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.
I think BGA/ Cubbage did a great job with these department by department budget “snapshots”. But what’s desperately needed NOW is a simple department by department budget breakdown showing spending & hires PRE & POST fed COVID $funding$. Maybe a simple one page graph. On the other hand, you can kind of glean where department budgets where at PRE & POST fed COVID $funding$ if you try.