Chicago households reeling from massive hikes in property-tax bills and the specter of new utility-tax increases have yet another burden to bear – even higher pension debt from the city’s four pension funds.According to the 2015 actuarial reports of Chicago’s police, fire, municipal and laborers pension funds, the city’s total pension debt grew by two-thirds in one year. Chicagoans are now on the hook for $34 billion in city-run pension debt – or $33,000 per city household. That doesn’t include billions in additional debt Chicagoans owe to Chicago Public Schools and Cook County pensions. It also doesn’t include long-term and government-worker health care debt owed by the city, its sister governments and Cook County.
Each of Chicago’s fire and municipal funds now has less than a quarter of the money needed to pay out future benefits. Chicago’s laborers pension system is now only 33 percent funded, down from 64 percent funded in 2014. And the police fund is only a quarter funded.
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