Union leader draws lucrative pension perk based on false information
Chicago Federation of Labor's Jorge Ramirez (left) and Chicago Building Trades Council's Tom Villanova. (Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune)
By Jason Grotto, Tribune reporter
10:09 p.m. CDT, September 1, 2011
Every month, Thomas Villanova gets a $9,000 reminder of how lucrative it can be to serve as a union leader in Chicago.
The sum is part of a city pension that comes on top of the $198,000 annual salary he is paid to represent the interests of thousands of city workers.
Villanova last worked for the city in 1989 as an electrical mechanic with the Department of Streets and Sanitation, making about $40,000 a year. Yet in 2008 he was allowed to retire at age 56 with a $108,000 city pension. That's because, under a little-known state law, his pension was based not on his city paycheck but on his much higher union salary.
This kind of deal is available only to union officials who meet certain requirements, but a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has uncovered documents that show Villanova violated state law when he applied for the pension and cast doubt on whether he truly qualifies for all that money.
To boost his taxpayer-supported city pension, Villanova signed documents certifying that he had waived his union pension and had two union officials write letters supporting his claim. In fact, records show dues collected from the rank-and-file were still set aside for Villanova's union pension.
When city pension fund officials discovered last year that Villanova never gave up his union pension, they gave him a pass and didn't move to take away his city retirement benefits.
What's more, labor leaders can get an inflated city pension only if they are on a leave of absence from a city job to work full time for a union. But officials from the municipal pension fund approved Villanova's application despite city employment records that show he took a leave to go back to school and then let that leave of absence expire in 1992.
Now just 58, Villanova stands to collect approximately $3 million from the city's municipal pension fund during his lifetime, according to a Tribune/WGN-TV analysis based on the fund's actuarial assumptions. And because the state's pension laws are so broken, he didn't have to contribute enough to the city pension fund to cover the costs, which means taxpayers will make up the shortfall.
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