State Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) | Ugaste's website
State Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) | Ugaste's website
Illinois Rep. Dan Ugaste took to Facebook on July 3 to express his worries that the worst may still be to come with the state's embattled pension system.
"S&P says Illinois’ 'poorly funded' pensions will continue to stress state and local government budgets as the state sees 'weak demographic trends' and 'shrinking population,'" Ugaste wrote in the post.
Despite the state making supplemental contributions to the system, S&P reported in its “Pension Spotlight" that Illlinois "expects costs will keep rising because contributions are significantly short of meaningful funding progress, plans are poorly funded, and the Illinois Pension Code allows plans to use assumptions and methodologies that defer costs.”
With all five of the state's pension funds covered at just 42.4 percent, The Illinois Auditor General has listed Illinois’ unfunded pension liability at around $140 billion, the Center Square reported. Police and firefighter pensions were funded at around 56 percent as recently as in 2020, and many have long proposed that the two funds to be consolidated. However, the plan now faces a legal challenge in the Illinois Supreme Court, the report stated.
The S&P report didn't give an explicit rating, but S&P did note that “pensions have a high likelihood of stressing state and local government budgets despite the state making supplemental contributions," the Center Square reported.
Illinois law requires a pension funding map for the coming years, and and state officials have pushed for more than to create a second tier pension that offers fewer benefits for members.
"The enactment of a new benefit tier in 2010 is generating significant cost savings today but recent efforts have been made to increase these benefits in an attempt to avoid violating social security's safe harbor provision," S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Joseph Vodziak said in the story.
Ugaste was first elected to represent the 65th District in 2019. He currently sits on the House's Labor & Commerce, Energy & Environment, Judiciary - Civil, Police & Fire and Transportation: Regulation, Roads & Bridges committees, according to his House website.
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