Chicago gets rating bump despite drag of pension costs, union workforce – Center Square

"The 'BBB' rating remains well below the sector median, incorporating several key risks including Chicago's constrained expenditure profile given the heavily unionized nature of its workforce and exceptionally high carrying costs for debt and pensions, a history of sizable budget gaps and dependence on one-time gap closing measures, and a revenue base highly sensitive to economic setbacks," according to the Fitch report.
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The Railroader
3 years ago

This rating upgrade is charity. Nothing has changed, except for slightly worse.

Unlike what JB the Hutt and Beetlejuice claim, federal bailouts are not a sign of success.

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Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades

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.

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