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“They've used financial successes over the past couple years to make really smart financial decisions, including supplemental pension payments and paying down debt,” said Mary Wagoner, director of state and local finance with the Civic Committee, a research branch of the Commercial Club of Chicago. “But the job still isn't done though, with pensions specifically.” Despite the additional funding, financial records from nine Illinois public pension programs show only moderate increases to funding levels over the past decade.
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Audio and summary Why the Holdup Using Artificial Intelligence to Cut Illinois Government Costs? – Wirepoints
May 19, 2026
10 Comments
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Note to readers from Mark Glennon re: Ukraine
May 6, 2026
4 Comments
Everybody needs a side hustle these days, and mine is Ukraine, where I am now.
Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer – Chicago’s struggling commercial real estate and more
April 22, 2026
5 Comments
Summary and audio linked here.
Audio and summary
There’s no such thing as a “deadline” in Illinois, where every crisis is a can kicked down the road.
Pension funding in Illinois is just a game of 3 Card Monte.
Illinois had a recent golden opportunity to throw some of that excess pandemic money into the pension funds but oh no, it had to go into assorted non-imperative spending programs including the recently discovered 95 million of unspent Covid funds that apparently will go to the immigrants. What crisis will it finally take to wake up the citizens to demand action? The answer to the question is therefore “no” until the citizens demand that the State pay its bills.
Well the unfunded pension liability is closing in on $150B and growing so no, it isn’t heading in the right direction.