Excerpts from the DailyHerald.com:
Buffalo Grove will not ask the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn a landmark lower court ruling that grants full pension benefits to the widow of Kevin Hauber, a village firefighter who died in 2018 after a four-year battle with colon cancer.
Village Manager Dave Bragg announced the decision in a written statement Tuesday, stating that while the village continues to disagree with the decision, it will no longer challenge it in court. The decision to end the litigation comes a little more than two weeks after a state appellate court upheld a Lake County judge’s decision awarding a full pension — about $101,549 a year — to Kimberly Hauber.
Kevin Hauber, 51, died in January 2018, after a nearly 24-year career with the Buffalo Grove Fire Department. The village’s fire pension board later determined that his cancer was caused by his work as a firefighter, making his survivors eligible for full line-of-duty benefits. The village disputed the finding, arguing that Hauber’s family instead should receive 75% of his pension, about $76,161 a year. The difference, according to the village, will amount to about $1.7 million.
#1 by Chuck on February 7, 2020 - 4:48 AM
And just how long are they expecting his widow to live to collect a pension difference of $1.7 million dollars? If the difference between the full pension and 3/4’s is about $25,000 a year, even with the 3% escalator, they’re expecting her to collect for 65 years?
#2 by Chuck on February 7, 2020 - 4:44 AM
This is going to set a horrific precedent, especially with the upcoming state consolidation of police and fire pension funds. Every guy getting cancer or having a heart attack is going to point to this court decision and saying “you overrode state statute for this guy, why aren’t you doing it for me?” And I like how conveniently they were able to come up with the number of hazmat runs he had been on in his career as part of their justification.