CORRECTIONS PENSIONS STILL UNCERTAIN

Philip Holds Out For Zero-Tolerance Drug Bill

When the Illinois Senate failed Monday to vote on a bill to bring a pension
agreement between the state and Department of Corrections employees to
fruition, Capt. Robert Cooper knew he would have to wait another day to
find out when he will retire.

A supervisor at the Lincoln Correctional Center and a few months shy of
being a 30-year department veteran, Cooper is mulling his retirement plans.
If the bill does not go through the Senate today, Cooper and thousands of
other Corrections employees will be held in suspense over their pension
benefits.

The issue holding up passage of Senate Bill 1047 is "one-strike-and-out"
drug testing for prison employees. While the zero-tolerance policy was in
the original agreement and has been implemented voluntarily by the
department, Senate President James "Pate" Philip, R-Wood Dale, said he will
not call the pension bill unless the Senate also passes House Bill 4659,
which would codify the zero-tolerance drug policy.

"It's what we agreed to," Philip said Monday. "It's everything they agreed to."

Although the drug-testing policy has been implemented voluntarily, Philip
said, it's important to make it law.

"You may have a different governor, and some other governor might just
negotiate it away," he said. "It ought to be the law. We shouldn't have
felons guarding felons."

The agreement reached last spring between Gov. George Ryan and the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union representing
prison workers, boosts pension benefits to 2.5 percent of an officer's
salary for each year served. The previous pension formula operated on a
sliding scale, with a maximum benefit of 2.3 percent for each year served
after 30 years of employment.

To Cooper, that difference means a lot.

"Presently, you have to work 37 years and 10 months to get 75 percent of
your base (salary)," he said. Under the new agreement, "if you were 30
years in the department and age 50, you could go out with 75 percent of
your base. So it's actually shaving about eight years off."

To Cooper, those eight years mean he could retire almost immediately.

The new pension formula also is important to Corrections officer Wallace
Swingle of East Peoria. "To tell you how much more I'd make, I couldn't
give you a figure, but it's an increase I think is deserved by the
Department of Corrections employees."

Hundreds of AFSCME members rallied inside the Capitol Monday, demanding
Senate passage of SB1047. The rally included speeches from AFSCME Council
31 executive director Henry Bayer and others, as well as testimonials from
prison guards about what the new pension agreement means to them.

Many AFSCME members remained at the Capitol most of the day, lobbying and
waiting to see if their demands were met. Corrections employees filled the
Senate gallery and provided a rousing chorus of boos as the gavel went
down, declaring the Senate adjourned without a vote on the pension bill.

"I think it's an outrage," Bayer said. "I think it's an outrage that the
Illinois Senate Republican majority would turn their backs on their own
constituents."

In order for SB1047 to pass the 91st General Assembly, the Senate would
have to call the bill and vote on it today, the last day of the session. It
then could go to the governor's office for Ryan's signature.

If it isn't passed, the legislation will have to be reintroduced in the
next session, which begins Wednesday, and make its way through the
legislative process all over again.