CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- WBBM Newsradio has learned exclusively that the Illinois Retired Teachers Association is filing a lawsuit against the state Monday alleging an unconstitutional cut in contributions made to retirees' health plan, the Teacher Health Insurance Security Fund.
The reduction to the fund is more than $100 million a year, according to the Illinois Retired Teachers Association, impacting more than 100,000 retirees outside the City of Chicago.
"It's a group of elderly people, who in this pandemic, they are considered very much at risk, and [to] have their health benefits cut is just unthinkable," said Bill Funkhouser, the association’s president.
In a statement, Funkhouser said “this is a disastrous blow to retired public servants and soon-to-be-retired public school educators. Retirees have medical procedures they have planned for and long-term medical decisions that are projected. They need their healthcare as originally promised...Furthermore, I am shocked and appalled that the government is reducing our health insurance funding during a catastrophic pandemic. It’s unamerican, it is wrong, it’s not right and it must be reversed.”
Funkhouser told WBBM Newsradio, "we couldn't see that the CMS and the others would think about cutting the benefits to retired educators, you know?"
CMS is the Department of Central Management Services.
“I think more than anything it’s just an irresponsible act,” said the Illinois Retired Teachers Association Executive Director Jim Bachman.
The lawsuit details how the Department of Central Management Services reduced the contribution rates to the retirement healthcare fund from active employees and the State of Illinois from 1.3 percent to .9 percent in fiscal year 2023. This decreases the funding to the teachers’ health insurance fund by $45.6 million. Since the State of Illinois’s contribution is a matching amount, this automatically reduces the State’s contribution.
The association's Executive Director Jim Bachman said it will lead to the fund becoming insolvent.
“Two to four years this fund could be busted," he said, "leaving our vulnerable elderly people without medical benefits is just irresponsible at this time of our lives.”
The retired teachers believe the reduction puts the health benefits "in dire jeopardy." They also believe cutting the contributions violates the state's constitution.
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