To combat what pension amendment supporters call inflated retirement figures that led to the measure’s defeat last fall, Sen. Dave Luechtefeld, R-Okawville, has organized a meeting to generate a consensus on the numbers employed in pension negotiations. Also on the table is a new bill filed Tuesday offering workers hired prior to Jan. 1 the current Medicare health insurance rate.

The meeting will convene today in Springfield and involve Jim Hacking, director of the State University Retirement System; Central Management Services representative John Hendrick; Steve Schnorff, a policy analyst with the governor’s office; IEA lobbyist Richard Frankenfeld; SIUC pension amendment coordinator Ruth Pommier and Luechtefeld. The group will discuss numbers cited last fall in the pension debate, during which an amendment sponsored by Luechtefeld was defeated in the Senate.

This is a fact-finding mission, Pommier said.

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Luechtefeld’s amendment sought to allow retirees a choice in which pension package to accept, amending the 1997 Pension Act that in part requires retirees to assume 5 percent of their health care premium costs for every year under 20 years. Opposition to this stipulation is relatively strong among university staffers and faculty members across the state. At SIUC, about 700 workers have joined in the fight to amend the legislation while Northern Illinois University maintains a group of about 200. Other campus organizations opposing the bill can be found at Illinois State University, Western Illinois University, University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana, SIU-Edwardsville and Governor’s State University.

The Okawville senator said $90 million over five years was quoted last year in the General Assembly as the amount the pension amendment would cost the state, a figure Luechtefeld and others say is grossly inaccurate. The initial numbers, however, calculated by the Office of the Budget and confirmed by CMS, projected the cost to be $90 million over 40 years. It is thought by SIUC’s Pommier that the governor’s office, which opposes the amendment, had stepped in at some point and influenced the numbers. Regardless, Pommier, Luechtefeld and NIU pension amendment coordinator Nita Challgren will head to Springfield today in an attempt to ascertain accurate numbers and weigh their options with regard to new legislation submitted by a quartet of House lawmakers Tuesday.

We want to put together a universal figure that we can use, Luechtefeld said. There were some outrageous numbers offered last time. And if the figures are too high, you have no chance of getting anything passed.

HB 3881, sponsored by Rep. Rick Winkel, R-Champaign, Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, Rep. Tom Ryder, R-Jerseyville, Rep. Dan Reitz, D-Steeleville, and Rep. David Winters, R-Rockford, offers workers hired before Jan. 1 the Medicare health insurance rate instead of the 5 percent rate dictated by last year’s pension bill. The current Medicare rate is $112.72 compared with the non-Medicare rate of $241.64. Under HB 3881, Pommier, who will retire with 15 years of service, five under the minimum for retirement with full benefits, would pay 25 percent of $112.72 per month Without the proposed stipulations, she would pay 25 percent of the current non-Medicare rate.

Pommier and many of her colleagues who opposed last year’s changes are comfortable with the new bill’s language. Pommier said she would support it if the bill sponsored by Sen. Jim Rea, D-Christopher, is dropped. Rea’s bill mirrors Luechtefeld’s changes and currently is stalled in the Senate.

We need to grab the ball and take advantage of this momentum, she said. Sometimes you have to compromise. We can support this.