Ty Petersen has voted Democrat in two of the past three primary elections, donated to Democrat Steve Webb’s 2018 State Senate challenge against Dale Fowler, and is currently on paid staff of arguably the pro-Democrat public employee union in Illinois.
But in a folksy television commercial arguing for passage of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Tax Hike Amendment, he’s been cast as a Republican.
Petersen, 58, and admitted Democrat Mike Mayer of Taylorville are the stars of the ad spot, which is running in central and southern Illinois media markets.
Both are state pensioners married to state pensioners.
Petersen’s day job is staff representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) public employee union, paid $95,122 per public filings. He made headlines in 2017 for sparring with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner when he refused to accede to the union’s demand to shorten their “full time” work week from 40 to 37.5 hours.
That same year, according to the State Retirement Systems (SRS), the then-54 year-old Petersen worked a single year on the State of Illinois payroll, contributing $42,655 into the pension system. Taking advantage of a loophole Democrats created to allow union staff to collect state pensions, he then “retired” from the state at age 55 and started collecting a state pension of $24,467 per year.
Petersen has already collected $75,623, according to SRS, or twice what he paid into the system. If he lives until age 85, he will collect $1.164 million from state taxpayers.
Petersen’s wife, Jamie, worked as a nurse at Vienna Correctional Center from 2000 to 2017. She lost her job after leaders of her Illinois Nurses Association union refused a state contract offer.
Jamie Petersen, then age 53, complained to local media that she could no longer retire at age 55 with a taxpayer-funded state pension like she had planned.
“I will have to work a lot longer now and drive further to fulfill our hopes,” she said.
According to SRS, Jamie Petersen was eligible to start collecting her state pension in November 2019. At 75 percent of her final salary, her starting annual payment from taxpayers would be $70,685. Over 30 years, she could collect a total of $3.362 million.
Jamie Petersen contributed $120,843 into the state pension system over her 17 year career.
The constitutional amendment, if it passes, would help state leaders tap a new source of tax revenue to fund pensions like those of the Petersens, raising state income taxes on certain groups, like small business owners, as high as 13 percent.
Mayer, a former Christian County Board member, works for the Illinois Secretary of State, where he earned $128,400 in 2019. His wife, Julie, has been Christian County Circuit Court Clerk since 2008.
Michael Mayer, 62, has contributed $74,412 to the state pension system. Over 30 years, he could collect $4.24 million.
Pritzker ousted Rauner in 2018 with the backing of AFSCME and Petersen, and then gave state workers their richest contract and pension deal ever in 2019.
In 2005, Petersen wrote a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission complaining about executive compensation.
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