Sunday, May 5, 2013
The Illinois House approved sweeping pension reform this week. The legislation will now move on to the Senate.
The Illinois House approved a pension reform bill that could eliminate the state's $96.8 billion funding shortfall over the next 30 years, Reuters reported. The legislation was approved by a vote of 62-51 and would impact Illinois teachers outside of the Chicago Public School system, state university employees and the Illinois General Assembly, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The bill still must be approved by the Senate. The Chicago Tribune reported that the bill would increase the retirement age for employees 44 and younger. Employees also would contribute 2 percent more of their paychecks to their retirements. The state would no longer give out compounded 3 percent bumps on the entire pension amount every year, the newspaper reported. …
Sunday, September 2, 2012
The state's credit rating recently was downgraded because of an unfunded pension liability of $83 billion.
Illinois' inability to deal with its pension problems led Standard & Poor to drop the state's bond rating this week, the Washington Post reported. The state's unfunded pension liability has surpassed $80 billion, WGN TV reported. The TV station reported that $12 million is added to that liability every day. The Chicago Tribune reported that Illinois has the second worst credit rating of any state in the country. Only California is worse and Standard & Poor believes that state is headed in the right direction. The Tribune reported that Illinois is not – noting that the unfunded pension liability is on track to hit $93 billion by next summer. The Tribune reported that Quinn has been pushing for reforms, but the legislature has been unable to…
Monday, August 20, 2012
A special legislative session in Springfield last week made no progress. Here, Patch rounds up reactions from local politicians and residents.
No one ever said getting the pension issues in line in Illinois would be easy. State lawmakers have certainly proven that to be the case by the action – or rather inaction – last week in Springfield. In a turn of events that had all the surprise of say, the sun rising in the east, the Illinois General Assembly failed to act at the special session Friday on the matter of the pension debt that is estimated to be anywhere from $80 - $90 billion. So the issue will not be acted upon until after the November election at the earliest. The cost to the taxpayers was $40,000 for the session. The only vote taken was in the House on Legislators curbing their own pensions. That measure received 54 yes votes as opposed to 53 against, but it was still …
Danni
10:53 am on Thursday, May 9, 2013
Sully, only a teacher would vote a teacher is being "hurt." It is a fairly shocking revelation to have learned how truly unintelligent and limited most, "I worked so many 180 very hard days this year" teachers are. Union protection has kept way too many dumb people teaching-look at Chicago. Patch admitted to someone running for office, whom I know quite well, when misrepresenting the candidate's … more ›