Wirepoints has analyzed the pension situation in the 150 largest cities in Illinois.
[C]
[C]overage was restricted to the 175 cities, excluding Chicago, that have their own independent police, firefighter, and Illinois Municipal Retirement (IMRF) pension funds.
Crystal Lake made that list.
Here are the top level results:
Crystal Lake did not hold its own during this time when Aaron Shepley served as Mayor.
The results for each of the factors above can be found at this link.
Wirepoints points out
Complicating the situation is the fact that local officials can do little about the crisis. Local retirement costs are largely a consequence of the state’s top-down, one-size-fits-all mandates which prevent cities from actually solving their pension problems.
Funding ratios in 2019 for Crystal Lake’s pension funds follow:
- Police – 58.4%
- Firefighter – 70.5%
- INRF – 94.8%
City debts per household as a % of income in Crystal Lake is 1.5%.
City contribution per household as a % of income in Crystal Lake is 2/10 of 1%.
City contribution as a % of budget is 4.9%.
City-to-worker contribution ratio is 2.02.
Actual vs. actuarial city contribution (P&F only) is -19.9%.
Asset-to-payout ratio (P&F only) is 27.3%.
Worker-to-beneficiary ratio (P&F only) is 5.4.
Despite this, police leadership are able to retire at age 56.
What a joke.
They should feel ashamed of fleecing the very community many of them terrorized rather than protected.
Like education, the regular teachers/officers are for the most part good, hard working people.
Leadership in both sectors are often scam artists sucking the maximum out of the system they can.
They’re retired at 56 while we work into our 70s and 80s to pay their bloated pensions….and as the state sinks to the bottom because of this Ponzi scheme the unions created.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to police and fire pensions in cities like Cairo and E StL.
There is no realistic way that those cities will be able to raise taxes enough to make those pensions solvent – the money simply isn’t there.
Will the State bail them out?
The Feds?
Will the new combined police and fire pension funds that supposedly keep each city’s assets segregated be forced to help out?
Or, will we see the first crack in the pension clause of the Illinois Constitution?
The unions really don’t want that, because it could become a template for future haircuts.
East St. Louis and Chitown are studies in negro devolution. Breed and feed programs.