Senate Bill 440 Passes in the General Assembly

Yesterday afternoon SB 440 had the amendatory veto overridden by both houses. This bill was initially filed on 1/28/15 and passed both houses on 6/6/16. The bill was sent to the Governor and on 8/26/16 the Governor placed an amendatory Veto on it. Yesterday in the late afternoon the Amendatory Veto was overridden by both houses.

This bill has many moving parts. The reason the Governor placed the Veto on the bill was du…e to the part of the bill that increased the Tier 1 automatic annual increase in retirement annuity under the Chicago Police and Chicago Firefighters Articles of the Illinois Pension Code for persons born after December 31, 1954 but before January 1. 1966.

What does all that mean? It means that SB 440 passed the House today with an 81 – 31 bi-partisan vote. This means that if you were born before January 1, 1966 you will receive the 3% COLA increase. I have received several calls on this topic and thought that this brief email should help to clear things up for those interested. If you have any more questions on this bill please feel free to call us in the office. Be safe, and thanks for all that you do.

I would be remiss if I did not give the appropriate thanks to those that made this entire bill possible. Through the hard work of Firemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund Secretary Anthony Martin and Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund Rep Michael Lappe, the bill became reality. The bill when initially introduced only regarded Fire. Chief Legal Counsel and Director of the PBPA, and our legislative liaison Sean Smoot was instrumental in assuring that police were added to the bill. He worked long and hard to rally for us and to be certain that everything in this bill was applied equally to the police as well as fire. For his efforts, professionalism, and guidance I would like to say “Thank you Sean”.