Politics & Government
Local Legislators Talk Springfield Pension Reform Process
State Sen. Bill Cunningham, State Rep. Kelly Burke and Oak Lawn Mayor Sandra Bury describe the need for pension reform and why it matters to you and me.
Whenever you gather a group of legislators together and open up the floor for audience questions chances are that Illinois' pension debacle is bound to come up.
That was the case at Saint Xavier University on Oct. 11 when six elected officials participated in the school's Breakfast with the Legislators event. The pension reform process and the the path that led the state to the do-or-die position we find ourselves in today was a focal point of the morning discussion.
State Sen. Bill Cunningham (18th) provided an overview of the current state of negotiations and why a solid solution has been such slow work.
"[The state house and senate] passed a pension reform bill, but there was considerable disagreement between the two chambers," Cunningham said. "As a result a conference committee was formed to try to reach some sort of compromise."
That's where things stand now. Cunningham says lawmakers are expecting that an actual compromise solution between the state house and senate could be proposed during the veto session which starts on Oct. 22.
Cunningham says any reform proposal is likely to include three main points.
- The state cannot miss pension payments, which was an approach that largely contributed to the current crisis.
- Making up for past failures to fund the pensions with new revenue by taking money that has been going to pay bond payments, which were borrowed to make pension payments, and after the bonds expire continue to pump those payments into the pension system.
- A rollback of the cost of living allowances by replacing the automatic three percent increase with the consumer price index.
"Private industry doesn't have to deal with a constitutional amendment, we do," Burke said. "It would be foolhardy to just rush in and change something for the sake of changing something without being mindful of the fact that it will be challenged in court."
She added that a Band-Aid solution is not what the state needs, instead any reform plan should result in a real long-term solution.
Progress on pension reform is welcome news for local officials like Oak Lawn Mayor Sandra Bury. On the municipal level many towns are bearing the weight of their own pension obligations and a new law that goes into effect in just over a year. It requires towns to fund their pension plans at 90 percent, something almost no municipalities have been doing.
"It is the right thing to do, it is the responsible thing to do and we are happy to do it," Bury said. "But it creates whole new challenges."
A common thread that ties five of the six legislators present at the talk together is the relatively short amount of time they have been in their current office. Bury and Blue Island Mayor Domingo Vargas are months into their first term, Cunningham and Burke arrived in Springfield in 2010 and Ald. Matt O'Shea took office in 2011.
While problems like the pension crisis have been brewing after decades of bad decisions and inaction, they are feeling the pressure to right the ship their predecessors let drift of course. Right it in a way that would provide stability for years to come.
"To just do something that is sort of half-baked and be back here in five years is something I would rather not do," Burke said.
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