Chicago Park District ‘reform’ bill puts pension costs on taxpayers – Illinois Policy

Lawmakers passed House Bill 417 and Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign it, giving the park district additional borrowing authority and the ability to raise property taxes in excess of usual statutory caps. While it does increase employee contributions for new hires, it includes no changes to benefits for current workers and retirees and lets workers retire two years earlier, falling far short of the structural benefit reforms needed to stabilize Illinois’ pension systems.

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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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