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Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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With the ridership so low, that cannot support the cost of delivering the service, one has to wonder why is the ridership low. It is because office work habits changed after covid and people do not want to ride the CTA if they can avoid it because of the risks. This patronage job agency needs to right size itself for reality and adjust what it spends. The answer isn’t hard, the implementation is damn near impossible.
Also as the budget for rapid transit get cut and personnel levels reduced look for a mass increase in disability pensions.
What supervisors are approving these overtime payments? I bet if they were to look at disability pensions everyone would be just as shocked.
Ok, DNC Typists Liz Nagy and Barb Markoff, Christine Tressel, Tom Jones, Adriana Aguilar and Maggie Green, let’s leave the talking points behind and take a look at what is really plaguing the CTA and the rest of Chicago transit. It isn’t overtime costs. The ridership can’t support the service. The RTA threatens a 40% cut in service while carrying 60% of its pre-Coof customer base. That would match service with demand and put the mass back in mass transit, reducing the near-empty buses and trains crisscrossing Chicagoland. That’s the real problem. The political animals are afraid of losing part… Read more »
Shut it down. Yesterday.