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.
The district wants 2% annual raises over 5 years, the support staff union wants 2.5%. How about the district comes up a quarter point and the teachers union donates the other quarter point from their annual raises to their support staff union brothers and sisters? Let’s see how much they are vested in their fellow members.