To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff
           <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "President Michael Hogan" <presmike@uillinois.edu>

Reply-To: presmike@uillinois.edu
 Subject: MASSMAIL - Senate Bill 512, public pension funding

Dear Faculty and Staff,

As we approach the second half of the General Assembly's annual fall veto 
session, we're keeping a close eye on issues of concern to the University 
of Illinois.  One of those issues is public pension funding.  You may be 
seeing ads in the media promoting Senate Bill 512, legislation that 
proposes changes in pension funding for current employees that we believe 
would adversely affect the University and the state.  As I communicated 
with you last spring, I testified against this bill and it was not moved 
forward for action.  Many legislators were concerned by the potential 
adverse consequences of the bill, which I and others brought to their 
attention.

We continue to press for a solution to the state's pension funding 
concerns that doesn't unjustly place the entire burden on the backs of 
our hardworking employees. As part of this effort, I share with you the 
text of an Op-Ed I submitted to the Chicago Sun-Times, which was 
published this past Sunday.  It follows my sign off.  I encourage you to 
contact your legislators using your own personal e-mail and resources 
(i.e., non-university) to assert the importance of a fair solution and 
the problematic aspects of SB-512. I'll continue to keep you updated as 
the issue moves forward.

Sincerely,
Mike

Michael J. Hogan
President
University of Illinois
=================================================================

Op-Ed printed in the Sunday, October 30, 2011, edition of the Chicago Sun-
Times:

Cutting pensions would lead to U. of I. brain drain
By Michael J. Hogan

     It's easy to understand the Law of Unintended Consequences, the 
unanticipated and sometimes perverse effects of actions - sometimes 
government actions - that were ostensibly intended to provide a public 
good.
     Examples of this principle abound, but one that is often noted these 
days has to do with Senate Bill 512, now under discussion in Springfield, 
to fund the state's pension obligations to public employees.  Leaders in 
Illinois public higher education worry that the proposed solution could 
have unintended consequences of substantial proportions. Their employees, 
many ineligible for Social Security, would have to accept diminished 
benefits or ante up significantly more to maintain the benefits they were 
promised. 
     The likely effect of Senate Bill 512 in its current form will be a 
brain drain from these public universities and their surrounding 
communities.
     The University of Illinois is one of the largest and most productive 
employers in the state.  Twenty percent of our workforce is pension-
eligible and that includes some of our most distinguished faculty, 
physicians, and staff - many of whom would leave if onerous changes are 
made in the pension plan.
     Make no mistake about it, these outstanding and civic-minded 
employees have choices in a competitive market place not bound by 
geography. Those who leave may take their externally funded research 
projects worth millions of dollars with them and take their pension, 
too.  Replacing these employees with comparable talent will be difficult 
so long as other universities are offering better benefits.
     Such an exodus would devastate our ability to meet the U of I's 
teaching, research, public service, and health care missions, and would 
slam the brakes on what has consistently been a vibrant economic engine 
for this great state. 
     Among the top teaching and research universities in the world, the U 
of I and its three campuses directly and indirectly generates more than 
150,000 jobs and more than $13 billion in economic impact for Illinois, a 
return of $17 for every $1 that the state invests in the U of I.  We are 
the place that pioneered transistors, LED lighting, and MRI technology.  
We are the place that educated the founders of YouTube, PayPal and the 
NFL. None of this happens without great people. Entrepreneurial 
scientists pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Award-winning authors, 
artists and teachers, skilled health care professionals. Other 
universities in other states are hungry for this talent. We must work 
hard to retain them.
     But the proposed pension funding legislation will make it difficult 
to do that, and to recruit other highly professional faculty and staff. 
It will damage the public university system in Illinois, and in so doing, 
damage the state, as well.
       As we contemplate the state's strategic advantages, how does it 
help in the long term to reduce funding for higher education, including 
two public Tier One research campuses, and provide substantially less 
compensation to its talented workforce?  
     We know that a solution to the pension problem is urgently needed, 
and we are willing to contribute our fair share to an equitable 
solution.   But it needs to be based on the principles of equity and 
shared sacrifice, to which we can all contribute without doing great 
damage to the educational institutions central to the well being of our 
students and to the state's place in a knowledge-based economy.
     I urge legislators to consider the interests of our employees, the 
impact of their departure, and the threat that weakened public 
universities pose to the future of the state.  The potential consequences 
are far too great to ignore.

Michael J. Hogan is president of the University of Illinois.
This mailing approved by:
The Office of the President

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