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.
Another way to look at it is that they put the money into the City Council, creating key alliances with the Alders that won because AFSCME funded their campaigns and got the vote out. So long term, their contracts will sail through the council as will all other pro-labor matters. Live test: See how many AFSCME jobs are cut in the next round of budget revisions.
Bad link. 🙁
Thank you. Fixed it. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/over-1-in-3-illinois-government-workers-reject-afscme-council-31-membership/