Lawmakers send Quinn city pension bill

Looks like Quinn did not want his finger prints on this for the Election! Chicago is still screwed when it comes to raising property taxes! Rohm says this problem has been decades in the making. The last "decades according to Rohm were all  Democrats! Wow, Imagine that!

#	Portrait	Name	Term	Party	Notes
1		William Butler Ogden	1837–1838	Democratic
2		Buckner Stith Morris	1838–1839	Whig
3		Benjamin Wright Raymond	1839–1840	Whig
4		Alexander Loyd	1840–1841	Democratic
5		Francis Cornwall Sherman	1841–1842	Democratic
6		Benjamin Wright Raymond(2nd)	1842–1843	Whig
7		Augustus Garrett	1843–1844	Democratic
8		Alson Sherman	1844–1845	Independent Democrat
9		Augustus Garrett (2nd)	1845–1846	Democratic
10		John Putnam Chapin	1846–1847	Whig
11		James Curtiss	1847–1848	Democratic
12		James Hutchinson Woodworth	1848–1850	Independent Democrat
13		James Curtiss (2nd)	1850–1851	Democratic
14		Walter S. Gurnee	1851–1853	Democratic
15		Charles McNeill Gray	1853–1854	Democratic
16		Isaac Lawrence Milliken	1854–1855	Democratic
17		Levi Day Boone	1855–1856	American Party
18		Thomas Dyer	1856–1857	Democratic
19		John Wentworth	1857–1858	Republican
20		John Charles Haines	1858–1860	Democratic
21		John Wentworth (2nd)	1860–1861	Republican
22		Julian Sidney Rumsey	1861–1862	Republican
23		Francis Cornwall Sherman	1862–1865	Democratic
24		John Blake Rice	1865–1869	Republican
25		Roswell B. Mason	1869–1871	Citizens	Mayor during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
26		Joseph Medill	1871–1873	Fireproof	Born in Canada
27		Harvey Doolittle Colvin	1873–1875	People's
28		Monroe Heath	1876–1879	Republican
29		Carter Harrison, Sr.	1879–1887	Democratic	father of Carter Harrison, Jr.
30		John A. Roche	1887–1889	Republican
31		DeWitt Clinton Cregier	1889–1891	Democratic
32		Hempstead Washburne	1891–1893	Republican
33		Carter Harrison, Sr. (2nd)	1893	Democratic	Assassinated in office; father of Carter Harrison, Jr.
34		George Bell Swift	1893	Republican	Mayor Pro Tem
35		John Patrick Hopkins	1893–1895	Democratic
36		George Bell Swift (2nd)	1895–1897	Republican
37		Carter Harrison, Jr.	1897–1905	Democratic	First Chicago born mayor; son of Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr.
38		Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne	1905–1907	Democratic
39		Fred A. Busse	1907–1911	Republican
40		Carter Harrison, Jr. (2nd)	1911–1915	Democratic
41		William Hale Thompson	1915–1923	Republican
42		William Emmett Dever	1923–1927	Democratic
43		William Hale Thompson(2nd)	1927–1931	Republican
44		Anton Cermak	1931–1933	Democratic	Assassinated in office; second foreign born (in Kladno, Austria-Hungary)
45		Frank J. Corr	1933	Democratic	32 days, Acting Mayor
46		Edward Joseph Kelly	1933–1947	Democratic	Act of the Illinois legislature permitted City Council to elect a non-alderman to fill the vacancy.
47		Martin H. Kennelly	1947–1955	Democratic
48		Richard J. Daley	1955–1976	Democratic	Died in office; father of Richard M. Daley
49		Michael Anthony Bilandic	1976–1979	Democratic
50		Jane Margaret Byrne	1979–1983	Democratic	First female mayor
51		Harold Washington	1983–1987	Democratic	Died in office; first Black/African-American mayor
52		David Duvall Orr	1987	Democratic	8 days, Interim Mayor
53		Eugene Sawyer	1987–1989	Democratic	Elected by city council to complete Mayor Washington's term
54		Richard M. Daley	1989–2011	Democratic	Longest serving mayor; son of Richard J. Daley
55		Rahm Emanuel	2011–present	Nonpartisan1 (unofficially Democratic)	First Jewish mayor

Emanuel at City Hall talking about the pension package that passed in Springfield. (Posted: April 08, 2014)

 

SPRINGFIELD — Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s partial city pension overhaul cleared the Illinois General Assembly today, putting the measure in the hands of a skeptical Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.

The Senate approved the city pension bill 31-23-2, hours after the House had done the same.

The road to passage got much easier after the measure was changed to exempt state lawmakers from endorsing a property tax increase for Chicago, instead putting the pressure on Emanuel and the Chicago City Council to do so. The bill also would scale back the annual pension increases for retirees, meaning it could end up being challenged in court.

• RELATED
• Mayor Emanuel
• Emanuel revises pension plan after blowback
• Moody's: Chicago pension fix plan is no panacea
• Video: Lawmakers pass pension reform bill
• Emanuel ally: Pension plan won't solve problem

Emanuel stepped to the podium in a press briefing room outside his fifth floor office at City Hall and made a brief statement about the pension package late Tuesday afternoon. He took no questions.

"Today is an important day for Chicago residents and our city's future. We are stepping up and taking on our toughest challenges, many of which have been decades in the making. We have shown that we will not let the politics, and the politics of the past stand in the way of progress as we build a stronger Chicago. For the sake of our city, we have asked a lot of our residents, our employees and our retirees to accept change, and that's never easy. I believe that the certainty we are now providing will make the change worth it,” Emanuel said.

The mayor also noted that the city’s “work is not done.”

The quick legislative approval puts a re-election seeking Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in a tough spot. The governor ripped the city pension bill yesterday, criticizing the property tax hike that would fund it. Despite that bluster, today Quinn refused to say outright whether he'd sign or veto the measure.

"I am not going to make any decision on a bill until it's actually passed and it's fully reviewed from top to bottom," Quinn said. " You've got to read the fine print, I think everybody knows that in politics."

However, Quinn did claim victory over a change that shifted the responsibility for raising property taxes to fund the pension system from lawmakers to the City Council - a move that would also provide some political insulation for the governor after he made property tax relief the cornerstone of his election-year budget proposal.

"I think they got the message yesterday," Quinn said, adding that he was "committed" to reducing the property tax burden.

The governor then floated the possibility of an alternative revenue source to shore up the pension funds: closing unnamed tax loopholes, an idea he's proposed before that has gained little traction in Springfield.

"I think if they have any kind of pension reform, they need to have revenue to pay for it but there's many different creative ways to do that," Quinn said. "There's a lot of loopholes in our tax code at the state and local level and those ought to be looked at. I don't think you should look at property taxes automatically, I think it should be a focus on the tax code and giving a full review of all these loopholes."

The bill first passed the House 73-41-1 (see roll call HERE) as House Speaker Michael Madigan rounded up enough votes to override a Quinn veto, including some Republicans who said they didn’t want Chicago to end up like Detroit.

Democratic Rep. Elaine Nekritz, a pension expert from Northbrook, said without changes, more than 50,000 city workers covered by the Chicago laborers and municipal  would be “at risk of no benefit,” Nekritz said. “We need to take action.”

But Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills, slammed the proposal because the overhaul does not include the police, fire and Chicago teacher pension funds — all systems with high debt. McSweeney said no independent analysis has been done to determine whether the legislation is financially sound.

“Let’s don’t pretend that this is not a massive property tax,” McSweeney said.

House Republican leader Jim Durkin supported the Chicago pension changes, saying the city’s finances are “very fragile” and that he did not want to “see the city of Chicago fall in line with Detroit, New York in the 1970s.”

“Chicago cannot fall into that status,” Durkin said.

Durkin said he was pleased the mayor and speaker listened to the Republican desires to remove the initial provision that would have had state lawmakers vote to require property tax increases, saying the change made a difference in bringing support.

Republican Rep. David Harris of Arlington Heights said it “very well may require a property tax increase,” but he noted that his own property taxes rose 11 percent in the last year and that maybe Chicago should have done more by now.

“The great international city of Chicago simply cannot go the way of Detroit” and other communities in bankruptcy, Harris said. “There are problems with this bill. It’s not perfect, but in this case, I think Chicago deserves a ‘yes’ vote.”

In the Senate, Democratic Sen. Don Harmon of Oak Park said the bill isn’t an ideal solution, but lawmakers must act to help Chicago out of its pension mess. “This is wholly unpleasant business,” Harmon said.

Republican Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington was opposed, saying a comprehensive solution is needed for towns across the state that are experiencing their own government worker pension problems.

Emanuel has made it clear he still wants to raise Chicago property taxes as part of the plan, but the initial proposal that would have required lawmakers to vote for five consecutive years of $50 million property tax increases in Chicago is now up to City Hall.

The bill would require the city to raise new revenue of $250 million, ramped up over five years, to fund two of the city’s four pension systems.

If those increases are funded through the property tax, as anticipated, the owner of a $250,000 home would be hit with $50 increases a year for five years starting in 2016. The owner of a similarly valued commercial property would pay about $675 more in the fifth year.

But the legislation no longer allows the city to create a separate "pension stabilization levy" solely dedicated to increasing payments to the municipal and laborers pension funds that serve nearly 57,000 workers and retirees.

Instead, the measure states that the city must make the additional required payments with property tax revenue or "other lawfully available funds." The mayor, however, is expected to ask aldermen to raise the money through property tax increases.

That will put the blame for any eventual tax increase squarely on the heads of aldermen, who would have to vote on at least the first increase later this year, just months before the February 2015 city elections.

The bill includes two provisions to penalize the city if it does not make the higher pension payments. If the city fails to do so, the boards of each fund could notify the state comptroller, who in turn could divert millions in annual state payments away from the city and into the pension funds.

The proposal also spells out that pension boards could go to court to get a judge’s order to mandate payments and set up a payment schedule “without significantly imperiling the public health, safety or welfare.”

Removed from the bill on Tuesday was a provision that would have dissolved the boards overseeing the municipal and laborers funds. Those boards would have been “restructured and reconstituted as provided by the General Assembly,” based on recommendations made by the city.

Some union officials balked at that provision, first inserted late Monday, saying it could allow the city to set up a compliant board that would not force payments if the city did not put enough into the funds.

Steve Brown, a spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, said that provision was added “because the mayor’s office thought that was a component.” A spokeswoman in the mayor’s office had no immediate comment.

In addition, city workers would pay more toward their retirement -- a total of $1,500 more a year after five years for the average city worker -- and retired workers would get significantly smaller cost-of-living increases.

The new plan also includes a minimum cost-of-living increase of at least 1 percent every year for retired workers who are getting pensions of $22,000 or less.

The bulk of retirees would get annual increases of half the rate of inflation or 3 percent, whichever is less, based on the amount of their annual pension payments upon retirement. And most retirees would not get any increase in 2017, 2019 and 2025.

Currently, all retirees get an annual increase of 3 percent, based on their previous year's pension income.

The bill does not alter the pension funds for police officers and firefighters. Absent changes to current state law, the city will have to pay $600 million into those funds next year, which would require a huge tax increase, drastic city service cuts or both.

The police and fire funds are at risk of going broke even earlier than the municipal and laborers funds, but changes to those funds to keep them financially healthy without a whopping tax increase could not mimic the alterations to the other two funds. That’s because retired police officers and firefighters get much smaller cost of living increases than other city employees.

Another financial concern weighing on Chicago taxpayers is the amount owed to the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund. The Chicago Public Schools board controlled by the mayor has increased its levy the maximum amount in each of the last three years.

The most recent CPS increase, which is hitting taxpayers this year, is helping to fund a pension payment that grew by $417 million. To make that payment, CPS dipped deeply into its reserves. Next year, it’s expected to increase by yet another $84 million, CPS spokesman Joel Hood said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/clout/chi-illinois-house-approves-emanuel-pension-changes-20140408,0,5473087,full.story#