opportunity to present our oral arguments to you as to why the appellate court decision should be reversed at this case there is a straightforward statutory interpretation may order in which the facts are undisputed and which presents a question of law for the normal review by the court in the exercise of its fiduciary duties to protect the assets of the farm for the sake of all the beneficiaries of the fund the board interpreted the plain language of the two thousand and four legislative amendment to section six one eleven of article six of the pension code to impose two mandatory requirements  fore the board could award in enhanced annuity payment to the respondents or to any other beneficiary for duty availability paid first but the fireman husband must have actually corresponding employee contribution have been paid to the fund in order to from the enhanced benefit make sense this is a defined benefit plan and unique contributions to fund the payment of benefits since the husband firefighters here never own let alone received d a p run a ploy by the fire department nor scanning contributions ever made to and on behalf of the respondents the board made the only responsible decision that it could to follow the army ambiguous language that the legislature had set forth in calculating the annuities without the section six want to live an amendment the legislature specified that the contributions were to be made the employee contributions were to be made by the by  the a new attempt so those are contributions that come from the inuit not the city secondly if the quotes are referring to the section six one six nine argument that's been made a by the a that that section requires the city to fund the payment of all section six one forty annuities that will not necessarily occur in the reason is as we pointed out in our reply brief that there is a position taken by the city that their contributions are capped by section six one six five  two six what's called the multiplier times the amount of contributions that are given by the participants so in other words any time but from this payments exceed section six one six five tax revenues that are paid to the phone by the city that's in the city so they were not pain any more than man and in fact in the documents we provided to the court was an example of the most recent example of where in this specific levy request from the front to the city stating this is what we need to pay or benefits it was a form of additional compensation that was negotiated between the city and the local to be half of the firefighters union and indeed in the c b s which are attached they are part of the record here we have the one from the and indeed in one thousand nine hundred ninety seven how in the case which we cited in their case both chicago policeman and chicago firemen joined together to challenge the pension ability of not only d a solution d a p not pension only are you saying that the term that duty availability paid is section six one one river refers back to the previous language and states that the salary the first section talks about do you feel a bully not being able to be included in the calculation of salary it doesn't say it is salary because it isn't plus rummel of the d gives the definition of salary doesn't include a peak it says for calculation purposes now why is it important that it's received because in the first section that deals with the a p it's talking about going forward universe of mandatory act which was passed in january of two thousand and four so from that day forward firemen who received the a p it's now pensionable which means they are the city now takes out of their paycheck just like they did salary and other forms of compensation that were pensionable with wholesale and then pays it over to the pension fund so today a firefighter getting th currently employed fireman and nat the fireman salary at that to cease fire and salary at the time to step back and took into account the impact of inflation and recognize that amounts payable would increase as firefighters one forty the court found that there's nothing in the record to show the providing pensions in fluctuate in a mouse based on salaries paid firefighters from time to time would exceed the amount the city of chicago is authorized lover so in other words thirty years ago this court said the widows and knew he is not tied to their husband or their deceased firefighters salary it is tied to a current firefighters that the legislature intended to create a flexible amount of salary in section six hundred forty and duties for that group of widows and they felt that was appropriate under the circumstances and so that was appropriate now i don't think that all of the arguments for thirty years ago were made regarding whether those annuity should have been fixed under section six one thirty nine which also was in the salary attached to or appropriate for the permit the sign position of classified career service rank grade or position of the fireman shall be deemed to include duty availability pay certainly that language well however it's missing two important points first is the legislative intent evidence by the whole public ninety two three sixty five which was commonly known as the brass if you read all the higher exam point employees for example solutions that they help ambulance commanders as well so there were three different groups within one a lot of them that now came into the ability to have mood for example a lieutenant with the same number of years mr murphy it could yes it could be absolutely but that is the difference is they at the language used by the legislature would indicate they didn't intend to exempt our section six one forty webelos from this requirement there is a strict prohibit position in the statute that says  a availability pay for which the corresponding employee contribution has not been paid shall not be included in the calculation is that section about those people who who had meant getting it and you want to collect that now going back that's all rhetoric to the position of provision you have to do these things and so i don't think that limitation just applies to the  retroactivity group i think it applies as well to subsection i and why do i say that judge i say for two reasons one subsection ira has preparing the better call for any period to date for which legislature put in there it's clearly a reference back to the prior clause which says degree availability paid received by the firemen so in other words almost firemen going forward from the adoption of this management who are now entitle to get to the availability of pay they're receiving it it's been withheld it's be he paid a fine there's no concern about the widow not pain because if if and when they die night following that she will get it because it's been received we know they have and it will have been paid for because the contributions will have been made to the front so i submit to  legislature then tended to make it such and so they put these requirements on it so it's really trying to stretch and i view the definition from one forty to make it include one  which is not consistent with the legislative intent that's expressed through i want to love it if you're going to get these benefits now and they're going to be pensioned they have to be paid for by the rise this fund will go broke and indeed more facing a and three years ago and really it was interesting because it was they talked about that in one thousand nine hundred eighty one there was a pension commission that look at all of these issues and that pension commission did not want this idea of each time current firefighters or anyone else got a raise that the widows benefits would go up and the rabbit base is because that decision is the legislature is going to be expensive but this is a choice the legislature has made the right the only point i will sponsor there would be again the kozak or was not presented with evidence that those contributions could be kept and that was a concern to them even the but they said because there's no evidence before us that six one six nine could be could not come into play here and therefore the phone would be in a deficit position we can address that we tried to address that with the court to show that there is a problem here with the funding of these benefits and that if you were on funded benefits that that's going to drive  basically explanation then how how would you explain the situation and then i asked before about received by the firemen what does that mean and how would that be that any of that does the firemen have to receive certain benefits before it kicks in absolutely that's that's the whole i mean the survivors with benefits are derivative of the fireman and here the legislature clearly said if the firemen must receive it if you justices here as well in court so i'll be very very just want to make a few points but first consul says this is a defined benefit plan ninety percent of that is chicago fire section one forty duty death status will there's also two hundred fifty firemen on duty disability that they support and one hundred twenty firemen occupational disability that they support so that puts the nine thousand participants together now when i tell you the nature of this benefit is different we haven't to go most father to my half an aide to the complain implications you no longer get ten ninety nine all due to disability benefits for the firemen and for these widows are tax free because during the nature of work or compensation the i r s says it's not retirement it's compensation for an injury and it's tax free those are significant difference and of course the board knows at a board knows that but they gloss over all these points in their briefs and i think that's to the point that i that said that salary should include duty availability paid duty availability allowance in a police department and other things like truck drivers bay an e m t pay him with the commander bay what that case was ruled upon  passed our wall in two thousand and four because of this rascal issue which i use she explained in my brief it's really was a confrontation between a fire union city dealing with engines for the exam le that's was handled the section eight of six one eleven and it actually says section six run eleven eat over rules legislatively your decision in brawn vs the requirements is six eleven six one women j states and the duty of a local g p for which the corresponding employee's contribution has not been period shall not be included in the calculation of celery we we've heard it's made provided for by the city and actually this is the city show contribute guns equal to such amounts for any period and the pension board for the first time this year actually asked the city of chicago maybe should start paying this because we're so on board the board is for city for fire and ever since it was about as good as city clerk but that issue has never been pursued even though there was little talk of litigating over this issue for twenty thirty years on the pension  what we have is an issue with the sixty one sixty nine that the mandatory language would put in there with the language current annual salary in the same public act back in one nine hundred seventy two they were drawn together at the hip as  pursue that against the city but as of today it was the first time they had brass to city they actually paid under that provision of the statute  ok i should point out to you that the decision whether i was talking about that record page sheet one forty nine it space the money she st receives the seventy five percent of carnality resell i read to your husband right can grade at the time he was initially granted disability the focus of one forty is the rank allowance so her pension is higher than hooker who had thirty years worth of service at all by the arithmetic of it being in duty availability paid to work would be seventy five percent of the base salary of these firefighters needs more cash the legislators did find a solution to that just last year they passed another public act where it requires full funding by the year twenty fifty at ninety percent and starting in two thousand and fifteen the city will have to add in incrementally to their funding ratio to refund that unfunded liability as the legislators did address that issue plus they demanded we caught all new hires since two thousand and eleven their benefits they go on from what takes off twenty five years in age fifty five to get the same pension that the current employee is getting at fifty years what twenty years worth of service the lives that are has asked about that and you can take it you dish notice of that  that that's being addressed but i would also state that the reason for funding of a public employee pension fund is is very serious don't get me wrong but this based upon fast buells which is based here ten years and fifty years from now these buildings are not going anywhere and while funding is very important the reason why they come up with these figures thirty percent funded forty percent we have a separate pending appeal on hooker three which is two thousand and twelve case that i filed to answer the appellate court's rationale this as spoke you're probably entitle this but just follow the statutory procedure rob to continue my legal arguments if you feel that there's not enough legal arguments presented for you in a certain priority circuit court should look at the issue of abatement for miss walker then maybe you can remain good back and i'll have a full hold to go forward with the case like i did with bear or if it's just dismissed like the appellate court did in two thousand and twelve workers not going to see a dime of this whole and in this case there would be several significant ones i can't imagine that the legislature intended that section six one fruity would i was who are already receiving the benefit of the enhanced salary who in two thousand and one the legislature took away the diminishment provision so that they could get they don't drop down they continue receiving the handsome and for the rest of their lives would not require them to pay contributions for these two different whatever one is a pension a pension and a pension most of them are and those that's where the contributions come in but this is something different six one forty benefits are not pension it's compensation i section six one forty is not a pension only has a can do workman's comp claim it's just a description made by counsel there is no support for that and indeed it works like every other section every other annuity throb article six this rolls other sections of the pension code there is a new lease for survivors not only widows but children and parents as well so that's not a distinction that makes a treats section six one forty widows any differently i would assume they don't are regular widows and their woody it is a nine section six one forty is still survivor's annuity under the law so i can't see that their distinction makes a difference  but the second thing that would be really an absurdity is they had retired firefighters who actually earn the a p i required to pay for it and to get it in their pension but again the widows and we have to focus on these respondents their husbands never earned the a p it didn't even they were on hand disability they were not available for service for the chicago fire department so it's undisputed that they never earned it and in this class of widows that they suggest that exists here the majority of them are in the same position their husbands never earn d p so you'd be granting theoretically all of them this enhanced benefit without any contributions to the fun in that but it just doesn't make sense on the cross appeal issue it's a procedural nightmare there is no question that there is currently pending an appeal on this very issue and let's not confuse the two issues the issue in the hook or that he's raising here is where she entitled to another contract and re that wasn't gratified until after she sold the contract increase that the p t contract increased that occurred after she died that's the issue he's raising that's in the hope her appeal to step into that at this point just is trying to go around the normal processes so we of course urge you not to not to handle the cross appeal and to deny it at this point it will work on this issue or its way through the normal process of appeal in closing i would ask the court to take into consideration they have to the poor to apply the clear legislative intent as set forth and what does contributions mean and what was the legislature's intent when they passed all these benefits made all these happen sation forms pensionable and did they require