McHenry Times

During a Pension Committee hearing, Sen. Don DeWitte clarified details on SB0212 that would amend the Chicago Municipal Article of the Illinois Pension Code. 

“The chairman illuminated my initial question about the significant increase in what this legislation would do to the payment you are actually looking for,” DeWitte said. “I want to clarify that the city currently is meeting its standard with regards to their payment that they were required  to make with regards to the $499 million payment for 2021 and the $576 million payment for 2022, they are making those payments within the letter of the current law, is that correct?”

Dennis White, executive director, Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, affirmed that “certainly those are future payments and we have no reason to doubt if they will make those payments as they become bill.”

It was also discussed that there are no current considerations to increase employee contributions that would require employees to help cover the significant funding gap that the board is requesting after DeWitte asked about it but White said “We can certainly make that an agenda if that is a directive or recommendation from this office body.”

DeWitte also suggested how to resolve fund issues, specifically a change in the cost of living increase on an annual basis to reduce it to a more realistic number to the current state of the economy and the returns on assets.

“There is nothing that would suggest that the members of your pension fund could not be approached to discuss a change in that number, to perhaps eliminate the significant payments being made requiring you to eliminate or sell off so many of your assets on an annual basis,” he said. “I would certainly hope that would be something you'd want to discuss with your membership in order to save your fund from collapsing into insolvency.”