Due to the magic of pension curtailments, there are savings to be had if the Chicago Police Department were dismantled.
Forbes post, “Defund The Police, Cut Pension Liabilities? The One Weird Trick That Just Might Work For Chicago”
Due to the magic of pension curtailments, there are savings to be had if the Chicago Police Department were dismantled.
Well in Illinois that is simply not going to happen. No politician wants to butt heads against the Public Employee Unions. Think Rauner, Emanuel to see what happens to Politicians who take them on. I do wonder what will happen in Minneapolis . The Police there are represented by a union the City has a contract with the Union. The city probably just can’t walk away from the contract and disband the police. If this moves much farther than yes then you can see this going to the courts and they will decide
You are Only working numbers. Failed to mention commitments of pensions for the workers who risk their lives daily. Many wouldn’t of even taken the job without the promised pension, and why would anyone. You also fail to mention the stolen funding for years from crooked politicians and how is that the workers fault.? The politicians defunded the pensions illegally for years.
I guess you can compare it to, they take away your retirement fund because the state needs your money. Sure you would be crying foul, but when it doesn’t effect you it’s way to throw first responders under the bus.
Thanks for the reality check that even a freeze in current employee benefits has so little effect on funded status. I think that really shows that Illinois can’t reform itself out of a pension deficit. It’s better to concentrate on ideas for funding improvement, such as plans put forward by Ralph Martini at CBTA
It’s Ralph Martire not Ralph Martini. By Funding Improvement you mean higher and higher taxes. Which of course will lead to continued out migration. Population has declined in Illinois for six straight years. It will lose at leas one US House seat next year and maybe two. Currently Illinois spends 9B on it’s pensions or almost twenty five percent of its budget and every year that will have to go up. It will have to go up even as the state will lack workers to continue to pay the taxes. Even with spending that much on its pensions it’s pension liabilities have gone up. It has also crowded out spending on other services that benefit the poor . Pensions are nothing more than another form of White Privilege. Benefiting a mostly white government worker class while costing the poor and low income.
You seem to assume that the Cook County Sheriff’s Police can take over for the disbanded Chicago Police dept. without hiring up. Impossible.
Likely scenario would be that the vast majority of laid off Chicago cops would be hired as Cook Co. Sheriff’s deputies, at similar pay, and the General Assembly would amend the Pension Code to permit former Chicago cops to purchase service credit in the Cook Co. pension system–or, just transfer credits from the Chicago Police fund to the Cook Country Fund, with the former paying the latter. Cook Co. Sheriff’s Deputies earn pension benefits actuarially roughly equal to what Chicao Police earn.
Yes, safety Funds are not in the Reciprocal Act. But they have dozens of provisions for tranfer of credits between Funds, as officers switch jobs, which accomplish the same end but less efficiently. This would just be yet another such provision.
I won’t get into the wisdom of disbanding the Chicago Police Dpt, but pensions do not enter into it.
This is the real world, after all.