Pension U: Charting Illinois’s Pension Crisis

Download a pdf of this report and chart here. If Illinois continues on its current path, the amount of money that state government spends on the State Universities Retirement System, or SURS, will eclipse the amount of general funds given to public universities and community colleges. The graphic below demonstrates how the rising costs of...

Download a pdf of this report and chart here.

If Illinois continues on its current path, the amount of money that state government spends on the State Universities Retirement System, or SURS, will eclipse the amount of general funds given to public universities and community colleges. The graphic below demonstrates how the rising costs of pensions will one day dominate state spending on higher education.

In 1997, the state contributed $1.4 billion to operating budgets for state universities and community colleges. That same year, the state contributed $159.5 million to SURS. By the end of the upcoming decade, the amount that the state sends to SURS will be equivalent to the amount of general funds sent to public institutions of higher education.

The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, or COGFA, has estimated that the required contribution to SURS will be $2.9 billion by 2039 – which is significantly more than the state will likely be sending to the universities and community colleges. The graph below compares state pension costs to projected appropriations to state higher education institutions; if the state spends less than is projected on higher education institutions, then the day will come sooner when university appropriations will fall below the state contributions to SURS.