-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Chicago Park District has a $.5 BILLION annual budget, per Trib article today, and not much to show for it. Park District has always been a “poster child” for what ails Chicago. Park District was once domicile of army of “ghost-worker” patronage-hire employees, clocking in, clocking out, with little to no work done, day to day. Now it’s a little better, thanks to Claypool’s “housecleaning” in mid 1990s, but still a huge cost-burden to Chicago taxpayers with little tangible benefit beyond the weedy grass being mowed sometimes during summer months, and a summer daycare “camp” program run by any army… Read more »