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Some Light For Some People
The Windfall Elimination Provision of the Social Security laws have affected us for many years.
We work for an employer (The State of Illinois) that does not withhold Social Security taxes from our salaries. There are only a handful of states in the U.S. that operate this way. The result is that for most of us, the pension we will get will likely reduce our Social Security benefits. However, if you have had employment outside your state job (outside GSU) you may have earned sufficient non-state employee income and paid Social Security Taxes on that income to have given you credit toward getting what you deserve. The problem is that you have to have earned what the Social Security Administration (SSA) calls a "substantial amount" in a year to get credit for that year. The "substantial amount" changes each year.
The SSA has a chart that shows what "substantial amount" of earnings you must have earned outside of GSU to get credit for that year. If you reach 30 years of credit, your Social Security checks upon retirement are not reduced. The income level in any one year necessary to qualify varies from year to year. For example, if you worked at GSU in 1990 and earned additional outside income totaling $9525 or more, you would have qualified as earning the necessary "substantial earnings" for that year. Once you have reached 30 years of substantial earnings, you receive no penality for the job you held working for the State of Illinois (at GSU). The closer you get to that 30th year of substantial earnings the less your penality. For example, for 29 years of substantial earnings, your penality is only 5%.
This is worth looking into, especially since many of us are on 10-month contracts. Those other 2 months provide an excellent opportunity to meet your goals each year. It is important to know how much outside income you must earn each year to have that year count for you. For 2006, the amount you must earn to have this year count as a "substantial earnings" year is $17475.00. So, if you are close to that, it might be worth the effort to work a few more weekends to make it.
There are some members of Congress trying to do away with the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) because they understand how it discriminates against people in our situation. However, there are other members of Congress that argue that the WEP is fair because states are certainly allowed to pay higher-than-normal pensions to their state employee retirees to make up for the difference for what they will never get from Social Security. I don't believe Illinois has ever added money to the amount given to pensioners to make up for what pensioners lose because of not having Social Security Tax deducted from their pay and because of WEP. Also, it is unlikely that the WEP will be overturned in this present Social Security climate despite the good intentions of a few members of Congress.
Here is where you can find the chart and the explanation of how it works. Don't be confused by the second chart showing a maximum of 90%. That 90% is only a part of a larger formula. 90% in that part of the formula is the maximum that anyone receives whether they fall under WEP or not.
You may have heard some people argue that we shouldn't get Social Security because we don't pay into it. That would be true, but that is not the issue. The issue is that many of us have paid into Social Security throughout our life because of Social Security payments being deducted from our outside work. We don't even get paid our fair share from that amount. It is all because we work for the State of Illinois and because of the WEP of the Social Security law.
Here is the official information and the chart(s). 
You can phone the SSA toll free at : 1-800-772-1213. For the deaf and hard of hearing, call their TTY number, 1-800-325-0778.
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