Last spring I published a piece in Investors Business Daily observing that politicians who negotiated government 
employee pension benefits and the high-ranking administrative officials supervising government employees often benefited from the same generous pension formula as workers. How could taxpayers hope for reform under those circumstances? Now we learn, thanks to a Chicago Tribune investigation, how former Mayor Richard Daley, who once commented that the city's pension system was so underfunded the city should just let it go bankrupt and start over, used a loophole in Illinois pension law to juice up his own retirement benefits by an estimated $50,000 annually.
employee pension benefits and the high-ranking administrative officials supervising government employees often benefited from the same generous pension formula as workers. How could taxpayers hope for reform under those circumstances? Now we learn, thanks to a Chicago Tribune investigation, how former Mayor Richard Daley, who once commented that the city's pension system was so underfunded the city should just let it go bankrupt and start over, used a loophole in Illinois pension law to juice up his own retirement benefits by an estimated $50,000 annually. 
The tactic involved getting himself reinstated for one month in the state's more lucrative Illinois legislators' pension fund after he was elected mayor, then transferring the benefits to the city's pension fund. Nice work if you can get it.
Listed in the chart are the unfunded liabilities of Chicago, Cook County and Illinois state pension funds per Chicago resident, courtesy of the Civic Federation, just to remind you how much Chicago residents owe in future pension payments.
Listed in the chart are the unfunded liabilities of Chicago, Cook County and Illinois state pension funds per Chicago resident, courtesy of the Civic Federation, just to remind you how much Chicago residents owe in future pension payments.
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