Tag: Illinois Pensions
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IL Public Pension Debt at $133 Billion
Ten U.S. states have public pension liabilities that are at least as big as their annual revenues, according to a Moody’s Investors Service report released on Thursday that found the Illinois pension bill was equal to 241 percent of its revenues. … According to Moody’s, Illinois has the largest net pension liability in the country,…
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Quinn Spends Another $1.5 Billion We Don’t Have
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn on Thursday signed into law an extra $1.5 billion in spending for road construction and child welfare investigations, even as Republicans decried the measure as including ill-timed, pork barrel money. via Chicago Tribune. What is wrong with this guy? Really? Quinn already stopped a bond auction because the rates for Illinois…
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Illinois Need to Cut COLAs
The head of Illinois’ largest pension plan strongly suggested that cuts in cost-of-living benefits are inevitable for more than 360,000 teachers and retirees outside of Chicago. In an interview with Crain’s editors and reporters, Richard Ingram, executive director of the underfunded Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, said state politicians will have few other options if they…
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Quick Pension Analysis
Ok, so I was getting asked about this the other day both in person and in the comments about why the pensions are really in such bad shape and what the latest GASB positions mean to the funds. GASB first. GASB Changes I did some poking around and the recent GASB changes really mean nothing.…
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IL Pension Hole Analysis
I wrote this a few weeks ago as a comment on a retired teacher’s blog. The post there was about how we need to “tax the rich” in order to fund the teachers’ pensions. I was asked to comment on the post by a retired teacher I know. Analysis follows: There is no one sided…
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Illinois’ Pensions are the Worst
A new report being issued today — see the bottom of this post — from the Pew Center on the States says that Illinois once again ranks 50th of the 50 states in assets relative to liabilities. But while Illinois’ absolute position did not sink — a mathematical impossibility — its relative position did erode,…
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JP Morgan: Public Employee Pension’s Set to Explode
But they wanted to keep the story to themselves: JPMorgan recently circulated a “strictly confidential” report among leaders at the bank and with trusted hedge fund allies outside of the bank which details an impending public pension crisis. And we mean big time nastiness. Massive cuts in services will have to happen, or massive tax…
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Chicago Aldermen: White Collar Criminals
An analysis of pension fund documents for 21 aldermen who retired under the plan shows they are in line to receive nearly $58 million during their expected lifetimes, though contributions and assumed investment returns are predicted to cover just $19 million, or a third of that sum. The pension deal was inked more than two…
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IL Legislators Should Give-up Pensions
Illinois lawmakers ought to give up their state pensions. Legislators are part-time employees, but they make nearly $70,000 a year and in some cases can qualify for a pension after as little as four years in office at age 62. If they were elected before 2011, they can retire at 55 and collect a pension…