Our view: State again fumbles 
public pension system fix

They didn’t do anything to fix Illinois’ sinking public pension systems or dire fiscal situation, sadly. But the way things went down the last lame-duck session two years ago, when Gov. Pat Quinn and Democratic legislators rammed through a massive, last-minute tax increase, we might just chalk up “doing no harm” as a win.

Or a tie, anyway. And that says pretty much everything that needs to be said about the sad state of governing in the Land of Lincoln.

Kidding aside, pension reform must be the top priority for the new General Assembly that was sworn in Wednesday. Illinois’ five public pension systems are underfunded by more than $96 billion. It was less than a year ago when that number was $83 billion.

With every day of inaction, it only will climb.

While it was far from perfect, we actually liked some elements of a pension reform bill that was being debated earlier this week.

The bill was an amended version of one proposed by Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook. It seems like a good starting point for the new General Assembly.

Among other things, the bill would push back the age that retirees can get their automatic 3 percent cost-of-living increases to 67 years. It also would be applied only to the first $25,000 of a retiree’s pension. The annual increase actually should be less than 3 percent and should kick in even later, but the proposal is better than what we have now.

The bill also would increase employee contributions to their own pensions by 2 percent of salary, with the first 1 percent kicking in the first year and the second in year two. We’re not sure if this is enough, but some increase is absolutely necessary.

The biggest problem with the bill is that it did little to address the current underfunded liability.

Some lawmakers argued that the bill is unconstitutional as written and the state risks a court challenge if it passed. The state Constitution says pension benefits cannot be diminished. But it’s better to meet that challenge head on than to keep putting off meaningful reform and risk insolvency.