Fitch Downgrades Chicago After "Worst Possible Outcome" In State Supreme Court Pension Reform Bid
Last week, Rahm Emanuel got some bad news. The Illinois Supreme Court agreed with Cook County judge Rita Novak’s ruling that the Chicago mayor’s scheme to put worker pension plans on a sustainable path was unconstitutional.
"These modifications to pension benefits unquestionably diminish the value of the retirement annuities the members of (the city workers and laborers funds) were promised when they joined the pension system,” the high court wrote in its opinion. “Accordingly, based on the plain language of the act, these annuity reducing provisions contravene the pension protection clause's absolute prohibition against diminishment of pension benefits, and exceed the General Assembly's authority.”
To be sure, the ruling didn’t come as a surprise. Indeed, it would have been next to impossible for the court to decide otherwise, given that the justices had effectively ruled on the exact same set of issues last May. As judge Novak put it in her opinion (delivered last summer), “the principle [that public pensions shall not be diminished or impaired] is particularly compelling where the Supreme Court’s decision is so recent, deals with such closely parallel issues and provides crystal-clear direction on the proper interpretation of the law.”
That “crystal-clear direction” makes it all but impossible for officials to implement reform measures that will help ensure the city’s pension system doesn’t go belly up in the short span of 10 years. As we noted last week, the good news for taxpayers is that they'll be off the hook in the short-term as money earmarked to sweeten the deal for pensions that went along with the reform plan will no longer be needed. "The city faces a short-term benefit of about $89 million that’s currently in escrow that can be used to help other areas of the budget,” Civic Federation President Laurence Msall said, before warning that “it will be a very hollow victory for the beneficiaries.” That’s because over the long haul, this is a disaster. “The ruling eases some immediate demands as the overturned law had stepped up the city's required
contributions,” Bloomberg wrote on Monday afternoon. “Without the restructuring, the unfunded liabilities of the municipal and laborers funds will climb by $900 million a year, making them insolvent by 2026 and 2029.”
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