Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944 [PAGE 1090]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

I087

The provisions with respect to tenure were inaugurated just prior to the period which this study has under immediate consideration. Their operation, however, has fallen almost entirely within this period and has contributed directly to the faculty morale existing within the same time. With respect to retirement of its faculty members the University of Illinois did not have the best plan prior to September 1, 1941. Up to that time it was operating upon the socalled Kentucky plan under which retirement allowances were paid wholly out of current revenues. Under this plan any member of the teaching, administrative, or mechanical staff, who had been in the service of the University for fifteen or more years (at least the last seven of which was continuous service), was eligible for retirement at age 68 with a retirement allowance equal to 25 percent of the average annual cash portion of the compensation paid him during each of the last five years prior to his retirement, together with 1 percent of such average amount additional for each year of his service at the University. The maximum payment, however, could not exceed 30 percent of such average amounts and could not be greater than $3,000 a year, except that deans or other general administrative officers could receive a maximum of $4,000 and a president, $6,000. In addition, cash death benefits were to be paid upon a sliding scale of 10 percent of the cash portion of the individual's annual compensation if death occurred during his second year of service up to a maximum of 50 percent of the cash portion of his annual compensation if death occurred during the tenth or any succeeding year of his service. In 1941 the University sponsored an act to provide for the creation, maintenance, and administration of a retirement system for the benefit of staff members and employees of the University and of certain other state educational and scientific agencies. This act was passed by the Sixty-second General Assembly on July 21, 1941, and made effective as of September 1, 1941. The purpose of the act was to provide retirement annuities and disability and death benefits for staff members and employees of the University, of the state teachers colleges, and of the state scientific surveys at the University. This is a funded, contributory, compulsory system for all employees

[A.C.E. Report—69]