By Joe Ragusa

BLOOMINGTON – The Bloomington City Council will consider changing the city’s sick leave buyback program so it won’t lead to spiked pensions, but the city’s proposal only scratches the surface when it comes to eliminating spiked pensions.

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Executive Director Louis Kosiba said changing the pension provision that allows unused sick or vacation time and retirement bonuses to count towards a retirees average salary would be tricky and would likely only apply to new employees.

“Because the contract that current employees have with IMRF through the pension code is that compensation that is received during that employment, that is going to be IMRF earnings,” Kosiba said.

Kosiba said the IMRF doesn’t require municipalities to pay employees for unused sick days. Mayor Tari Renner said earlier this week that was a negotiated perk with the 10 different collective bargaining units in the city and that’s why the city could lose a legal challenge if Monday’s proposal is passed.

Kosiba had an issue with the mayor’s assertion that pension spiking is partially the state’s fault. He said the $1.2 million in accelerated payments Bloomington has been charged since 2012 would still need to be paid regardless of state intervention.

“These liabilities were there and the city of Bloomington owed these liabilities because of the spiking, and they’ve been spiking (pensions) since before the 2012 legislation went into effect,” Kosiba said. “In the past, that cost was just spread out over 30 years and the IMRF was charging 7.5 percent on that.”

The 2012 law allows the IMRF to collect accelerated payments from cities for pensions the IMRF flags as spiked. Kosiba said Bloomington has paid every charge it has received for the 16 spiked pensions IMRF has found since 2012.

LISTEN: WJBC’s Joe Ragusa discusses pension spiking with IMRF Executive Director Louis Kosiba.

Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].