In 2009, a police officer for the city of Rockford shot and killed an unarmed man in a church basement. Children attending day care witnessed the incident. It drew national attention. The Rev. Jesse Jackson protested. Racial tensions flared. The officer, Oda Poole, was white. The unarmed man, Mark Anthony Barmore, was black.

The city moved to fire Poole. But six years later, he is still on paid administrative leave. A ruling by an arbitrator — a person who resolves disputes between employers and unionized workers — blocked the city’s efforts to fire him.

The rules that arbitrators follow are set in state labor laws. They’re also established through case precedent and enforced under union contracts. Those rules bind the hands of local governments to discipline and fire employees such as Poole. His continued employment and the legal costs of trying to oust him have fallen on the backs of Rockford taxpayers.

Sneed is told trustees of the city pension funds are getting increasingly nervous about the prospect of the Municipal Employees Annuity and Benefit Fund paying out $900 million a year in benefits — but taking in only $300 million a year in revenue, according to an informed city source.

“At the rate it is going, the fund — which has 79,000 city and board of education employees, which also includes widowers and children — could go broke in 2025,” the source added.

• Backshot: Two weeks ago, an Illinois Supreme Court decision made Mayor Rahm Emanuel go back to the drawing board when it overturned his plan to save two pension funds about to run out of money — which included the Municipal Employees fund. Emanuel’s initial plan hoped to raise employee contributions by 29 percent and end compounded cost-of-living adjustments.

Chicago Public Schools officials say 247 members of the Chicago Teachers Unionreported for work on April 1, the day teachers walked out of classrooms to highlight funding woes.

Schools spokeswoman Emily Bittner says most of the union members reporting for work were teachers. However, she said Friday she had no details on where those workers reported.

CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey pointed out that the union consists of 27,000 members. He said “the vast, vast majority of them participated in the strike.”

Illinois employers warned of nearly 900 layoffs last month as businesses closed, merged or suffered slowdowns.

Liquor distributor Stoller Wholesale announced the biggest hit, with 170 layoffs in Elk Grove Village starting April 30. Parent company Glazer’s, which is based in Addison, Texas, and bought family-owned Stoller in 2013, is closing Stoller Distributing on June 1, Glazer’s spokesman Mark Semer said.

Glazer’s and Southern Wine and Spirits of America combined earlier this year to become the largest wine and spirits distributor in North America.