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When the Illinois Tollway went all cashless in 2020, it reassigned its toll collectors as customer service representatives. The tollway still employs nearly 150 of them but has plans to lay them off at the end of August.
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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What customer services are former toll collectors offering if not collecting tolls? Are many drivers calling up the tollway authority? I can’t imagine the service went far beyond directing people to get transponders.
So my mystery question is we’re did the rest of them disappear to,anyone have any ideas.
They retired. I know one that had been on the job for 45 years.