Search the News Archive

Missouri's Public Pensions Are Worse Than They Appear

"Even as neighboring Illinois gets lambasted regularly for having the worst-funded public pension plans in the nation, Missourians have believed their state's plans to be relatively sound.... [According to a recent study,] the state's five biggest pension funds have enough assets to cover just 46 percent of their projected liabilities. The plans themselves claim they are 80.5 percent funded."

Illinois Voters to Weigh Constitutional Amendment Limiting Ability of Legislature to Enhance State Employee Pensions

"After a period of dire warnings and scandal, voters will decide next month whether to change the Illinois Constitution so that it's harder to improve retirement benefits for public employees. The amendment would require a three-fifths vote instead of a simple majority when legislators want to increase retirement benefits.... The amendment is supposed to encourage consensus and keep the majority party from ramming a bill through the Legislature. But it's not clear how much the amendment could help."

Trucker Wellness Programs Aim for Less Girth Behind the Wheel

"From trucking companies embracing wellness and weight-loss programs to gyms being installed at truck stops, momentum has picked up in recent years to help those who make their living driving big rigs get into shape."

Judge Dismisses St. Louis Suit Challenging Health Care Law's Contraception Mandate

"'[The Religious Freedom Restoration Act] is a shield, not a sword,' the judge wrote. 'It protects individuals from substantial burdens on religious exercise that occur when the government coerces action one's religion forbids, or forbids action one's religion requires; it is not a means to force one's religious practices upon others. RFRA does not protect against the slight burden on religious exercise that arises when one's money circuitously flows to support the conduct of other free-exercise-wielding individuals who hold religious beliefs that differ from one's own.'"

Can You Really Count on Your Pension?

"Back in the good old days, we used to say that a secure retirement was a three legged stool; One leg was Social Security, one was your savings, and one was your pension. Private employers spent the last couple of decades sawing away at the pension leg. Now state and local governments are hacking at it too ... As a result, hopes for a nice retirement are getting wobbly for millions of Americans. They can wonder if they'll actually get the pension they were promised."

New Disclosures Give Participants a Better Look at 401(k) Fees

"If you've already thrown away the new disclosure document, you'll get another chance to focus on fees in October, when the next phase of new 401(k) rules kicks in. Your quarterly statement will show, in dollars and cents, exactly how much you paid in investment expenses, administrative costs and other fees. That disclosure is likely to get employees' attention, 401(k) consultants say. After a few concerned workers call the human-resources department, the company may start a review to determine whether its fees are reasonable."

Firefighters Sue to Block Pension Changes in St. Louis

"Trustees of the Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis sued the city Tuesday, as they have threatened to do for months, to block Mayor Francis Slay's sweeping pension overhaul -- even as the mayor's plan continued to roll through the Board of Aldermen. The trustees' six-count suit seeks a temporary restraining order and judgment against Slay's proposal, which would close the current fire pension system and replace it with one with vastly less-expensive benefits."

Loophole Lets Union Officials Claim Large Teacher Pensions in Missouri

In a legal arrangement that is now drawing fire, those officials were allowed to use even brief, long-ago teaching stints to get pensions through the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System that aren't based on their modest teaching salaries but instead are based on the six-figure salaries they later received as union officials.

Illinois Likely Site of Next Fight Over Public Employee Benefits

Leaders in both parties in Springfield appear ready to push a major pension reform bill this fall that would remove Illinois workers' current defined-benefit plan and replace it with less lucrative options, including a 401(k) plan.