Despite increases in city contributions to both its police and fire pension funds, Normal, Illinois’, unfunded police and fire pension liabilities are growing.
The new taxes are planned to pay for road maintenance and improvement as well as general use. As is the case in communities throughout Illinois, pension costs are crowding out other spending in Oswego.
House Bill 2622 would create a state-run workers’ compensation insurance company, while failing to address the real problems with Illinois’ workers’ compensation system – the most expensive in the region.
House Bill 2622 would create a state-run workers’ compensation insurance company using a $10M loan from the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission Operations Fund.
In 2010, the unfunded debt related to pensions and retiree health care costs for local and state government workers across Illinois was $203 billion, the equivalent of more than $43,000 per household. In just six years, the total debt Illinois households are on the hook for has jumped to $56,000, or 31 percent. That’s a $13,000 increase for each household. Total unfunded debt for state and local governments in Illinois now totals $267 billion.
The trial bar’s claim of profiteering is misdirection from the real issues. But if the trial bar wants more regulation of profit rates, it should begin with regulation of the profit rates of law firms that make their business on workers’ compensation cases.
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.