East Central Reporter

Over half of Illinois' cities are in a pension crisis.The statewide pension debt that has loomed for years is well known, but a recent report from Wirepoints studied the pension trends in local municipalities, and the outlook is not good.

The report studied 175 Illinois cities excluding Chicago that had independent municipal, firefighter and police retirement funds. Out of the 175, 102 cities received an F grade in 2019 — compared to just seven of the same 175 cities studied receiving the failing grade in 2003. 

"This is such an important issue that a lot of things in our state revolve around," said state Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Effingham) last week. 

Wilhour urged public pension recipients to closely follow the pension problem, and urged legislators to take action and stop letting "doing nothing" be the status quo. 

"Your pension isn't safe," Wilhour said. "Anybody telling you your pension's safe is lying to you."

According to Illinois Policy, the state level pension is the worst in the U.S., and reached an all-time high of $317 billion last June. If that number wasn't staggering enough on its own, Illinois has been chipping away at an additional $16.4 billion in outstanding bills since 2017. 

Wirepoints said that its report is just a confirmation of what Illinoisans should already know, that "the local pension crisis is wreaking havoc on taxpayers, core city services and government-worker retirement security."

The report also called out municipal and local officials for doing little to solve the problem just as legislators are, according to Wilhour, alleging that city officials are instead choosing to jack up taxes again, slash municipal services or endanger city workers' retirement funds altogether.

"[...] Doing nothing is ensuring failure and that's going to ensure that a lot of working people in this state are going to end up holding the bag on this," Wilhour said.