North Cook News

As the Illinois Teachers Retirement System (TRS) recently voted to lower their expected rate of return on investments concerning their pension fund, Republican state House candidate Dan Gott of Des Plaines reminds voters they will be forced to pick up the shortfall through higher taxes.

At its meeting held last month, the TRS voted to lower their rate of return to seven percent based on data that shows the retirement funds will not continue to do as well as they have in the past several years. According to a recent Chicago Tribune article, the vote is estimated to cost the state an additional $400 to $500 million a year.

“The hasty decision by TRS to lower the rate of return puts pressure on state government to make up a $400 million to $500 million expense,” Gott recently told the North Cook News. “The next Illinois General Assembly session is scheduled to meet in November. The sudden, unexpected expense will force legislatures to focus on cutting funding for education and social services,” he said. "It’s a double-edged sword that raises taxes and hurts students, teachers, social workers and people with disabilities. It’s time for [Illinois House Speaker Mike] Madigan (D-Chicago) and Gov. [Bruce] Rauner to negotiate a ‘grand bargain’ budget to turn around Illinois."

Gott said greater emphasis should be placed on research and investing in the classroom for students.

Gott, who has made getting rid of the status quo in Illinois politics a central theme of his campaign, is also hoping to convince voters that he will bring common sense budget and spending practices to the state legislature. Gott cites the fact that Illinois has over 7,000 units of government and that he would initiate plans to make Illinois more efficient and bring transparency.

“Illinois needs to be more efficient, productive and transparent,” Gott said. “This means looking at our entire tax code, our sales tax, fuel tax and other taxes too numerous to mention. This can only be done through careful study, cost-cutting, less spending and special emphasis on reducing the number of government units from around 7,000 to less than 3,000."

“The key priority is to form a task force at all levels of government to study how we can reduce spending that helps drive efficiency higher and transform our state government through all the layers and to do it comprehensively,” Gott said. “Greater efficiency means lower taxes.”