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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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Pension costs have made it impossible to balance a budget. Illinois taxpayers will continue to pay for overly generous pensions for decades to come. Every year pension costs will eat up more of the budget.
SURS pensions are strangling taxpayers. And what do taxpayers get in return? Consider Chicago City Colleges, for example. Scandals, big enrollment drops, and a graduation rate that used to hover around 8 percent. No accountability. Almost impossible to figure out if CCC really made a meaningful difference in training Chicago students for the workforce or even in counteracting the damage done by Chicago public high schools. (A lot of CCC students have to take remedial courses.) Right now former city college presidents are suing Juan Salgado for apparently limiting the lifetime medical benefits that were promised to them back in… Read more »
If Illinois isn’t first in something, it’s probably last.
Time for voters to wake up and smell the… well, it sure ain’t roses.