Emergency services have been cut in Peoria because public pension costs are growing. Voters will be asked whether a property tax hike should fix the problem.

Illinois’ pension crisis has been a growing problem for decades, and its negative effects on state residents are well documented.1 Economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and related government shutdown orders threaten to bring that long-running crisis closer to its breaking point. The state’s five pension systems collectively held nearly $139 billion of debt at...

Public pensions are already eating away Illinois government services, increasing by more than 500% during the past 20 years as spending on core services including child protection, state police and college money for poor students has dropped by nearly one-third since 2000. At the same time the clock is running out on the state’s public...

If lawmakers continue to balk at building the tools necessary to reform pensions, bankruptcy will be the only way out for communities across the state.

Reforming future benefit growth via a constitutional amendment is the only way to ensure the retirement security of government workers, protect taxpayer budgets and fulfill the needs of Illinoisans reliant on core services.

Any meaningful property tax relief for Illinoisans means reforming Illinois’ unsustainable public pension system.