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.
We are told of the wonderful contribution of $2.5 Billion to Chicagoland’s economy from the RTA and its operating wings CTA/Metra/Pace. Let’s look at the 2023 financial statement for the CTA. These are the most recent ones available on the CTA website. By their own numbers, the CTA took in $328.8 Million at the farebox. The CTA spent $2423.8 Million to provide rides paid for by farebox revenue. For every dollar the CTA took in to operate its system, the CTA lost $6.37. It gets worse. The CTA also spent $3.5 Billion to maintain their system, this represented the 2023… Read more »