Emanuel Friend A Poster Boy For Pension Reform
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel might be a little embarrassed after warmly greeting a man who might be described as a poster child for pension reform.
That's because Emanuel has been pushing for major changes in public employee pensions since taking office.
The mayor was at the Logan Square subway station this week to announce a major program to spruce up CTA subway and L stops when he spotted a familiar face. It was a man wearing a yellow CTA safety vest. Emanuel embraced the man like a long-lost friend.
Only later did CBS 2 learn that the man embraced by Emanuel was John Malatesta, the CTA's general manager of customer facilities maintenance.
He joined the CTA 13 years ago after retiring from city government, where he headed Chicago's snow removal team.
Malatesta's current CTA salary is $105,000 a year. That's on top of a city pension of $91,000 a year.
Total income: $196,000 a year.
"You have to admire people for wanting to work and make money, but you don't have to let people game the system, and that's what this sounds like to me," says former federal prosecutor Ty Fahner, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club.
Another example: Former Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon boosted his city pension by legally taking credit for time spent as a union leader.
"This is not about individuals," Emanuel said earlier this week when pressed about Gannon. "We have a system-wide problem in our state and our city. ... At the end of the day the taxpayers are on the hook, and I do not believe taxpayers should be left on the hook for a system that is not honest to them and not honest to the people that are contributing to it."
CBS 2 went looking for Malatesta, the CTA's facilities guy, at the L stop currently getting the makeover. Workers said they hadn't seen him. He did not return messages left at his office.
"You can't be a double-dipper. You can't be living off one system that permits you to make money by retiring at 55 and then take another 10 or 15 years and get another pension," Fahner said. "You diminish a system that's broke already."
When he retires from the CTA, Malatesta will be eligible for a second pension equal to as much as 80 percent of his final salary.
There appears to be nothing illegal about either his pension or current employment. But the Civic Committee's Fahner says examples like this put a face on the current push for pension reform.
CBS 2 Political Producer Ed Marshall contributed to this report.
