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Clark, legislators discuss ‘Long Road to Pension Reform’
Leaders call legislators back to Springfield for special session
The panel discussion at last week’s Joint Annual
Conference in Chicago was titled “The Long Road to
Pension Reform.” The topic could not have been
more timely with the General Assembly scheduled to
return to Springfield on Tuesday (December 3) to
tackle the pension issue.
The panel on November 22 included two
members of the conference committee on pension
reform, State Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) and
Rep. Darlene Senger (R-Naperville), who is running
for Congress. The panel also included Richard
Ingram, executive director of the Teachers’
Retirement System (TRS) and IASA Executive
Director Dr. Brent Clark. It was moderated by Ben
Schwarm, deputy executive director of the Illinois
Association of School Boards (IASB).
Ingram gave an overview of the pension issue
from the TRS perspective. What was a $19.4 billion
TRS unfunded liability 10 years ago has grown to
$55 billion because of underfunding by the state.
Ingram said the formula should be Contributions (C)
plus Investments (I) equals Benefits (B), but that
formula now is C + I = B - $55 billion. Ingram said
TRS was paying out $2.1 billion per year in benefits
in 2004, but will pay out almost $5 billion this year.
He said TRS took in $8.3 billion last year.
Ingram noted yet another cautionary item, saying
that in the near future retired members may exceed
active members.
Biss and Senger both said the 10-person
conference committee got very close to an
agreement on pension reform, but then punted the
issue to the four legislative leaders when the group
could not quite close the deal.
“We have talked this issue to death and we have
screamed this issue to death. It’s time to pass a bill,”
Biss said. “I am cautiously optimistic, generally
pessimistic, but hopeful.”
Much like the original SB 1, the new SB 1
decimates the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA),
raises the retirement age and caps pensionable
salary in order to reduce the promised pension
benefits by as much as $160 billion over the next 30
years.
The COLA represents the biggest single cost
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