Your Feb. 14 editorial “Curing a pension hangover” implies that the pension hangover is a result of overly generous pension systems in the State of Illinois and from sweetened pension deals for public employees, including teachers, judges, state workers and legislators.
Data presented at the pension commission hearings these last two months indicate that Illinois pension systems, at least for teachers and university employees, are not more generous than in other states.
Further, state employees in Illinois have no Social Security benefits, or have significantly reduced benefits if prior eligibility was earned.
No one can argue that there needs to be an examination and elimination of potential pension abuses. The major reason for the pension problem in Illinois, however, is that state lawmakers did not fund the pension systems as they were required to in the 1980s and early 1990s.The commission acknowledged this fact several times in its hearings, even as it decided to recommend that current and future employees be saddled with correcting an underfunded pension system by increased payroll taxes and by a reduced cost-of-living allowance once retired.
Finally the commission recommended reducing this year’s funding obligation based on the potential for future savings. If state lawmakers do that, they will be replicating the mistakes of the past.
The real issue is that there is a revenue shortfall in Illinois. The state’s obligations exceed all sources of revenue. That must be addressed, and so must the over-reliance on property taxes for funding kindergarten-through-12th-grade education.
