Pensions Eat 70% of Decatur, Illinois' Budget;

Public pension woes continue to escalate. Here are three more stories highlighting problems at various cities in Illinois, New York, and Texas.

Pensions Eat 70% Decatur, Illinois Budget

Please consider Pensions eat up growing portion of city of Decatur's property tax revenue

As the Decatur City Council prepares to convene Monday to discuss setting its portion of the local property tax levy, the largest burden on those revenues - funding the pensions of police, firefighters and city employees - remains a persistent and growing challenge.

City Manager Ryan McCrady and Finance Director Ron Neufeld highlighted some telling statistics in the city's attempts to maintain its pension funds over the last decade.

"We've been putting in what we're required to put in, but the unfunded liability keeps growing," McCrady said.

In 2001, about 30 percent of the city's property tax levy went into paying down the pensions of its retired police and firefighters. In 2011, 70 percent of it will go toward pensions, even as recent years have seen cuts to other services that draw their funds from the same source, including the Decatur Public Library.

The state legislature sets all of the rules for pension contributions, and over the years it has mandated that municipalities make ever increasing payments. The result, McCrady said, has been a higher and higher cost for the city.

Recent pension reforms that passed the General Assembly and await the Gov. Pat Quinn's signature could provide long-term relief, McCrady said, but in the short term, city staff and the council have to figure out how to meet their obligations in a fiscal climate that leaves little breathing room.

"It's to the point now where taxpayers can't sustain a property tax levy to the point where we can fund these out of the property taxes," McCrady said. "We're starting to draw from other operations to pay for these obligations."

Long-term fixes won't do Decatur much good now if it runs out of money a few years from now. Property tax hikes certainly are not the answer either. I suggest bankruptcy, followed by outsourcing the police and fire departments to the lowest qualified bidder.