(Editor's note: This article was published first at Wirepoints)
Illinois’ public pension crisis is coming to the fore after three years of being ignored during covid. Billions in federal aid to both the private and public sectors helped Illinois politicians paper over the state’s growing debts and worsening retiree security, but with pandemic aid finally drying up, they soon won’t be able to ignore the problems.
The state’s official pension debts are back up to a near-record high of $142 billion. Chicago’s police and firefighter funds are almost out of cash. And many local governments are scrambling to deal with a combination of budget deficits and higher pension payments.
The best solution for everyone involved – taxpayers, current workers and retirees alike – is structural pension reform. But that’s unlikely to happen as long as state politicians continue to receive pension benefits from the same retirement plans they’re supposed to fix. They get the same guaranteed benefits for life and automatic cost-of-living increases government workers do. It’s a clear conflict of interest.
The good news is there is a way forward blazed by lawmakers like former State Reps. Tom Morrison and Ron Sandack back in 2010: as newly-elected politicians, they rejected a state pension.
Their rejection was followed by 18 lawmakers who were part of the 2011-2012 legislature, according to a FOIA request Wirepoints received from the General Assembly Retirement System.
Current Rep. Brad Halbrook was in that class and one of the first ten lawmakers to opt out of a pension. His reasoning was simple: “I made the decision to refuse a legislative pension because I knew we were never going to reduce our pension liability as long as the members of the General Assembly stood to gain from the status quo. And it would be hard to preach fiscal responsibility and advocate for reforms if I was personally benefiting from the very system we were trying to change.”
Since then, about a quarter of all legislators have rejected a taxpayer-funded retirement. And in the current 103rd General Assembly, 56 of 177 legislators, over 31 percent, have refused a pension.
That includes 36 of 59 total Republicans (61 percent) and 20 of 118 total Democrats (17 percent).
Ordinary Illinoisans should add a state candidate’s promise to reject a pension as one of the main reasons to vote for them. That alone won’t solve the problem, but at least it will eat away at some of the conflict of interest that governs Illinois’ dysfunctional pension system.