Illinois Governor Pat Quinn wants to eliminate the state's contributions toward health insurance benefits for retired school teachers and community college professors across the state. Those cuts are part of the budget proposal he unveiled last week. They target two insurance programs and would save the state about $92 million. About 77,000 retired teachers and their dependents are covered under the Teachers Retirement Insurance Program and the Community College Insurance Program. If Quinn's plan is approved, retirees could be forced to pay higher premiums. The extra costs could also be shifted to school districts, which could mean higher property taxes. Quinn spokesperson Kelly Kraft says the change is necessary because of what she called "fiscal challenges created over decades of mismanagement."
Todd Hatton hails from Paducah, Kentucky, where he got into radio under the auspices of the late, great John Stewart of WKYX while a student at Paducah Community College. He also worked at WKMS in the reel-to-reel tape days of the early 1990s before running off first to San Francisco, then Orlando in search of something to do when he grew up. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at Murray State University. He vigorously resists adulthood and watches his wife, Angela Hatton, save the world one plastic bottle at a time.
