Dear readers,
Today, local pension costs are wreaking havoc on city budgets, taxpayer wallets and the retirement security of hundreds of thousands of police, firefighter and municipal workers and retirees.
Wirepoints covered the negative impact of the local pension crisis in our recent report: Communities in crisis: More than half of Illinois cities get “F” grades for local pensions. We examined the finances of Illinois’ 175 largest municipalities from 2003 to 2019 and based our findings on ten equally-weighted metrics.
We found that 102 of Illinois’ 175 largest cities get an “F” for their local pension crisis. That’s a dramatic increase compared to 2003, when only seven cities received an “F” grade.
We have a new landing page that provides easy, one click access to the scores and the data one-pagers of all the cities covered in our analysis. If you haven’t yet checked out the details of your city’s pension crisis, you can now do so 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.
My community continues its slide down the pension debt hole but the local paper focuses on the nice things like the new splash pad that we have now. Splash pads are what the voters demand not fiscal responsibility that will doom the municipality on the longer run.
Graphic should say “communists in cry-cis”
So what if Illinois is broke, these Democrats keep spending like a drunken sailor. They are fools.
Very cool. What I find interesting is how far some scores have fallen 2003 to 2019, the distance. Many went from D to F or from F to F. But Bellwood goes from B to F! How the hell does this kind of accelerated fall happen? Other than fraud in their books back in 03 and they suddenly got honest in 19.
What else can can be said except FANTASTIC JOB WP!!!! Your survey on out migration & loss of tax rervenue got a lot of mainstrean press coverage so I hope this study gets similar coverage.
Outstanding resource for public officials and for voters. But how do you get this more publicity so more voters can see what a terrible– and deceitful– job so many public officials are doing in terms of managing their towns’ finances? Even getting some coverage for just the summary grade page could be a huge gamechanger for this state.
Excellent point, can anybody at wirepoints contribute as to how this could be achieved it would be a real eye opener like old Spartan said.
Meme war. The left can’t meme
How the heck does Highland Park get a F grade! If one of the wealthiest communities in the state can’t manage their finances, the state is doomed. Highland Park is full of limousine liberals and I am sure they would blame it on state mandates like pensions. It apparently doesn’t occur to voters to vote differently.