CHICAGO - Expect House Speaker Mike Madigan to use Crain's newly-released poll as a cover to push down teacher retirement costs to local school districts. Then expect home owners to revolt when their school boards raise property taxes to pay for the new demands on local school board budgets. Expect property taxes to soar, homeowners to leave Illinois (if they can dump their houses) and then watch as one by one, school districts file for bankruptcy. After bankruptcy, they'll be able to renegotiate teacher contracts and teachers will lose their current pension levels, if not be completely wiped out.
Expect this process to begin in January 2013 - hours before the new legislature is sworn in, and when a super majority vote will not be required for passage. That's what Illinoisans want, Crain's poll says:
Illinoisans are rendering a clear verdict on who ought to pay the cost of teacher retirement: those who spend the money. According to the new Crain's/Ipsos Illinois poll, residents, by a 60-to-40 ratio, say that local school districts, not the state, should pay the costs of local teacher pensions
Read more: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20121116/BLOGS02/121119840/local-school-districts-should-pay-teacher-pension-costs-poll#ixzz2COTIN16G
