Ex-Hinsdale Official Collects Pension, Gets New Public Job

HINSDALE, IL — Hinsdale's finance director retired in February, but he already had a new public job lined up.

He became the assistant controller at Joliet Junior College. He started collecting a public pension, and he is listed as paying into a new government pension system at the college.

This is all allowed under state law. But many critics of the state's pension rules call such a practice "double-dipping."

According to public records, Langlois' final salary in Hinsdale was $185,800. He is being paid $110,000 a year at Joliet Junior College.

His $87,700 annual pension is from the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund. He paid into the system as the finance director of Oak Brook and then Hinsdale, for a total of 28 years. He contributed a total of $154,000 during that time.

With the pension and salary, Langlois is now making $197,700 a year.

Under pension rules, Langlois, like all retired public employee, gets an automatic 3 percent increase every year. Under the state constitution, this percentage cannot be reduced. In 10 years, Langlois is slated to get a pension of nearly $114,000.

The 3 percent yearly pay raise often exceeds the inflation rate. With the rate of inflation, a person retiring in 2011 with Langlois' pension of $87,700 would have seen that amount rise to $104,000 a decade later. That's $10,000 less than what Langlois is set to get.

In an email to Patch, Langlois said that with his 28 years, he was looking for a career change that would be challenging, meaningful and closer to his New Lenox home.

"At the time of my departure, I was able to consider retiring early under IMRF at 55, even though this would involve a significant financial penalty to my IMRF pension," Langlois said. "Despite that, I knew I wanted a life change. I considered employment opportunities in both the private sector and public sector, and the position that excited me most was to work at Joliet Junior College, where I would have the opportunity to contribute to an organization that is an essential part of the community which I consider home."

Public records indicated that Langlois is now paying into the State Universities Retirement System, which covers Joliet Junior College.

The practice of retiring from a public job and then getting a new one has its share of critics. Among them are Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints, a nonprofit research group.

"It's just wrong that in a state troubled by a pension crisis, with the state not making ends meet, that our legislators continue to allow this kind of double-dipping," Dabrowski said in an interview. "It should have been stopped a long time ago."

He refrained from pointing the finger at public employees for the practice.

"You cannot blame these employees. They are doing what is legal, but you should blame the legislators," Dabrowski said. "The employees are doing what they are incentivized to do. The lawmakers need to unwind this."