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.
“Peoria police and fire pension boards are asking the city council to raise property taxes.” Is there anyone left in Peoria to pay property taxes? Also, do these boards understand that increasing already high property taxes will accelerate outward migration?