A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

At every level of government, this problem is getting nothing but worse. From the latest issue of Crain's comes another story about major pension shortfalls:

Cook County and city of Chicago governments have $14.4 billion in unfunded liabilities in their collective pension plans, according to a report to be released Monday by the Civic Federation, a tax policy group. Plans covering most city and county workers had assets covering 72% or less of their liabilities at the end of 2004, according to the report — well under the 90% figure considered desirable in the private sector.

I have said before that the pension issue is a sword of Damacles hanging over governments throughout our state. I think that in the past, government pension funding practices were arcane enough to escape the attention of the public. But those days are over, and the public is aware of, and understands, the problem.

Without significant intervention, sooner rather than later, pension obligations are going to put the ability to provide basic services at risk. And if elected officials don't act to correct the problem, it may well put some of them out of office.

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