by Jonathan Ingram The Quinn administration recently released a new projection of how quickly the state’s massive pension debt is growing. As a result, some are celebrating the fact that the governor is predicting that Illinois’ pension debt will only grow by $5 million per day during fiscal year 2014, as opposed to his projection of $17...

by Jane McEnaney On June 27, the Illinois General Assembly’s conference committee on pension reform met for the first time in Chicago. All 10 members of the bipartisan, bicameral committee were present. The committee met for five straight hours, hearing testimony from: Ty Fahner, President, Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago Jerry Stermer, Acting Director...

by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner Moody’s Investors Service reported that Illinois’ true unfunded pension liability in fiscal year 2011 was nearly 65% higher than the state’s official estimate. In its report titled “Adjusted Pension Liability Medians for U.S. States,” Moody’s calculated the unfunded liabilities for Illinois’ three largest state-run pension plans at $133 billion, compared...

Employee contributions to the State Employees’ Retirement System, or SERS, have gone up by 66 percent since 1998. During the same time period, taxpayer contributions to state employee retirements increased by 593 percent. In 2012 alone, Illinois taxpayers contributed $1.1 billion more to SERS than state employees did. And the disparity between taxpayer and employee...