The 12th annual Taxpayer Education Foundation (TEF) report concludes that there are nearly 20,000 pensioners across the state receiving $100,000 or more in annual pension payments.
TEF’s report is based on analyses from the state’s six statewide pension funds and indicates the overall level of payout has increased by 15 percent over just the last year. The group adds at the current rate the number of 19,481 pensions will increase to far exceed more than 21,000 over the next year. In addition, the number of pensions exceeding $50,000 a year are now at 107,092.
TEF estimates the total taxpayer cost for the six statewide funds now stands at $8.7 billion from the state general fund. That amount does not include any of the Chicago government pensions, or the hundreds of police and fire pension funds spread across the state.
To gauge the pension impact statewide, the group estimates that for every dollar deposited by a government employee taxpayers have been forced to kick in $4.50, or approximately $683 for every man, woman and child in the state for these six pension fund payments. Currently, roughly 25 percent of all money collected from taxpayers goes to fund the pensions of former employees.
Finally, the organization points to the City of Harvey being forced to lay off a quarter of its police force and 2 of every 5 of its firefighters because of the rising pension crisis, as just being a sad indicator of things to come.
“Harvey is just the beginning, as many more municipalities are facing the same fate,” the group noted. “The state legislature must now allow local governments to declare bankruptcy to save Illinois. It is also imperative that new-hires be placed into a 401(k) style retirement savings account rather than into one of the defined benefit pension funds.”
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