and so are you ready you may see state has an intervention in this case and in my opening argument on the state's appeal i will address just the one argument in that appeal which concerns the provision of public act ninety seven six fifty one that eliminated four members of these three pension systems who had not yet begun a leave of absence when that act took a fact the right to commits a future leave of absence to work for a private labor union and earn service credit in the public pension system for that union employment this was something that came about in the light of media goes to the heart of whether private employment is something that was intended to be included within the protection of the pension protection clause the circuit court said that it is the as long as it's in the pension code and we respectfully submit that that was never what was intended by the drafters of the pension clause or the voters who ratified it before i get to the substance of the argument i'd like to make two clarifications if i may first the act this challenge here did not undo any pension awards that had already been granted before the act took effect those were left in place nor did it prevent anybody who was already on a leave of absence from continuing on that leave of absence and earning service credits while working for a union earning service credits in the public pension system so those already commenced leaves of absence could continue but it said no future leave of absence may be used to earn service credit in the public pension system that's the that's the nub of this case now we're not saying that the legislature may not provide as a statutory matter the right on service credits in a public pension system for working for a private union we're just saying that's not within the protection of the pension protection and most people would be surprised when they hear that people are earning pension credit in a public pension system for working for a private employer that reaction isn't legally controlling but it's highly relevant to what was understood by the voters when they ratified this provision of the one nine hundred seventy constitution and that that understanding is consistent with longstanding precedent by this court as to what the justification for public pension systems is which is to will ward past public service it's a form of deferred compensation for public service to encourage continued public service the court's precedent on that before nine hundred seventy couldn't be clear and in fact delegate green at the convention after delegate kenny had said if we don't have this protection people are going to leave public employment he said that the lack of a contractual protection for these public pension systems was defeating the very purpose for which they were established which was to encourage public service but if you provide service credits in a public pension system for people that don't provide government work you're encouraging exactly the opposite the plaintiffs accordingly don't even really make any meaningful efforts to argue that it was ever intended that the pension clause of the only constitution was intended to protect service credits for work for a private employer i could go into the language of the clause how it refers to public employees public pension systems the constitutional protection of the contractual protection that it's intended to provide much of that is well discussed in the party's briefs there's no dispute that a contractual guarantee was intended for the pension benefits for public employees the real issue here which this court has to grapple with is whether by putting something into the convention code that necessarily converts it to something that's protected by the pension protection clause and we respectfully for determining the meaning of a constitutional provision the common understanding of the people who of the language of the people who voted for it and the problem that the delegates were intending to address in light of the history behind it all of those factors line up to support the position that this this unique constitution provision does not reach a private employment thank you very much thank you please the court counsel my name is george last i'm representing the plaintiff retirement system participants and their unions this case addresses three general categories of issues and i'll try to address each of them in turn turning first to the state's appeal plaintiffs respectfully request this court to affirm the circuit court and hold that the public act ninety seven six fifty one amendments eliminating the right to earn pension service credit for future of leaves absence beginning after the effective date of the act violate the pension clause the state effectively admits it is asking this court for the first time to create an un written limitation on the protections of the qualifies as a benefit of the enforceable contractual relationship resulting from membership in one of the state's pension or retirement systems it cannot be diminished or impaired and this union leave of absence pension bennett falls squarely wearily within that protection it was created by the general assembly in the pension co and individuals entitlement to it flows solely from their membership in the retirement system as the court held and conserve and that is the end of inquiry moreover this course the dell decision made clear that an option to contribute to a retirement system for a form of optional service credit that fast and cannot be diminished impaired even before the participant exercises the option to contribute for that credit and indeed the union service credit here just like the military service credit at issue in bell was granted by the general assembly as consideration for the participants public employment just like every other of the retirement system benefits in the code the circuit court recognized all of this well and nothing more is needed to affirm it's holding on so with the provision that's in question here and lemonade in the credit participants who were hired after the effective date of the statute and i think consistent with this court's precedent the general assembly is allowed to make new terms for the pension system for new entrants that's correct the state offers only a very debatable policy argument in support of its argument that this court should read the read do its plain reading of the pension clause and while i understand that there are people would disagree with the policy behind the union service credit it is not the role of this court to read an written limitations into a constitutional provision based on that policy argument so the state dresses its argument up as an argument the intent of the drafters or voters but it has absolutely no evidence of that intent it is not supported by the text of the constitution which refers only to the benefits of a retirement system as being protected without limitation and is not shown in the constitutional debates which focus only on different issues and it is already been rejected by this court's decision in conserve which rejected any idea that the benefits protected by the pension clause are limited by some notion of what was a traditional pension but that indeed is the state's argument that would undermine the purpose of the pension clause as recognized by this court the intent of the pension clause was that the general assembly had to keep  promises when it granted a benefit as part of a retirement system and that intent applies here the state's argument by contrast would undermine that purpose by making retirement system benefit entirely illusory the circuit court's decision should be a firmed on this issue turning to the issues presented by plaintiff's appeal this court should reverse the circuit court the circuit court's dismissal of plaintiff's constitutional challenges to the public credit benefit in the first place and it causes substantial harm to participants such as plaintiff davis who in her eighties would be left with a pension of only about thirteen hundred dollars per month based on her board of education salaries she last earned in one nine hundred ninety one despite her eighteen years of contributions based hundred union salaries before her two thousand and eleven retirement contrary to the circuit court's view but act clearly reduced the pensionable salary base that labor's fund and municipal fund members were entitled to use to calculate their pensions before the act for twenty years before the act the labor's fund and municipal fund uniformly determine the par participants pensions could be based on labor organization salaries consistent with articles eight and eleven of the pension code if the participant made contributions to the fun based on those same union salaries in his or her last ten years of service and those salaries were among the highest salaries for any four consecutive years in the last ten years of service that was not only fully consistent with the language of those articles the pension code before the act it was also fully consistent with the universal in the pension code and in pension systems in illinois as well as pencil pension law generally that the salary base for pension purposes and the salary base upon which contributions were made should be the same what about the fact that the legislature declared this provision to be clarification yes your honor so i think there are cases we cite in the precinct earning up ok to including ok six make clear that while later legislature can just say that their intent is to declare the meaning of preexisting law that doesn't mean that that's so it's up for the court to interpret preexisting statutes to see what was the intent of the legislatures that actually enact it of sections so the question is what was the intent of the language that exists existed before the at the declaration of existing laws language in two thousand and twelve frankly was the two thousand and twelve legislature recognizing that what they were trying to do was constitutionally circumspect and trying to find a way to circumvent the pension clauses protection is there any problem with separation of powers we take here we buy your analysis no your honor i think it the exact opposite is in fact the courts that have the authority to interpret the law the statutes that were enacted by a prior general assembly it is not the legislatures authority to interpret what a prior legislature legislature enacted in fact in ok sic the court spells out the sort of in some ways illogical idea that later legislators somehow know what was in the mind of legislators who acted twenty thirty years  so as noted the general assembly in two thousand and twelve passed the law in response to negative press articles about public employee pensions generally and about limited abuses by certain individuals not plaintiffs in this case  taking advantage of the union service credit provisions and they did it with the express ten to intent to reduce the pension bill salary base of these participants but since at least felt reported first use of the judge's retirement system it was obvious that reduction in a potential salary base violated the pension clause so as noted the general assembly passed this declaration of existing law language in order to try again to circumvent the protections of the pension plans and the states argument to defend the legislature's action is creative but it's wrong the state argues that the salary provisions adopted decades before the union service credit provisions always limited a salary to one paid by a public employee and so for decades the state says the municipal fund of the labors fun and their professional fiduciary including those appointed by the public employers that actually negotiated the legislation that created the union service credit benefit simply nothing in the salary provision says that a salary only includes a salary paid by a public employer if that were the legislature's intent it could have easily said so that language would not be difficult for the general assembly to have  but it didn't and the fact that never before the act did the legislation say a salary was limited to a salary paid by a public employer is evidence that that simply was not the intent of those provision and this court repeatedly says you must interpret the language of a statute in accord with its obvious intent and here the obvious intent of those salary provisions was not to define a limited class of payers of a salary the intent was to define the amount of the annual salary by for example excluding types of compensation that one would otherwise think of as part of a salary such as overtime and second by giving rules for converting things like an hourly wage to an annual salary by multiplying it by two thousand and eighteen there is no reason to think that the general assembly in one thousand nine hundred sixty three or before had any actual intent to limit the salary to one paid by a public employer  exclude a salary paid by a labor organization when the participant is actually paying on that labor organization salary by contrast there is every reason to think that the legislatures that actually  d the union service credit intended that participants who took leave of absence and contributed to those pension based on their union salaries could also have their salaries based their  pensions based on those same salaries indeed if it was the legislature's intent to say that the pensionable salary base should be different from the contribution salary base it surely would have done so in more expressive language it would have been creating a unique anomaly in the whole of the pension code where the pension salary base and the contribution salary base were different if that was their intent they would have  and the legislative history of those provisions further supports that time that history shows that the union service credit provisions were the legislature and acting a negotiated agreement between the city and the union and then for twenty years as noted the fund boards included including the public employer appointed trustee is of those boards the public employers who negotiated that legislation granted pensions based on state argues that the employee a definition refers to an employee of an employer and as we point out in the in the briefs the employees on a union leave of absence remain at all times employees of their public employers and so while they are on a leave of absence the employer the salary of an employee is the salary that they're actually earning and if it's in the last ten years of service and they've been contributing based on that union salary for a union service credit that is permissible to be used in the highest average annual salary calculation it's inconceivable to think that the city trustees if it was inconsistent with the legislation they negotiated the intent of that legislation to have pensions based on union salaries it's inconceivable that for twenty years they would have allowed that to continue happening that decades long contemporaneous application of the legislation confirms that it was the intent of the union service credit provisions to allow pensions based on the salaries that the members were contributing based on by contrast the state cannot offer any evidence at all that the legislature's intended that the it's contributions should be based on the union salary but the pension should be based on some city salary that the employee never actually earned and that is even just hypothetical they never make contributions on it never earned it we don't even know if their position in the service for example still existed during the leave  but to the extent that any ambiguity is created by the salary definitions that happy duty also must be interpreted in favor of the participant as discussed there is an obvious conflict between the states clarification argument and this court's well established liberal construction rule ambiguity does not create the window for a later legislature legislator legislative amendment to clarify a provision against the rights of the participant ambiguity creates the obligation to interpret provision in favor of the rights of the participant if a future legislature could retroactively clarify an ambiguous provision of the pension code against the rights of the participant the protections of the pension cla undermining moreover the purpose of liberal construction will is well served here it is entirely unreasonable to think that the retirement system participants here library school counselors electrical linem would have scoured the pension code to look for some reason why the pension board trustees were wrong in how they have been interpreting the pension code for years as the state's lawyers have here to try and defend the two thousand and twelve legislative action the act to after the fact reject the board's reasonable interpretation for a more restrictive interpretation would have devastating consequences for these participants leaving them with pensions of poverty level of near poverty level pensions in their eighty's when it is much too late for them to find other ways to save for retirement i'll turn now to the last category of issues at issue in the case which is the application of the section eight hundred two six three proviso we asks this court to reverse the circuit court's judgment and hold that the municipal funds section two to sixty three proviso does not apply to defined contribution plans such as for a one k plans the circuit court's decision below is inconsistent with the ordinary and popular meaning of the statutory tax  which the late retirement system participant would reasonably understand has only restricting credit on receiving credit in a pension plan a defined benefit pension plan the circuit court's interpretation is always  inconsistent with the liberal construction rule and it too would cause substantial harm to these retirement system participants wiping out all of their union service credit leaving them with pensions in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars a month it should not be forgotten that the municipal fun fiduciary never gave participants any guidance on the meaning of this restriction and therefore they should not be penalized retroactively for their reliance on a reasonable interpretation of that statutory language this is your stop light no your honor this is the argument that applies to the section eight to two six three restriction on restriction on being able to earn union service credit if a participant receives credit in a pension plan a stablished by a local labor organization and argument is that that restriction or restriction on receiving credit in defined benefit restriction in a pension plan would be reasonably understood the ordinary and popularly understood meaning of such a restriction would be to apply only to the defined benefit pension plan just think about what the ordinary person in the street would think if you asked them to use receive credit in a pension plan for your work if they had a defined benefit pension they were of course yes but if you asked the person that question and they did not have a defined benefit plan but they only had a defined contribution plan like a four one k plan does anyone think that that person would say yes i have a pension no there's no i don't have a pension i have a retirement savings account that my employer may contribute to but i do not have a pension and the dictionary definitions we discussed in our briefs support that ordinary and popular understood meaning of the term  those dictionary definitions focus on a pension being a retirement benefit paid regularly with the amount of such benefit generally determined by the length of employment and amount of wages or salary of the pensioner none of that is consistent with a defined contribution and to be sure an expert arista practitioner would point out that the federal reserve statute includes defined contribution plans within its definition its expansive definition of pension plan but that receipt definition does not apply here into a governmental pension plan and there is no reason to think that the general assembly in one thousand nine hundred seven intended to import that definition into the pension code for a section that has entirely different purposes than the purposes of a recess and so that ambiguity too must be interpreted in favor of the participants who reasonably relied on the ordinary and popularly understood meaning of the term and again as noted the municipal fund their professional trustees and legal advisors never gave participants any guidance on the meaning of those that restriction so they didn't get some reply description any kind of detail answering that for twenty years all participants had to more than twenty years all the participants had to go on with the text of the statue itself and even after the participants expressly asked the municipal fun trustees for the question of whether it applied defined contribution plans i mean a simple fund never responded  and he said the important thing there is that they always remain the employer regardless and they're the employee how do you address that i think they've taken that language entirely out of context  and it fits within the context of several steps three definitions that together provide a very careful definition of what an employee's pensionable salary is we don't dispute that these people are still technically employees th that is how it's important to them because that's how the circuit court got to the binding salary didn't include unions yes and that is an element of the definition but employee for that purpose defined in section eight dash one thirteen and i'm just going to stick to the article eight definition so that we don't have to go back and forth between the identical provisions in article levon it defines an employee as any employee of an employer for these purposes and there's a separate provision that allows leave of absence service credit if you work for a union that in the context of that provision provides that statutory right but is part of the definition of a person's final average salary for determining our pension and that language is for specifically for calculating pensions that language refers to the actual some payable if the employee worked the full normal working time in his position at the rate of compensation appropriate at a fixed for work in the position and then it goes on to give a similar definition for similar definitions for annual appropriated amounts or amounts fixed by appropriation or otherwise for nanina will compensation in session eight to thirty three but then when we're talking about if the person did the work in the position as an employee that refers to the situation if they were still working for the government and there the definition in section eight one thirteen defines employee as any employee of an employer and section eight ten defines an employer as a government entity so the careful statutory definition that judge mikva now justice may walk through when she reached the conclusion as to what the statutory definition was follows step by step it provides pensionable salary based upon the hybris average annual salary it defines salary and annual salary very carefully based upon the position of an employee with an employer and then it defines an employer for these purposes as being the employer of the employee of a government entity that doesn't depart from the ability to earn service credit for working for a union as a statutory matter but for the pensionable salary calculation the definitions are carefully constructed and clear the plaintiff would like the court to disregard this explicit careful statutory definition of a pensionable salary based upon so called universal rules but there is no law of nature of that requires that the pensionable salary for somebody who is not working for the government be their actual salary working for a union for four years that was not the case during the first four years in which the statutory ability existed the statute referred to the last salary of the person before the person went on a leave of absence so their own argument collapses by the original creation of the ability to go and work for a union in the first place the the the and the what they'd like the court to say as we should implicitly come up with some common sense notion that there should never be a discrepancy between the salary on which contributions are made and the salary on which a on the salary in which a pension is calculated if there were nothing in the pension code defining a pension salary that might be an interesting default rule but again there's no law of nature that prohibits this discrepancy and remember that when this privilege was granted it was done allowing people to get service credit in a public pension system for public employees without providing any government work so if their contributions went up above the level of their pensionable salary that was a choice they had to make whether they want to to do that or not but you can't now go back and say well that seems like it shouldn't have been done that way and we can then impute to the legislature an intention to have created a potential salary different definition different from the one that explicitly adopted  i do want to address the significance of the legislature's declaration that this was existing law and the answer to that the significance of that is oh that definition originally the legislature cannot order this court to adopt some interpretation of a statute but many times the legislature has clarified the meaning of a statute after a controversy has arisen and if the statute is  unambiguous the court has given great weight to that in this case we argue that the statute is unambiguous because it explicitly provides what the definition of a pensionable salary yes but i do want to add the following kaviak on the argument that the plaintiffs have made but didn't address during their will argument which is that even if this language always meant what the legislature now says it always meant that the court can essentially give that meaning only prospective application that doesn't make any sense that is a separation of powers problem if that cliff occasion conforms to what the statute all was meant and that clarification is constitutionally valid then the legislatures declaration that it is it declares existing law is an expressed declaration as to its temple effect and if that declaration isn't unconstitutional it's not within the court's residual common law or inherent authority to disregard that explicit declaration of its temporal effect it's constitutional and it's clear as to what it was intended to apply to specifically and the lands rights appeal issue the whole d c p issue that's mr unless the court has any questions we would likewise rely on our briefs there is absolutely no authority by these funds to violate public policy by promising people to enter into contracts or commit to make awards contrary to what the pension code specifically allowed for this purpose again remember that what's going on is that people are being given really the the ability we would say a statutory right not a constitutionally protected one to get service credit in a pension plan for public employees without providing government work they're complaining about you know the hardships of a change in their understanding and we don't diminish the significance of those hardships those are unfortunate but you can't have government policy determined by people that make erroneous interpretations of a statute so that when the legislature declare something to be the law a government official who doesn't have authority to change the law can effectively change it for people based by giving a mis interpretation of it and in this case they don't even say that anybody made an offer to enter into a contract to intrude into an award that was inconsistent with the terms of pension code or made a representation to them specifically somebody was authorized to do so to make such an agreement that's where the matthews case and the patrick engineering cases both come into play  i would like to add as well that although there is some hardship from complying with the law as it was all was unambiguous lee specified that is not the entire picture here the example is given of ms davis who is now eighty years old she was in the union for many years receiving a salary much higher than her government salary and then when there was a change in union leadership instead of going back to work for the government she retired now many people they retire from the union jobs and collect a public pension for many years of of union employment and then also continue to work for the union which is the classic sort of way to make you can't retire and go back to work for the employer and continue to earn a salary that's sort of the double dipping problem so she retired instead of going back to work for a government job and during the four years when she was retired she received a pension pension payments in excess of two hundred thousand dollars which were vastly greater than what the pension code authorized based upon the union salary for the position that she was no longer in again the the plaintiffs are off on this read hearing and hearing about the statute doesn't specify who has to pay the salary that's not what it ever refers to it says what is the salary paid both for the position it never turns upon who pays it so then when there's another change in union leadership she goes back to work for the  and this is a situation where she retains the status of a public employee only if she doesn't actually have to do any public work this is why the public is somewhat upset about the concept of these pension benefits for non government employment again the legislature in its wisdom or otherwise can step surely grant these but when there is a mistake in their interpretation it has gone on long standing then in the legislature corrects that and it correctly clarifies what the meaning always was the hardship has to be taken into consideration with these other factors now i know that the parties have stipulated as well that if ms davis as many contributions to the pension system or the pension contributions of anybody else were erroneous in excess of what was actually owed then the parties have saved for another day those individuals ability to seek restitution of those erroneous payments to the system plus potentially out of the courts shell oil case the pension systems actual earnings on those erroneous pension over contributions which could be substantial because the pensions have had actually fairly good returns they've been ups and downs but over the years the returns on those contributions have significance so i want the court instead of focusing only on the potential hardship issue which is never the basis for for determining what a statute means but nonetheless to realize that there's another part of the of the picture here the court shouldn't just look at the the one side of the ledger returning to the first issue in our appeal the plaintiffs have said that the plain meaning of the pension was clearly covers any benefit that's attendant to membership in a public pensions and if we were talking about a traditional benefit that had been recognized in pension systems for many years that would be one thing that would be the you know the elephant in the room situation but here we have exactly the opposite we have something that nobody ever contemplated that's inconsistent with the historic purpose of public pensions that in fact defeats that very purpose which was referred to by the constitution delegates on the floor when they were proposing this provision there's reference to the canary of a case and what i want to mention is that the conservative case is significant that it is as it is generally with respect to the pension laws and to the benefits that are protected by that specifically referred to those convention delegate comments in also said in the beginning of its discussion the background in addition to the wages they are paid most public employees in illinois receive additional benefits including subsidized health care it was implicit in that decision that what they were talking about was the benefits attendant to membership in a public pension system for public employment that's the same reference that was implicit couldn't be clear at the delegate at the one nine hundred seventy constitutional convention it's consistent with what this court said in the peterson case by protecting the interests of public employees for continued public employment it's the same interest that was clear in the dell case the notion that unbeknownst to anybody and unanticipated by anybody there was some expectation that this type of benefit would be protected by the pension why converts the pension code into some type of felt pro christmas tree where anything that gets put into it now becomes permanently protected against any adverse change for anybody who was a member of the system at the time i think the quarter teaching of canary of it is the touchstone for the court's analysis here which is that the court has to focus on what was the common understanding of the voters when they approved this based on the language that was adopted and what was the historical background all of those lead to the same conclusion that it was never intended that the constitutional protection or benefits in a public pension system should include benefits for private employment thank you so much  if you can address those two arguments certainly judge first of all with respect to i'd like to just focus on the fact that nobody disputes that this provision was intended by the legislature to avoid or prohibit participating in two different pension plans one for the private sector jobs as well as from the public sector jobs so this language was  intended to limit the ability to do that and to prohibit double pensions also it's important to note that the language itself that's at issue in these two claims was not amended at the time public ninety five six fifty one was passed this language has been there since the beginning in one nine hundred eighty seven when it was passed so as a backdrop my point is simply that the language of the statute is clear on its face in the circuit court found that it's not in big us because any means any and i think we can all accept the fact that the use of the term any pension plan is an expanse of modifier any it's not a restrictive modifier such as the plaintiffs would want you to interpret it to be  like a pension it's a credit to an account i think we cited that as another definition so a credit in an account which is exactly what a defined contribution plan can be you put money in you get credit in your all different sizes and shapes as the circuit court pointed out defined contribution plans so you can have to put it on the performance of i mean from well it could be yes although that's that's what he be depending on markets but you have contributions coming in from the employee you may have contributions coming in from the employer as well a typical for one k plan might have a match provision where the employer is also contributing as well so the basis of their argument that this is ambiguous relies on two things one it ignores the language of any pension plan and two it says that the use of the term credit in the provision names credit for service but that's not what the legislature said the legislature could have easily distinguished this language by saying taking out any and just defining it and same defined benefit plans defined contribution plans whatever it also could have inserted word service in front of credit to make clear that it was referring to a defined benefit plan but it didn't do that it left it in the form it's in and the term credit is n benefit to allow union members to take a leave i'm sure they were aware that the pension plans that would be participating and would most likely be plans governed by a risk i mean they're not public pension plans they're private pension plan  again i don't know that you have to go to statutory interpretation principles to get there to look outside the plain language any means any any pension plan i think that's pretty clear and again credit can be credit in an account for monetary purposes doesn't necessarily have to be service credit so i think the flipside of that is it's not in figure size face and if it's not then you don't look at the dictionary definitions norris or it hit the nail on the head to the point is with him we've saved if there's if there are competing definitions out there that means it's a big us when you then attach that to the liberal construction rule for a pension statute that means it must be interpreted in favor of the participants and here especially when you look at the dictionaries from the time in one thousand nine hundred seven when this was actually an act it it absolutely was the most popular and ordinary popular understood meaning of the pension plan  it's any pension plan and if the pension plan is a defined benefit pension plan well it's any defined benefit pension plan not by contribution plan and on the issue of credit well it's receive credit in a pension plan the pension plan is a defined benefit pension plan and that's that plan with periods of service and just furthering showing the ambiguity is the fact that again when participants asked the municipal fund board for an opinion as to whether it covers they couldn't give an answer for more than four years until their brief in this case  quite right here were interpreting pension statutes which have the liberal construction rule which i think comes from the purpose of when participants relied on a reasonable interpretation of the statutes then to after the fact say well maybe we would've we would've interpreted it differently but we understand how that was reasonable but it's to the reason you don't allow that to be applied is because that would upset their expectations and there's nothing they can do about it after the fact and then this is their pension that we're talking about and then when you look at the the texts of the salary provisions that counsel relies on i realize he was he was just paraphrasing the tax then but he said something to the effect of well if it's an employee in the salar to the salary of the employee in his position with the employer but no none of the provisions actually say they say that no provision says employee of the salary in his position with the employer it just says  salary in his position that salary is can be well understood as the position the position could be well understood as the position he's actually working in earning a salary and contributing to the fun when those that section is reading context what it's saying is the amount in the position if you work the full time in that salary exclusive of over time in final vacation pay out what that provision is saying as well if you work full time in that position but turned over time we're not going to include the overtime we're just go include the full time in the position that is the same as can be used for union salaries and he focuses on language such as appropriation we cite definitions in our brief that say appropriate is not limited to a public employer and it also uses other phrases such as fixed and it uses the term fixed or appropriated well that's distinctive can be fixed or appropriated a union can certainly fix a salary and by his limited definition as we point out in our brief it would also exclude salaries paid by the chicago board of education which doesn't list salaries in an annual procreation ordinance so if that literal interpretation that he's relying on was meant to say no salary can be counted unless it follow their framework well then the board of education salaries couldn't be included in a salary either and that's simply just an absurd result while those provisions about salary are detailed and careful as counsel points out the details and careful about considering the amounts that you count how you multiply it hourly wage to get to a salary for example i see my time is up unless the court has any questions thank you for your time thank you thank you