POSTER BOY FOR WHAT'S WRONG WITH CHICAGO!!
Chicago had better start budgeting like the game is up.
On Friday, a Cook County judge rejected Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to restructure two of the city’s underfunded pension systems. If the Illinois Supreme Court does not reverse the lower court — and that’s looking like a pipe dream — the city will be on the hook for billions of dollars more just to adequately fund the Municipal Employees and Laborers pension funds.
On top of that, Friday’s ruling makes it extremely likely the city will remain on the hook for billions of dollars to adequately fund its police, firefighter and teacher pension systems.
New revenue must be found now, mostly through an array of loathsome tax increases, and cuts in city services are inevitable. That pension debt keeps growing. There can be no more waiting on the courts to give their seal of approval to pension reform schemes that border on wishful thinking.
But even if Chicago takes the most painful measures, a day may come when the city simply cannot pay full benefits to a retired worker. One would hope that the specter of this alone might compel the unions to agree to reasonable pension cuts — to better protect what they’ve got. But that, too, might be a pipe dream.
When Judge Rita Novak shot down the city’s pension reform plan, a union spokesman called it “a win for all city residents.”
It was, in fact, a disaster.
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