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For example, there’s more than $78 million in unfunded maintenance needs over the next several years to replace roofs and HVAC systems, repave parking lots and repair dams and shorelines, the proposed budget outlines. The pension fund needs $10 million a year or else it will run out of money by 2041, and both the Zoo and Botanic Garden each have urgent capital improvements.
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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The labor in the $78M will be mostly or entirely performed by private sector union labor in the building and construction trades unions. The workers performing the labor are forced to be union members (cannot opt out of the union) because Illinois is not a Right to Work state. Amendment One on the November 8, 2022 ballot cements that “no Right to Work unless you pay the private sector union” rule into the Illinois State constitution. Illinois would be the first state to have a no Right to Work rule in the state constitution. “For example, there’s more than $78… Read more »
“The pension fund needs $10 million a year or else it will run out of money by 2041 …”
The pension fund needs no more money, because pensions are already bloated.
On the Cook County ledger the Forrest Preserve budget goes exclusively to vote buying. The only funds that go to the FP is for the patronage payroll.
wasn’t all the fed covid $ supposed to go to infrastructure maintenance/ renovations? CC still has a ton of fed covid $ left…..oh, sorry, my bad dummy me– spending $ on cc forest persevere would mean less $ for equity hustle “free stuff” giveaways
Wait, you mean there might be a financial problem in Cook County? Didn’t the Democrat financial geniuses already fix everything?
We all need to make do with less, Toni, it’s the progressive way. No tax increase.
Yeah, shared sacrifice.