Bill Zettler

Illinois Pension Scam Bill Zettler

Scam: a fraudulent or deceptive act. Webster?s Dictionary. Illinois? state pension systems are in the worst financial condition of any state system in the country. According to Pew Research, Illinois ranks dead last with only 51% of its pension obligations funded. In this well-documented and provocative book, Bill Zettler debunks the common myths surrounding the reasons why Illinois is last in pension funding. According to Zettler, collusion between public sector unions and the politicians they have funded with member dues has resulted in more than 130 benefit increases since 1970 most of them passed by the Illinois legislature with large majorities and with little or no publicity. Those benefit enhancements and their costs have been underplayed by both the public employees and the politicians to the point where there are currently over 6,700 pensions in excess of $100,000. These $100,000 pensions are growing at a rate of more than 20% per year thus projecting to more than 25,000 by 2020. Zettler uses publicly available information on salaries and pensions to develop a powerful argument for immediate restrictions on Illinois public salaries and pensions in order to bring them into line with the private sector and to prevent the state from bankrupting Illinois? children?s future. Bill Zettler is Director of Research for the Family Taxpayers Foundation and has researched and written over 150 articles on Illinois public salaries and pensions since 2005. For 30 years prior to that Zettler was owner or principal of three different software companies.