to pay both their share of the contribution and
the state's share as well. The original law charged workers interest
on that cost from the employees' first day on the job. State Sen.
Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, said that could cost some longtime
employees a lot of money.
"The way it was originally drafted would require an employee to
(go) all the way back to when they were originally employed with the
state -- that could be one year, five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30
years -- and pay that interest all the way up to today in order to
not lose any benefits," he explained.
Bomke, who represents thousands of state workers in his
Springfield-area district, said the new legislation would charge
interest only from the day a worker takes a furlough until the day
they pay their pension costs.
Anders Lindall, a spokesman for AFSCME, said workers faced a
tricky situation where it would cost them more to try to do the
right thing for the state.
"State employees are doing what they can to help close (the
state's budget) gap," Lindall said. "One of those ways is through
participating in a voluntary furlough program, and this is a fix to
make certain that they are not inadvertently punished by taking a
secondary hit in addition to the pay that they are forgoing."
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AFSCME is Illinois' largest public employee union, with thousands
of members across the state. Workers covered by a union contract,
like AFSCME members, are not required to take furloughs. But some
state employees have been ordered to take days off without pay.
Bomke is quick to point out that some workers who have been
waiting to pay what they owe for their pension benefits may see a
bit of a savings if his proposal becomes law.
"They knew when they took (a furlough) that it was going to cost
them a fair amount of money," Bomke said. "Now if they have paid it
back, they (are) probably not going to get a credit. Those who have
not paid it back will fall under" this plan.
The proposal has already cleared the Illinois House. Bomke said
he expects a vote in the full Illinois Senate by the end of this
month's lame-duck session.
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By BENJAMIN YOUNT]
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