Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
So what if the “work” doesn’t get done, nobody will notice
Furlough it is. The work will be waiting for them when they return. Just make sure AFSCME pro-rates its dues accordingly.
Sooner or later the current union members will figure out that the pensions will cut into their current paychecks. A bit of a trick bag for them.