Urich bids a sudden and unexpected farewell

The big news from Peoria County:

Peoria County Administrator Patrick Urich announced today that he has decided to seek another challenge in the public sector, yet to be determined. Urich has been the Peoria County administrator for 10 years and has held the reins as the longest serving CEO in recent memory. […] Urich’s career in Peoria County began in January 2001 when he arrived from Lake County, IL at the age of 32, after serving as Assistant County Administrator. […] Peoria County board members will meet in Executive Session this week to discuss plans to begin a search for Urich’s replacement. The Board may decide to use an in-house approach or contract with a third party to assist in the identification of potential replacement candidates.

Reportedly, Urich has no other job lined up. He’s just quitting with no particular place to go. The Journal Star is already speculating that he could land at Peoria City Hall. I’m not sure the City could afford him if his salary continues to increase at the same rate it has over the past decade. Here’s a brief recap:

That’s about a 4-5% raise the first few years, followed by a 35% raise in 2006, then a 19% raise in 2008, and then back down to just 6% in 2009. He declined another $10,000 raise in 2010. Wow. The County Board really takes care of their administrator. Don’t expect increases like that from the City Council.

Well, unless you want to build a hotel attached to the Civic Center, of course….икони

67 thoughts on “Urich bids a sudden and unexpected farewell”

  1. ‘I’m not sure the City could afford him if his salary continues to increase at the same rate it has over the past decade.” Heck fire we just implemented a Natural gas tax so money is no problem. Going to start a new TIF, hotel project,museum so cash should come rolling in. I find it hard to take that he quit and did not have another job in the wings. Can it be a Peoria City – County mannager?

  2. It is pretty amazing… at ICC our tuition has gone up 100% in ten years and apparently Ulrich’s salary has gone up 100% in ten years…

    CEO pay has gone up over 300% in the past 20 years, while corporate profits have gone up 106.7%.
    Worker pay (nationally)has gone up 4.3%.

    How does anyone (other than CEOs) have any money? And with inflation, what is money worth anymore?
    http://grandfather-economic-report.com/inflation.htm

  3. Im more concerned with the outlandish pay and pension rates for the public sector unions then I am with the pay to a private sector CEO……

  4. $165k is pretty damn good. I am not saying it isnt deserved. It might be. Urich has done a good job with a partisan board. i’d be ok with him heading up a city/county government, which in my opinion is the way to go.

  5. Having served with Mr. Urich for ten years on the County Board, I believe you will find my predictions on Mr. Urich’s future on my blog site.

  6. Yeah charlie thats the base but I wonder what a union boss in Illinois takes home in pay and benifits? Also all those 40k a year with retirement jobs do add up especially when the tax base cant support them…but Im sure thats all those private businesses that are draining the coffers.

    Who cares what a CEO makes? You constantly rant about CEO pay but I dont understand why you are so fanatical over it? A company can choose to pay a CEO whatever they see fit out of the company profit. It really has no effect other then in the pouty its not fair realm that you seem to dwell in. At the end of the day you just come across as a cry baby.

    You live in Illinois right? I mean you do understand the current fiscal situation right? How many cost of living raises do you think the private sector workers in Illinois managed to get over the last two years? I wonder how much of my health care and pension was picked up or paid into by my neighbors taxes?

    Unions exist to protect employee rights from management, however public sector unions lobby the boss into an elected position? Hmmm so dosnt that seem to be a little suspicious?

    Those of us in the private sector unions need to wake up and quit treating these public sector workers like they are one of us. Supply and demand dosnt work when your getting paid out of the magical neverending state fund.

  7. Since the museum and any businesses (if they are ever built) will now be on county land, will they be subjected to city any city taxes. There would be no property tax as it is county land. Wondering if it would technically exempt them from the extra sales tax the city has tacked on and also the natural gas tax. I have no idea, but it does pose an even more interesting dilemna…..This has nothing to do with patrick urich. Personally I found him knowledgable, but certain entwined in the dysfunction of the county board, but lacking in people skills which would be an important assess in the city manager job since you do have to deal with us tenacious neighborhood leaders.

  8. This is a worker versus worker situation. I would march down to Springfield and chant raise my taxes if I knew that the tax money was going back into my paycheck and pension! The state is broke but the public sector thinks that they can demand 7% pay raises and freezes in lay offs? When does the private sector get to start demanding lay off freezes? Oh wait that doesnt happen in a world where the state isnt cutting your check.

    If some CEO makes 300k a year because his company thinks he is worth that and can afford to pay him thats fine who cares. Lets figure out how not to drive the state further into bankruptcy before we worry about what someone working in the private sector is taking home.

  9. Robber Baron being the govenor who is stealing from you to pay the corrupt cronnies and their mass of underlings who put him into office.

  10. I think that allegations made recently relative to Peoria County, Central and Southern Illinois’ Lead Paint expert (currently facing up to 30 years in prison) for attempting to point out existing flaws in the county’s lead paint program.

    Said violations could cost each area contractor up to $87,000.00 each, should they continue on the course that Mr. Urich’s administration is responsible for putting into place.

    Silencing the “messenger” pays big bucks around here.

    My only question is did The One Stop HOME Shop have anything to do iwth Patrick Urich’s decission to leave his office, before the real truth about his dealing in the HUD funded Lead Safe Housing Initiative, in which funding was recieved to develop area minority contractors, yet not one single funded contractor recieved any work from the 3 Million Dollars that HUD gave for said purpose.

    I currently have to be escorted by the County Sherriff, while in the county building, to protect Patrick, from having to confront this issue, before his unscheduled departure.

    ..but, I’m sure that his decission had absolutely nothing to do with me, ;).

    http://www.peoria.com/messages/county_administrator_resigns_before_our.php?message_board_parent_id=292640&message_board_category_id=1&page=1

    -The One Stop HOME Shop

  11. “A company can choose to pay a CEO whatever they see fit”

    Here is your misconception…. “companies” don’t decide anything. Companies are not people. They have no speech, or interests. They are things.
    A board of directors who have ONLY a financial interest in the STOCK PRICE determine what the CEO gets paid.

  12. Sorry charlie I was working under the assumption that we all had an understanding of the way a board and stock returns work. So who cares? I dont care what the guy at the gas station gets paid or what the CEO of CAT gets paid. It comes down to you being pissy because you think someone makes more money then they should.

    It dosnt matter because they are all working for a private company being paid out of returns from said employer not from our tax dollars. Dont worry though, yesterday charlie your taxes increased, and also the rate on those evil companies, so that we can keep paying all the public sector workers and giving them no lay off promises and pay raises. But lets not forget who is paying to put our elected officials into office. Thats right the unions, which sadly included mine.

    What makes me upset is when I get laid off so that I can watch the teachers union demand we raise taxes so heaven forbid they dont lose their 2 percent cost of living wage increase or whatever it was this time around. Last time I checked I dont march down to springfield and demand a cut in teachers pay across the board so that me and my coworkers can keep our jobs an extra month.

  13. When other union workers and union bosses are stealing from the people they are supposed to be representing and “in it together with” we have alot more problems then what some private corp CEO is making. How about states like NJ… cut the 550k they pay the Teachers Union Boss maybe then some of those poor teachers could get their 2 percent raise?

  14. Outsider,

    I think most people have a problem with anyone who is ‘over-paid’.

    What ‘over paid’ is, might be up for debate, but………

    I think most athletes are over paid. Many union and non-union people are over paid. There are people in every job type/position who are probably over paid. Charlie’s contention is that [many] CEOs are [extremely] over paid. Considering the amount of govt. bail-out money that has gone into the coffers of CEOs and the like, I would say he has a valid point.

    Sure, it has become a vicious circle. Who do we condemn? The politicians, CEOs, the rest of greedy corporate America, the unions…..? YES.

    If you do not care, you should.

  15. I am absolutely OKAY with my taxes being raised. I have NO PROBLEM with it at all.

    What does bother me is that there are people in this society who think that a board of directors of a corporation with absolutely no interest in anything other than the public perception of pieces of paper with the corporation’s name on it (and no other connection) have any concern about anything else. A stock in a corporation is not very different than a Topps baseball card. Its ONLY value resides in the mind of the person who is thinking of purchasing it.
    (Exception made for those corporations that pay “dividends” on their stocks.)

  16. What should cause more concern then NV: mass bankruptcy of all levels of government or a CEO making “to much money.” Corporate bail outs, many which are being paid back with interest? What did the state of Illinois just do to save the public sector pension! Mass bail out with your tax money. Same thing.

    You teach are you a member of the union? Im sure you wouldnt care then. So you are upset that a CEO makes “to much money”, which really has no effect on your quality of life, but you’re not concerned that money you’re earning is being taken to pay a bunch of lobbying cronnies to artificially keep their jobs and give themselves raises? I dont see a difference between the evil CEO and the evil union. Oh wait I do Im not paying the CEO.

  17. Outsider Now–what makes you think you’re not paying private sector CEOs? Every time you buy a product produced by a CEO’s company, you are paying his/her salary. Not to mention the government bail-out money given to CEOs.

  18. Well said Sharon.

    Outsider,

    Big money is ‘big money’. I am not supporting one over the other. Unions [most unions?] aren’t any more or less ethical then CEOs when it comes to getting their piece of the pie. I do not belong to a union, nor am I a CEO.

    My father was CAT union for 40 years. Were I a member of the labor force, I am inclined to think that I would rather have some [union] protection than no protection; especially against white collar and upper management! The devil you know…don’t you know.

  19. I pay a portion of a private company’s CEO salary by CHOOSING to buy its product/service. I have far less choice with respect to taxes, be it income, property, sales, etc. Further, if no one wants what the private company is selling, it goes out of business. Generally, not so for the public entity.

    However, despite all of the more recent anger over public sector salaries, benefits and pensions, public sector employees still make less than their private sector counterparts for the same skill set. Arguably, those lower salaries result in a public sector that, as a whole, hires/retains a lower quality workforce, perpetuating the wage inequity problem. The outliers get the attention, such as the lazy and stupid public employee or the overpaid CEO. The CEO is so rich, it doesn’t matter if he gets fired. The public employee is less likely to lose his job.

    In any event, when a consumer “pays” the salary of a CEO or any other private sector employee by purchasing a particular product/service, that consumer doesn’t usually act like he’s the “real” boss. When a taxpayer “pays” the salary of public sector employee, that taxpayer acts far more differently toward the public employee. And it all goes back to choice, or lack thereof.

  20. What. Jon, “stupid public employees–low quality work force”–a rather broad, bigoted opinion for you, isn’t it? 🙂 You did lose me with your last analogy. Let’s see in the private sector, the consumer does (not) act like the boss of the CEO; then the taxpayer pays the salary of public sector employee. Then the taxpayer acts like he is the boss of the public employee. Then you imply that analogy somehow proves that it’s all a matter of choice–I don’t get it. What’s an “outlier”?

    I do agree, though, taxpayers often indicate that they believe they are smarter than the public employees. Sometimes students would tell me that their parents paid my salary–thus implying that their parents were my bosses. I jokingly used to ask how they knew their parents’ taxes paid my salary–maybe their particular taxes were paying the principal’s salary–so go tell him what to do.

  21. An “outlier” exists outside of the norm (as in a statistical distribution, for example), so the comment is not so broad 🙂 As for “lowER quality workforce” – I didn’t say “low’, it’s a relative description. (for example, the majority of teachers come from the bottom third of college graduates. As a whole, non-teacher college graduates are “higher quality”, at least as measured by college rank)

    The “boss” analogy is thus: Generally, if someone chooses to buy your private company product (and effectively pay that company’s employee salaries), that person doesn’t necessarily act as if they’re the boss (it was their choice, to buy or NOT buy). However, if that same person is “forced” by taxation to “buy” a public sector product or service, it seems that person is more likely to act like the boss (and think they can tell that employee what to do). My argument is that that the difference in treatment (toward a private vs public employee) is derived from the notion that the public employee is more “forced” upon the average joe. Unlike with the private employee, average joe has less control over the purchase decision, so he attempts to re-establish control by acting like the boss.

  22. Jon, you never disappoint. You generally take the side of big business. You generally prove your point with statistics. You rarely look at the human side.
    As to the “choice” about paying CEOs–every time I buy a product, I contribute to the salary of some CEO. Since most CEOs receive very high salaries, I don’t have any choice but to help pay for some CEO’s salary.

    Your disdain for those who serve us rather astounds me. So do you believe that the employees of a private sector company (who work at low wages for a very rich CEO) are more skilled than the people hired to be public “servants”? Wal-mart employees vs. postmen/women, etc.?

    Your distinction between “lower” as opposed to “low” was somewhat lost when you then speak of lazy, stupid public employees. Of course, I didn’t miss your degrading comments about teachers–does that include your wife, also? Am I to assume that you received better grades in college than she did? Or is she smarter just by virtue of the husband she chose? 🙂

  23. Sharon, you need not contribute much to the salaries of highly paid CEOs. You could (and perhaps you do) buy your food from local farmers, co-ops and restaurants. You can employ small business plumbers, electricians, landscapers, etc for your household needs. You can buy clothing, books, children’s toys, etc. from a not-for-profit group here in Peoria that supports “fair trade” practices. What do you think all of those CEO’s make?

    http://www.globalvillagepeoria.org/index.html

    I find it interesting that you think my quoting the statistic that, for example, the majority of teachers in the U.S. come from the bottom third of college graduates is “degrading”. I pointed out that public sector employees are paid less than their private sector counterparts (and that is for someone with the same qualifications). And that, because of the higher pay, the private sector generally attracts the better candidates (certainly not always, but as a whole). Yet you call that “disdain”? That I might occasionally show disdain toward you hardly means I have disdain for public employees or teachers, for that matter 🙂

    And, yes, I spoke about “outliers”, which means exceptions not close to the norm, when I spoke of the “lazy and stupid public employees” (hint: try http://www.dictionary.com before commenting about something you clearly don’t understand) Oddly, I’m now being lectured by someone who just stated that CEO salaries included “bailout money given to CEOs”. If you had a mortgage on your house, and at one time or two, threw a party while you lived there, even though you paid off the mortgage, I could claim the bank gave you money to have a party?

    Other than having mentioned that my wife is a teacher, I rarely discuss my personal matters. However, as I already discussed, stating a fact about teachers as a whole is hardly a degrading comment towards teachers nor to my wife. However, we both feel that retaining incompetent teachers (whether that is due to administration or teachers unions or both), even if it is only a handful of teachers, is degrading to the profession. As a highly qualified and intelligent teacher, she accepts the low pay, the demanding public, and yes, the long hours. Unfortunately, her profession also has an image problem, in no small part due to its own standards.

  24. NV the devil seems to be playing for both sides I have found out.

    Sharon as Jon said the private sector CEO pay is based on demand for stock or a product. Supply and demand loses its meaning in the public sector where money buys raises and lay off freezes whether there is need for the labor or not. Also I dont have a choice when it comes to your pension and pay because it comes out of my paycheck in the form of taxes. Are you mandated by the government for my pension and pay?

    “Disdain for those who serve us” Its called a job you get paid for it give up the teacher cry baby attitude you all seem to be taught in college. Did you know that some of us have to work ALL summer long? I know crazy. Its true though some jobs require that. Your not volunteering. Your not working in a soup kithen or building houses for habitat for humanity. You go to a job where you are paid and protected from many of the realities of a private sector company with often times better benifit and retirement packages.

    And for numbers I would take a look at Merle’s blog because it has a by the numbers run down on teacher pay. Not “the human side of things” by Sharon but by the actual numbers.

  25. Lets use human terms. The company you worked for Sharon is broke. The company that employs all those postmen and DOT workers is broke. They cant pay cost of living raises they cant offer competitive salaries because they have no money. Its nothing personal you just happen to have worked for an entity that can no longer pay. Many people are in this position with the recent economic crisis. However the difference is you work for one of those “to big to fail” companies called the state. So your retirement, healthcare will be saved no matter what the cost to the rest of us.

    You mentioned a tax payer bail out for some, a FEW, companies but you seem to forget that your pension fund was just bailed out by the state two days ago? You may as well have worked for Citibank or Lehman.

  26. I understand the argument about too many public sector workers draining the government (and, thus, the taxpayers). However, I am curious as to which jobs and which services offered by the local, state, and federal government you would like to eliminate. All too often I hear the critics recommending the elimination of services they can do without. We all benefit from public services, so which ones would you eliminate? Obviously, we would like to eliminate the teaching profession or to make it a volunteer effort.

    Aren’t many private sector companies hired to provide public services? Certainly, District 150 pays private sector companies considerable money to provide services (food service, Edison, Johns Hopkins, etc.). I do believe that is a waste of taxpayer money.

    Outsider Now–I have worked in private sector jobs (Caterpillar during and after high school for two years, then at LeTourneaus, while I was in college, etc.) While teaching, I always worked in the summer (except for the last three years of my career). In my earlier years, I worked evenings in a private sector job. My 9-month salary didn’t last for 12 months). Also, I never, never cried about my teaching salary. I just know that a teacher’s 9-month salary doesn’t provide enough income to raise a family–I didn’t have to provide for a family.

    What always amazes me is the fact that critics of teachers would not have jobs if they hadn’t had teachers–some good, some bad. Perhaps Jon and Outsider are self-made men or women–I haven’t met many of those.

    As for retirement–my father worked for a private sector company that folded before he was ready to retire and after he was too old to get another job. I lived with the results of that lack of protection by private sector companies. I think all of you deserve retirement packages, and I would be very happy if the CEOs of your private sector companies would share the wealth gained by my paying for their products in order to give you that protection.

  27. Sharon says: “I just know that a teacher’s 9-month salary doesn’t provide enough income to raise a family–I didn’t have to provide for a family.”

    You’re kidding, right? That average teacher salary in District 150 is $55,736. You’re saying you can’t raise a family on that?

  28. The fact that it is an “average” salary does indicate that many make a salary well below $55,000, doesn’t it? Is my information wrong or haven’t District 150 teachers had a hard freeze for four years? At the current time, my guess is that there are more non-tenured teachers (lower pay) in District 150 than there are tenured teachers(higher pay). I think the $55,000 a year argument will soon be a moot point. I don’t know if administrators’ salaries are figured into that average. Certainly, high administrative salaries are a drain on District 150’s education fund.

    I know that during most of my career as a single person, I found it very difficult to live on a teacher’s salary–until the last 10 years of teaching when our raises were significant enough that I wasn’t counting pennies before pay day.

    Kids used to ask me if such and such a teacher was rich. I always said there are only two ways teachers could be rich–they inherited money or they were married to a rich spouse.

    As Jon said, his wife accepts low pay as a teacher, but would she do so if she weren’t in a two paycheck family? I fear that salaries will soon be at the level where men (or sole breadwinners) simply won’t be able to afford to teach. I believe that taking men out of the classroom would be a very unfortunate outcome.

    C.J., I can’t disagree with you so much since you do not work for a profit-making company, so I am sure you have found a way to raise a family on a lower salary than you would make in the private sector.

  29. “The fact that it is an “average” salary does indicate that many make a salary well below $55,000, doesn’t it?”

    Only if you concede it also means that there are “many” who “make a salary well” above “55,000”

    You can’t win the “poor teacher” argument.

  30. Charlie, of course, you are a special person who is willing to live on less than the average person would consider sufficient. I admire you for that, so my arguments rarely are directed at you. However, I don’t believe most other responders have that attitude about lifestyle, etc.

    Again, I have questions for which I really don’t have answers. What salaries are included to arrive at the averages? Are administrative salaries included? Do teachers’ salaries include the pay they receive for extra-curricular activities? Remember, also, that most primary and middle school teachers do not have the opportunities for these “extra pay” jobs, so the teachers with the highest salaries including extra pay would most likely be just high school teachers–and traditionally there are more men than women holding these positions.

    Of course, for instance, we know that, as in the case of Bradley’s Jim Les, teachers who are, also, high school basketball coaches make more money than do the teachers who take on other extra-curricular responsibilities.

    None of these are volunteer jobs, so if teachers don’t accept coaching positions, then other people are eligible to take on these positions for pay. Therefore, not giving them to teachers wouldn’t save the district any money.

    I just want to be sure you all know whether or not these “extras” are included in the salaries used to compute averages.

  31. ‘who is willing to live on less than the average person would consider sufficient.’

    not really… I just accept that to do what I want to do, my employer will pay me as little as they can. I would prefer to be paid what other teachers doing the same thing are paid.

  32. Charlie, I understand. I don’t think quality teachers are the main goal of any school system–money is always the bottom line. Sometimes (even often) schools are lucky enough to get good teachers because some people just do love to teach and they teach for their own satisfaction, not for an administrator’s approval or compensation.

  33. Once again Sharon money is the bottom line because it costs money to heat, maintain, pay staff…There are oporating costs that are involved in running a school. I know you want to live in a void where schools and businesses are not similar and thats fine but there are several important similarities that you just can not ignore. Schools have operational budgets that cost real money and when those costs can not be balanced we get in the situation we are in today.

    I would say one of the main differences between a school district and a business is that most businesses cant come back to the community and say ummmm we missmanaged our funds and now we are broke so we are going to need to raise your taxes so that we can continue to missmanage our funds. We promise we will do better in the future. Oh also the rest of you are struggling with 10% unemployment, and we get it because we are in your community, but all our staff are going to need raises to continue to come to work…I mean its for the children…

  34. Outsider now, I get it–we just have very different takes on the subject, so that’s where we should leave it.

    District 150 Observor, it used to be Caterpillar that had the best insurance in town–I remember when dentists raised their rates sky high for the rest of us because Caterpillar started offering dental insurance. District 150 has had good insurance–I believe inch by inch or more that is changing. It soon will not be that great.

    I always get the idea (when it comes to tenure, pensions, insurance) that those who don’t have the benefits resent teachers (and/or Caterpillar) for having them. However, if their employers would offer the same benefits, they would not turn them down on matter of principle. I wish all of you had the same benefits.

  35. I do have the same quality benifits you do, or at least comparable. I also have a decent retirement program. I dont resent that you have those things. What I resent is that I have to pay for those benifits and retirement out of my income and they turn around and also pay into yours out of my income. What I resent is that when the rest of the city, state and country is facing losing their jobs public sector employees have the balls to complain about not getting their scheduled raises.

    I also resent that no matter how poorly the place that you work, and for that any other state and munipal employee works, manages their funds they can always just come back and screw the rest of us so that you can continue to get your retirement and benifits and recently keep your jobs thanks to several public unions getting lay off freezes.

    The city and state is not held to any standard because they know they can always just lobby the unions into office and then raise taxs and service costs for the rest of us so that they can continue to pay you. Thats what I resent

  36. I think private sector unions are beginning to see the writting on the wall and will give up playing nice with our public sector “brothers and sisters” and I really hope it is soon.

  37. Outsider Now, which of the public services that you receive are you willing to give up? I assume you or your children and grandchildren didn’t receive a public education. (That is possible, of course, and I know that pay tuition to private schools do resent paying for public schools). I assume you collect your own garbage and maintain your own streets and all the streets on which you drive.

    Teachers are always at a disadvantage in these discussions. You know how much we earn and what our benefits are, etc. We can’t argue back because we don’t know whether or not you are overpaid for the work you do, etc. Perhaps, in fairness, you will provide us with that information about yourself.

    If you work for a company from which I buy products or services, then I indeed am helping to pay for your salary and benefits. Someone must buy the products of your company–and thus they pay your salary. You will be pleased to know that District 150 insurance is definitely not as good as it was when I left teaching–much worse.

    By the way, I don’t have balls, so I guess I can complain if I want to do so–although I never did. Sorry for the crudeness–I objected reading it, so I shouldn’t have repeated it.

  38. Sharon, did it occur to you that you don’t need to eliminate any public service to reduce spending? For example, I’d prefer that we spend far less on military/defense, but certainly not cut it entirely. (However, for the near time, I’d rather see more federal spending as a whole – a Keynesian approach, but that’s another topic.)

    As for salaries, I’ve posted this stat before – The average income of a person in the U.S. age 25 or older with a Bachelors degree is $50,916. With a Masters degree it is $61,698.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

    Perhaps you’ll explain this statement further –

    “What always amazes me is the fact that critics of teachers would not have jobs if they hadn’t had teachers–some good, some bad.”

    Really? That amazes you? In what way? Are you similarly thus amazed that some critics of D150 would not have had a job/pension if there was no D150?

  39. Jon, I will acknowledge your presence on this blog, also. I do agree with you about the military spending–did you happen to read John Brady’s letter to the editor in today’s PJS? I heard a discussion on the radio on the same topic–Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex. I found it very interesting and thought-provoking.

    P.S. I do tire of being adversarial. By expressing my own opinions on subjects, I set myself up for the controversy. I certainly hope you are not siding with the extreme views of Outsider Now–but if so, sobeit. I see no reason to discuss teachers’ salaries as compared to those of all the rest of you until I know what your salaries are and what you do to earn those salaries. Yes, I know the rest of you are paying teachers’ salaries because we are public servants (and we all now servants should be paid minimum wage).

    What I meant by amazement, of course, is that anyone who received a public education shouldn’t begrudge others from having one–and for paying those who provide it with just compensation. I understand the arguments about pensions, etc.; however, you can change horses in the middle of the stream for those of us who thought we could depend on the pensions–another promise that needs to be kept. What happens for in the future (when teachers have time to adjust and plan for a different kind of arrangement ).

  40. I never have any luck editing–everything jumps around.

    I meant to say the system of pensions shouldn’t be changed in the middle (or at the end) of the stream for those teachers who, in good faith, believed the pension system was a sure thing. We certainly don’t need to be the scapegoats for all that has gone wrong with this state or this country’s economic system–there is enough blame to go around. A new way for teachers to plan for retirement probably is inevitable–and I’m sure young teachers will find a way to work it out.

  41. Sharon – I think Outsider Now is trying to make you realize that times have changed in terms of pay and benefits and this transition began even before the most recent recession. I think you need to better inform yourself about the pay and benefits offered to the private sector. Benefits have been reduced to almost nothing, defined pension plans gone, 401k matches have been reduced or eliminated by many organizations, and pay has been stagnant or even cut for several years now. I can’t imagine that a starting teacher in District 150 is making any less annually (particularly when you include benefits) than any other college graduate, with the exception of those in highly technical fields.

  42. Frustrated, again you say, “I can’t imagine.” I have said before and say again, let teachers know what your husband’s salary and benefits are (and those of all other critics of teachers). Then maybe we will see the disparity. We are asked to believe your “I imagine that.” Besides I believe my last comments did indicate that it may be time for a change. Frankly, throughout most of my career, I never heard any criticisms of retirement packages for teachers. Certainly, Caterpillar employees (including my elderly uncle) receive(d) very generous retirement packages. Yes, times changed but it came too late for most of us to do anything about it.

    Some comments, however, seem to indicate that teachers too close to retirement to make significant changes and those of us already retired should forfeit our retirements and receive less than we were promised (and counted on).

    Also, public employees are getting blamed for all of the state’s ills–that I am not buying. Be sure that just as in companies where management gets the big bucks, the management at the state and federal level are, also, taking the lion’s share.

    I wish you all would start assessing the extreme cost of the NCLB efforts to taxpayers–(and to take a good look at where all that money is going). Most of that tax money is going to private sector companies–not to teachers or schools. Why aren’t you all up in arms about that? You are upset when your money goes to pay for teachers, etc., why not be upset about tax money going to private enterprises? All sorts of companies (the Edison, Johns Hopkins, test making and assessment companies, textbooks, tutoring companies) have jumped on the bandwagon for this great money-making opportunity that is doing nothing whatsoever to improve public education. Many of you have settled on the wrong scapegoats while the real culprits get off scotfree.

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