Posted by Hal Dardick at 2:40 p.m.
Mayor Richard Daley signaled today that controversial recommendations for reforming the city’s employee pension systems will be coming soon.
The announcement came more than two years after the mayor appointed a commission to of top financial managers to find ways to strengthen pension funds for the city, Park District, Chicago Housing Authority and City Colleges of Chicago.
“I expect these recommendations to come very shortly,” Daley said. “We all recognize that the status quo will not work. . . . It’s time to reform a system that isn’t working for our city’s budget, our city’s taxpayers or for some of our employees, for that matter.”
Daley went on to suggest the recommendations won’t be timid. “I hope it’s controversial,” he said. “It has to be. If it’s not controversial, then it’s not worth anything.”
Earlier this week, the Civic Federation, a non-partisan government budget watchdog group primarily funded by business interests, released a report indicating local unfunded government pension liabilities in Chicago have grown nearly five-fold in the past decade.
Inadequate pension funding long has been recognized as a growing problem threatening the solvency of local and state budgets in many parts of the country.
“I cannot overstate how important this is,” Daley said. “We need pension reform to protect Chicago taxpayers and their interests.
“Remember, people across the nation and in Chicago, they are angry at what they see as a system that puts government bureaucrats ahead of taxpayers. At this very same time, they are threatened with losing their jobs and pensions.”
Daley said he had yet to see the recommendations, but suggested one target of reforms would be “double dipping,” in which someone retires from a government job and gets hired for another government post while receiving a pension.