Daley: Chicago 'Double-Taxed' for Teacher Pensions

By Kevin Robinson in News on Aug 13, 2009 3:20PM

After announcing that he's holding the line on property tax hikes and giving Chicagoans an "abatement" by raising the property tax below the full amount allowed, Mayor Daley expounded on the fundamental unfairness of excluding city teachers from the state pensions system. “We pay a double-tax. The pension is picked up by state government for all teachers outside Chicago. As a taxpayer in Chicago, you pay a tax there. Then, you pay another tax because the state excludes Chicago teachers. So, you’re paying two pension taxes: one for the state and one for the city,” Daley said Wednesday. “We’re the only, only local government doing that in the whole state. That puts a huge burden upon the school system. ... You’re paying two taxes. This is really unfair and we have to do something about it immediately.”

As for asking for pay cuts and furlough days from teachers, though, the mayor deferred to their union contract, a notion that he holds sacred. “I don’t know. … That’s up to Ron and [School Board President] Michael Scott to negotiate this, just like we worked with the trades. ... You have labor contracts. You have to respect that. You have to work within that," Daley said. “Everybody else is dieting on their [spending]. We have to get the rest of the government — the county, the state, the federal government and other agencies — to realize they have to start dieting in regards to the financial crisis. It’s not just for Chicago. It’s all over the country.”

If we had a crystal ball, we'd predict that Chicago Public School teachers are going to get their pensions whacked in the mayor's latest desperate attempt to balance the city's budget. One thing we can't predict, however, is how Daley's nephew Robert Vanecko will continue fund his real estate deals without Chicago teacher pension funds.