Report: Pritzker would short pensions by $1.1 billion next fiscal year alone

* First we were told the governor’s budget would short the pension funds by “about $800 million a year” for seven years. Then we found out it was closer to $900 million. But Amanda Kass has crunched the numbers and determined that next fiscal year’s shorting alone will be $1.1 billion…

The State of Illinois’ pension contributions would be about $1.1 billion less in state fiscal year 2020 than required under current law, according to my analysis of Governor J.B. Pritzker’s introduced budget, as shown in the chart below.



The table above compares what Illinois is required to pay to each of the five pension systems in FY2020 under current law versus the contributions that are in Governor Pritzker’s budget proposal for FY2020. To be extra clear, I’m not comparing the actuarial recommended contributions with current law (actuarial recommendation is based on 100% target in 20-30 years; Illinois law is 90% target by 2045); for a comparison like that see Figure 3 in this report).

How is that $1.1 billion decrease accomplished? The details in the budget proposal are a bit thin (see pages 35-36 of the budget proposal), but they involve a number of pension related changes. The two main items are extending the repayment timeline past 2045 to 2052, and making an already existing pension acceleration program permanent. (The acceleration program is for Tier-1 members, and is currently temporary. You can read details of the program here.)

Read more: https://capitolfax.com/2019/04/11/report-pritzker-would-short-pensions-by-11-billion-next-fiscal-year-alone/