In 2011, the Chicago Tribune exposed a pair of Illinois teacher union lobbyists, Stephen Preckwinkle and David Piccioli, who substitute taught for one day and stood to collect nearly $1 million in state teacher retirement pensions from a severely underfunded system. The five Illinois pension systems have a $100 billion liability and the teachers fund may run out of money as early as 2029. Newspaper editorials, elected officials, the governor and citizens cried foul. Legislation was quickly passed to stop the abuse.

 

When Gov. Pat Quinn signed the pension "reform" legislation into law on January 5, 2012, he said. "The pension abuses unearthed were flagrant. They needed to be stopped immediately and prevented from ever happening in the future."

 

Mission accomplished, or so it seemed.

 

Even though all Illinois citizens were led to believe that the pension abusers had been stopped, within twenty-four months after the "reform" legislation passed, the union lobbyists retired and received their lifetime Illinois state teacher pensions.

 

Even in Illinois, how this could have happened?