Findings from TUA’s pension project on Youngstown, Ohio, are featured in this article at WKBN 27 First News.
A grassroots, non-profit organization is exposing the top salaries and pensions for government employees in Youngstown.
The group Taxpayers United of America made a stop in Youngstown on Tuesday during its Ohio tour. The group said it’s letting the taxpayers know where their dollars are going for these multi-million dollar pension payouts.
The state of Ohio does not release the actual pension amounts, so the organization released estimates based on salaries.
“The top of our list we have Wendy Webb. She has an estimated total pension payout of over $4.2 million. Charles Sammarone of Youngstown, Ohio, government employee. I see the mayor incumbent, $3.5 million,” said Christina Tobin, vice president of Taxpayers United of America.
The group is urging Governor John Kasich and the General Assembly to release pension figures to taxpayers.
For more information on Taxpayers United of America, click here.
Findings from TUA’s pension project on Columbus, Ohio, are featured in this article at the Columbus Dispatch.
An anti-pension group was in Columbus yesterday, decrying the fact that some high-paid government employees can get large cumulative pension payments after retirement.
Taypayers United of America, which was founded in Illinois and is expanding into other states, called on Gov. John Kasich and lawmakers to pass “meaningful” pension reform.
That includes ending traditional “defined benefit” pension plans for new hires and switching them to 401(k)-style plans; increasing current employees’ contributions to their pensions by 10 percent; and making employees and retirees pay 50 percent of their health-care premiums.
Rae Ann McNeilly, outreach director for the organization, said a plan to raise retirement ages, scale back cost-of-living increases and make employees contribute more — stalled in the legislature for more than two years — doesn’t go far enough.
CHICAGO–Plaintiffs against the Ill. State Toll Highway Authority filed an amended complaint today in Cook County Circuit Court. Plaintiffs consist of James L. Tobin, Christina Marie Tobin, Kenneth Malo, John Guild, Rae Ann McNeilly, Paul Cassidy, Glenn Westphal and Carol Westphal.
Plaintiffs are seeking a Declaratory Judgment, injunctive relief, and redress for the violation of their civil rights by the defendants pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983, et seq. The Authority raised cash tolls by approximately 90% as of January 1.
Representing the Authority is the office of Ill. Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan (D), daughter of Chicago machine boss and Ill. House Speaker Michael J. Madigan (D).
“What Lisa Madigan is getting away with is nothing less than highway robbery,” said plaintiff James Tobin.
The amended complaint included the following points:
- The Commission was created by an act of the Illinois General Assembly as an instrumentality and administrative agency of the State of Illinois in 1953. On October 25, 1955, the Tollway Commission adopted a resolution authorizing a single series of bonds aggregating $415,000,000 to finance the construction of what it described as “The Northern Illinois Toll Highway,” which was to consist of three separate routes.
- In its first full year of operation the annual toll revenues collected amounted to $14,536,000. Since 2000, the Tollway has collected nearly $9 Billion ($8,621,360,000) in toll revenues from the users of its toll highways. The majority of that amount was collected from the three routes where the revenue bonds were already paid.
- The Tollway has indicated it now has some 13 series of outstanding bonds, with an aggregate total of over $4 Billion ($4,066,675,000) and with at least one series of those bonds not maturing until January 1, 2034. It continues to issue bonds without giving due consideration to the intent of the legislature that the Tollway should dissolve when the original bonds were repaid.
“Rather than paying off the tollway bonds and disbanding, the overpaid administrators keep issuing new bonds, so that the bonds of the authority never get paid off as the Ill. Legislature intended,” said Tobin. “This way the bureaucrats, tollway employees and politically-connected contractors rake in the dough year after year.”
Click here to view the 1st amended complaint
View as a PDF
