Orland Stops Mayor, Trustees From Buying Time In State Pension

ORLAND PARK, IL — Are Orland's trustees are looking to reform pension laws at the local level one resolution at a time? Two recent moves point in that direction.

The board Monday night repealed a resolution that permits eligible elected officials to buy back more than 50 months of service into the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund.

The only eligible elected official in Orland who could have done that was Mayor Keith Pekau. Last month, the board voted to withdraw the trustees and clerk from the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund on July 1. The mayor's role will be decertified, as well, in 2021.

Trustee Jim Dodge proposed that the motion be tabled so that the board could review more than a dozen resolutions that regulate pension-fund participation in Orland.

"Illinois as an entity is broke because of the way it handles pensions," he said during the meeting. While he said he supported repealing Orland's resolution, Dodge added that he would prefer to look at all of the resolutions together to see how the village could shore up practices all at once.

Pekau said he did not support tabling the motion so that the board could "stop this loophole now." He added that he did not oppose reviewing the other resolutions later. Dodge withdrew his motion to table the vote and the measure passed unanimously.

One of the remaining active resolutions permits eligible elected officials to buy back military time in the pension, an issue many have said Pekau would take advantage of. However, Pekau, who served in the U.S. Air Force, has said he would not do that.

In 2017, Pekau won his seat because voters were not happy with the trustees' decision to triple the mayor's salary to $150,000 and expand the role's duties and working hours. The pay bump came with an increase in pension. Pekau, when he took office, kept the salary and declined the pension. He has been criticized for keeping the salary, and hence, the pension increase that would come along with it. Pekau has said publicly that he "doesn't believe in" the pension system.

Dodge said he would bring back to the board the idea of a holistic review of the pension resolutions. A date for that has not yet been set.