You are sadly misinformed. Teachers CAN have a 401k if they wish.

No sir, they cannot have a 401k....you are very wrong on that.

Ah yes, the teacher version of the 401k is the 403b.

They can have their own self funded post tax IRA, but not a 401k. YoU, sir, are sadly misinformed. Also, they all should look forward to Social Security when they retire... oh, wait, they don't contribute to SS for the years they work, therefore those years don't count towards SS.

http://www.ctpf.org/current_news/MYTHBUSTERS.pdf

So, mr Jarratt...if someone makes a mistake and follows the wrong link on your website, it's a big, fat LOL!!!! But when you post a completely false statement, it's okay? You just post a correction of your ignorance and off you go?

403b plans are the public sector's version of the 401k. I had the wrong name only.

Teachers who have side businesses CAN also qualify for an Individual 401k as well.

The average teacher retirement is 4 to 7 times greater than what they would earn on SS. The other 4 state retirement systems are even worse: http://www.championnews.net/blog/2011/06/15/4969/

As far as the 40 years worked goes, less than 1% work 40 years and less than 10% work 35 years.

@Brad - when your 68. A teacher doesn't have to wait that long. So while you continue to work 13 more years teachers have been retired if they have put in only 25 years. And the teacher pension has built in cost of living increases too. The Illinois teacher pension is in place of social security. Try comparing social security benefits to teacher pension plan and you find there is no comparison.

If contributed prior to 1/1/2011 the retirement system was:
Retirement eligibility for Tier I teachers and administrators is set according to a sliding scale:
Members can retire at age 55 with full benefits if they have 35 years of service credit accumulated; if the member has elected to have his/her pension determined by the 2.2% formula and paid the required fee.
Members also can retire at age 55 with at least 20 years of service credit and receive a benefit that is reduced by 6 percent for every year the member is under age 60.
Members can retire at age 60 with 10 years of service and receive benefits that the member has earned. For example, ten years of service multiplied by 2.2% equals 22% of the final average salary.
Members can retire at age 62 with five years of service and receive full earned benefits.

Tier II Members
First Contributed
After January 1, 2011

The new law:
The new law requires Tier II teachers and administrators to be 67 years old and have accumulated 10 years of service credits in order to qualify for full benefits that a member has earned. Tier II members may retire at age 62 with 10 years of service, but will receive retirement benefits reduced 6 percent for every year the member is under age 67.

A lot of work need at the state level to make common sense out of this system and the worst plan has been how the State who created this system now wants to turn the keys of funding responsibility over to the local district as some sort of hand cuffed local rule logic while having to follow the rules of the retirement system they control.

Lennie, I believe you arecorrect, that a 403b is the correct form of a 401k program. However I believe it has to be offered by the school district.
Ed, you tossed out a lot of info,
Full max benifit = 35yrs of service with retirement benifit of 77% and if over 55. You would have to become a teacher at 20yrs old to make that happen, so lets say 60 is more realistic.
30 years they would get 66%
25 years they would get 55%
20 years they would get 44%.
Theses are just the numbers you provided, which are correct. Now the next question is what is the average amount of years a teacher teaches and what is the salary of said teachers who are not administrators. We all know admins make more and throw off the scale. Lennie any insight?

Johnson
Another valid question is teacher contribution/employer contribution for TRS vs individual contribution/employer contribution for SS. and, what would happen in the private sector if employers addressed their obligations to SS the way the state does theirs to TRS.

"1. If your boss balanced his budget by not paying your Social Security pension benefits, your boss would be fined, shut down or in jail. (1)
First of all it is “pension contributions” not “pension benefits”. Theoretically “contributions” are made first then later “benefits” are paid. If my employer had to pay 30% of my salary, as taxpayers have to do for teachers, he would be “shut down” for sure because he would be out of business. No business could possibly survive those kinds of retirement benefits. However, since taxpayers are forced to pay taxes, any amount can be exacted from them by the political process for the benefit of only one small group – teachers. On the other hand employer Social Security contributions are 6.2% about one-fifth the taxpayer contribution to TRS."

http://www.championnews.net/blog/2011/11/07/%E2%80%9Cwe-are-the-99k%E2%80%9D-art-teacher-equates-her-99000-pension-to-social-security/

Johnson, I believe the average is around 25 years. I am not sure if that is broken down between teacher and administration though.

Johnson, also notice the list in the article are teachers, not administrators.

So Ms. Forpe calls a contribution a benefit and you're all over her like white on rice. You call a 403b a 401k and that's just fine. More lies untruths and swill

LOL @Terri, you obviously didn't look at the article. It was written by Bill Zettler, author of the Illinois Pension Scam. He sourced all his materials from TRS and the other 4 State Pension Systems directly.

Lennie, don't you think you're a little old to be writing 'LOL' so frequently?

Nope, not given the level of response from you or Terri. You guys are hilarious.

LOL!!!! I saw 1 citation...LOL...regarding state v teacher contributions for 10 years...taken totally out of context...LOL...LOL...LOL...LOL

Lennie, you go around spouting "quality education", yet you've never defined what that is. I find it a bit suspect when you continually refuse to answer this question. You're trying to sell a bill of goods that you can't even explain.

I answered your questions a couple years ago when you were willing to have an honest discussion. You have repeatedly proven you don't want that.

For the fun of it though, a quality education is one that prepares students for both college and a career.

What are you afraid of, Jarratt? Most people already know you can't be taken seriously, so it can't be that you're worried people will see you as a fraud. Is it just a pride thing? You can't answer the question, so you hide behind a grandiose facade? Yeah, that's probably it.

Oh that's really deep, Lennie. How about you explain that in a little more detail. What you just said is meaningless. You don't know the answer, Lennie. You're too simplistic for that. A fraud peddling goods of no value.

Exaclty what I thought. I answer the question and you immediately attack me again ignoring the answer.

If you think that answer contained even the slightest bit of substance, you're more simplistic than I thought. Forget it Lennie. You don't have a clue. Just keep preaching your BS to the very few who are even more simplistic than you.

If you want to have an open and honest discussion setup a meeting so we can talk face to face. As everyone can see all you want to do is make personal attacks instead of have a real conversation. Answering your questions in depth serve no useful purpose when all you want to do is hide behind an alias and attack.

He is cherry picking some of the outliers to form a skewed foggy view of reality.

I will work on getting the whole list of those over $100K.

Brad, these are ALL the teachers retiring at over $120K.

LOL! Lies and swill

"The reason Ms. Forpe receives a $99,000 pension at age 63 instead of the maximum $23,000 at age 63 for Social Security is because the taxpayers of IL guarantee it. Ms. Forpe paid in (contributed) $139,104 to her pension. Someone on Social Security working until age 63, earning the same salary as Ms. Forpe, would have paid in about $135,000. So no Ms. Forpe your massive $99,000 pension vs. your peers Social Security pension of $23,000 has absolutely nothing to do with your greater contributions. It has only to do with legal political corruption."

http://www.championnews.net/blog/2011/11/07/%E2%80%9Cwe-are-the-99k%E2%80%9D-art-teacher-equates-her-99000-pension-to-social-security/

Can you source anything but Champion swill? That article is so riddled with lies, untruths and nonsense, I don't know where to begin.

By the way...I asked for you to illustrate the annuity. Guess the math was to difficult, or, you didn't get the desired result (you won't). So go to your fallback; un-sourced lies and swill on Champion.

The article was written by Bill Zettler, author of the Illinois Pension Scam. He sourced all his materials from TRS and the other 4 State Pension Systems directly. Are you claiming the State Pensions systems are providing false data?

No. I claiming that you source the same thing over, and over, and over, and over...lies, untruths and swill. Your articles and links cite nothing reputable.

Ahh, so you are claiming TRS, SURS, SERS, are providing false information.

LOL! You still can't read. More lies and swill. Champion is crap...not TRS SERS SURS. your BS website makes one citation...a list of numbers published out of context. LOL !!!

Lennie, I get your point, but with about 140,000 teachers in Illinois, and about 10,000 of them making over 100L, it only translates to about 7 or 8%. It is not as egregious as it sounds.

So I looked through the link and looked up Grayslake 46, there is a wide range of employees, some over 100K (not many) and some down at about 30K all full time 100% they call them. There are even some teachers who have been in the illinois system for 10 years making about 30K. So lets take a conservative number like 70K and as Lennies pointed out average is about 25 years in the system. 25 Years time 2.2 % = 55% for a retirement benefit. This equals $38,500/year as a retired teacher after 25 years. It is not even close to the 100K pensions that are being fround upon. The 100 K pensions are the exceptions. What they need to fix is the double dippers, the work for 1 day and collect a pension teachers. They need to fix the system, and fix the funding that the politicians did not provide, while our teachers paid their side of the deal.