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 median state level Moody’s ANPL is 91% of revenues v 505% in Illinois.
ANPL = Adusted Net Pension Liability, a Moody’s proprietary calculation of the unfunded liability which lowers the discount (interest) rates used by the pension funds.