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Pension legal battle looms, but schools
provide good news … and lots of it
The battle lines have been
drawn.
Teachers,
school
administrators and hundreds of
thousands of other public
workers and retirees are
preparing to fight all the way to
the Illinois Supreme Court to try
and overturn the punitive – and
what we believe to be
unconstitutional – pension reform measures the
General Assembly passed just hours after the March
primary filing deadline in December.
We, along with the Illinois Retired Teachers
Association, filed a lawsuit on December 27 in Cook
County Circuit Court challenging the pension reform law
as unconstitutional. On January 3, the Retired State
Employees Association of Illinois filed a similar lawsuit
in Sangamon County Circuit Court, and the unions
involved in the We Are One Illinois coalition, including
the IEA and IFT, also are expected to sue.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe the
real reason behind the passage of Senate Bill 1 was
pure politics and that the ultimate end game will be
some sort of tax increase, or at least the extension of
the temporary income tax increase that is due to expire
January 1, 2015.
We also will remain on guard for attempts to pass a
cost shift under the guise that school districts would be
able to handle the additional costs because SB 1 will
lower the normal pension cost. That may be, but what
happens when SB 1 is declared unconstitutional? Our
attorneys firmly believe the pension law eventually will
be overturned based on years of case law, the very
plain pension protection language in the Illinois
Constitution, the expressed intent of the sponsors of
that constitutional language, and some of what was said
during the floor debate of SB 1 in both the House and
Senate.
There will be plenty of time to dissect the pension
battle ahead -- and it ultimately will be decided in the
Illinois Supreme Court -- so I’d like to turn my attention
to some of the really good news items happening in
IASA.
School districts’ holiday response overwhelming
School administrators, staff, teachers and students
all over the state did so many wonderful things in terms
of holiday caring and sharing that we were
overwhelmed. You will see graphic proof of that in this
issue of
Leadership Matters
in the form of more than 20
pages of photos and information about how school
districts rallied to help those in need.
We put out a simple request for districts to submit
photos and information. We were expecting a few
responses. We got more than 200 photo submissions.
Obviously, we could not use that many photos, but
every district that responded is represented by at least
one photo -- and the good work of thousands of
volunteers illustrates once again how vital schools are
to our communities. The holidays and 2014 look much
brighter to many people in need thanks to the efforts of
school districts throughout the state.
We encourage you to submit photos and
information about the great things you are doing in our
schools as we plan to use them in future issues of our
online newsletter.
Leadership Matters
wins national award
Speaking of our online newsletter, you may have
noticed the Bronze Medal that is a new part of our
newsletter’s masthead. We found out a couple of weeks
ago that
Leadership Matters
placed third and won the
Bronze Medal in a national contest for association
newsletters/magazines. The contest, which was
sponsored by
Association TRENDS
magazine, attracted
470 entries according to the press release
announcement of the award.
Leadership Matters
only
has been in existence one year this month, but it has
evolved into a great communications vehicle for IASA
and also into what we hope is an interesting and
informative monthly read for superintendents and other
school administrators.
Kudos also to our Illinois Statewide School
Management Alliance partner IASBO as the school
business officials’ quarterly magazine also placed third
nationally in the quarterly magazine category.
Congrats to Dr. Kelly Stewart!
Dr. Kelly Stewart, superintendent of Benton
Consolidated High School District 103, was honored as
the Illinois Superintendent of the Year for 2014 at the
recent Triple-I Conference in Chicago. You’ll find an in-
depth profile of Dr. Stewart in this month’s newsletter.
The committee made an excellent selection and Dr.
Stewart will be a great representative of IASA and of all
the great work being done throughout the state by our
superintendents.
IASA and the state’s superintendents all were
beneficiaries of the way in which 2013 Illinois
Superintendent of the Year Dr. Jane Westerhold
represented the profession and the extraordinary
positive press coverage she received. Dr. Stewart also
has received great press coverage and her acceptance
remarks were humorous, on point and a study in
humility.
Message from the
Executive Director
Dr. Brent Clark
