The southwestern Illinois city faces high crime and poverty rates, as well as a $5.5 million budget deficit. Now, $2.2 million owed to its firefighters pension threatens to halt the flow of state funds.
The city of Springfield needs nearly $270 million more in revenue to meet the required contributions to its pension funds for retired police officers and firefighters.
Some Illinois lawmakers supplement their income doing property tax appeals work at private law firms. A property tax relief task force that includes some of those lawmakers killed a proposal to end that conflict of interest.
Chicago’s $1.15 billion projected budget gap is the latest in a decades-long string of structural deficits. Making Chicago’s high taxes worse is not the solution.