Defined benefit (DB) pension plans incentivize "salary spiking," where sharp increases in pay are leveraged into significantly higher levels of retirement compensation. While egregious instances of salary spiking occasionally make headlines, there is little guidance on the definition of salary-spiking behavior or understanding of its…

How much do teachers value compensation that is deferred until retirement? This question is important because the vast majority of public school teachers are covered by defined benefit (DB) pension plans that "backload" a large share of compensation to retirement relative to the compensation structure in the private sector. There is…

In this brief, we examine an important but obscure form of state spending on K-12 education-state subsidies of school district pension costs. In 2018, this exceeded $19 billion across 23 states. To put that amount into perspective, 2018 federal spending on Title I programs was $15.8 billion. This revenue stream is often ignored in analyses of…

Defined benefit (DB) pension systems determine the size of pension payments using an employee's "final average salary". Thus, employees enrolled in DB pension systems face an incentive to "salary spike" -- strategically increase late career pensionable compensation -- to increase their retirement income. This is an important…

The financial problems afflicting the Illinois teacher pension plan have grabbed headlines. An equally important problem, though underappreciated, is that relatively few teachers benefit much from the plan. This report evaluates the pension benefits provided to Illinois public school teachers. The researchers project annual and lifetime pension…

Retirement savings are often described as a three-legged stool: Social Security, employer retirement plans, and personal savings. For many American workers, Social Security is the most consistent portion of the three-legged model, providing a solid plank of retirement savings. But nationwide, more than 1 million teachers--about 40 percent of all…

In this paper, I document evidence that intergovernmental incentives inherent in public sector defined benefit pension systems distort the amount and timing of income for public school teachers. This intergovernmental incentive stems from the fact that, in many states, local school districts are responsible for setting the compensation that…

This analysis of retirement planning and early retirement incentive plans in Illinois community colleges was drawn from a study of early retirement plans at each of the state's 39 community colleges, and a follow-up survey to clarify information in the documents and determine colleges' plans for the future. After introductory comments on the issue…

A study was conducted to assess the impact of projected retirements among full-time faculty on the public community colleges of Illinois. Age data on fall 1987 faculty were analyzed by college, program area, discipline and subdiscipline, gender, race/ethnicity, tenure status, and highest degree earned. Study findings included the following: (1)…

Employee fringe benefits, characteristics of head librarians, and interlibrary loan activity among Illinois public libraries are described in this compilation of three reports. The first and largest report delineates results of a 1980/81 fringe benefit survey conducted by telephone interview. It is noted that the Chicago Public Library was…

This study was conducted to investigate the attrition rate among foreign language teachers, attrition being the major component in determining the annual demand for new teachers. The study extended the teacher attrition knowledge base by analyzing data from the state of Illinois' teacher workforce data base, the Teacher Service Record (TSR), which…

This study focuses on the benefits of early retirement as a policy to ease the adjustment process as public school districts and state universities encounter the problem of declining enrollments. Early retirement as one means of reduction in force, and as a means of saving money, has been adopted by 36 Illinois school districts. This paper…