Politics & Government

Preckwinkle: Cook County's Pension Efforts May be Undone by State's Inaction

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said progress has been made in the county's efforts to fix their pension issues, but the work could be shrouded by the state's inability to solve statewide pension problems.

Toni Preckwinkle called it “a mixed blessing” to be in her position.

The Cook County board president offered a glimpse into the feedback she receives since she was elected to the seat after beating Todd Stroger Jr. in the 2010 election, during a June 5 visit to Moraine Valley Community College.

“On one hand the bar is low,” Preckwinkle said. “On the other hand things are a mess. People come up to me and say I like you so much better than your predecessor. I’m not sure if it’s much of a compliment.”

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Preckwinkle detailed efforts to resolve the county’s pension funding woes during the visit. She said over the last-year-and-a-half, county and union representatives had been meeting and trying to work out the issues, but “activity in Springfield overtook the process.”

Cook County’s pensions are 53.5 percent funded, down 4 percent from fiscal year 2011, with the pension debt growing by $969.5 million since then, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.  

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Despite the change, the county’s bond rating has not been downgraded further, even after Illinois’ rating was downgraded earlier in the month, Preckwinkle said. The county was separated from the state’s downgrade based on their efforts to mend pensions, she added.

But without progress in Springfield, and with legislators doubting whether pension reform can be brokered by Gov. Pat Quinn’s July 8 deadline, Preckwinkle said the county could face another downgrade as well.

“We’ve done nothing except work hard with unions and we face the possibility of a bond rating downgrade because the state can’t get their act together,” Preckwinkle said. “If we get our bonds downgraded, it costs more to borrow. More of the budget is taken up by servicing debt and we can’t do the other things we need to do.”

Preckwinkle said politics likely are impeding progress in Springfield, especially with the available governor seat in the Nov. 2014 election.

“It’s not just pensions,” Preckwinkle said. “There are three times as many more critical issues that the legislature didn’t deal with. It’s hard to know how much gubernatorial politics played into that. It’s hard to know how much it was people whose interests and egos prohibited them from working together.”

Preckwinkle said the state also needs answers on whether casinos would be expanding, overdue updates for roads and bridges and other pressing issues.

“We’re at a very bad place in Illinois in terms of our state government,” she said. “I won’t say it makes us a laughing stock, but we’re near the bottom in funding for public education. We have the worst credit rating, even worse than California. Pretty soon our state bonds will be junk bonds.”

Preckwinkle said she remains hopeful that an agreement on state pensions will come next year, though she added that more cynical estimates hold any progress until after a governor is elected in 2014.

“But that means for the next two years we’re in this terrible limbo where we continue to have a pretty dismal fiscal situation at the state level and that impacts all of us,” she said.

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