Will County Gazette

Illinois House Republican Floor Leader Mark Batinick is concerned about what impact House Bill 0126 could have on the state's already overburdened pension system.

During a recent House Personnel and Pensions Committee hearing Batinick (R-Plainfield) questioned witness Andrew Bodewes about what the bill could mean to the state's bottom line.

"We haven't done this for a long time, but part of this has caused some stress on the pension system," he said. "To my understanding, we're not providing the net present of the new fund. They're just having to make up whatever that net present was in IMRF, which doesn't provide as big of a benefit, correct?"

HB0126 seeks to amend the Downstate Teacher Article of the Illinois Pension Code to the point of repealing a provision requiring the system to offer an optional defined contribution benefit to active members.

While Bodewes said there is no guarantee that the measure would be cost-neutral, he insisted "it's certainly designed to be more cost-neutral than most of these have been designed to be in the past."

Batinick still seemed to have questions.

"You know the net present value that you're leaving, and you should only be able to buy in that dollar amount," Batinick said. "We can make a permanent law for people to float between those. Maybe between now and the vote on the floor if we can get the number of people that are doing this that would be very helpful. We can get this out on partisan leave now."