The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked school team is trying to persuade the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund to accept a partial pension payment — as little as $200 million of the $634 million due June 30 — because the Chicago Public School system doesn’t have enough cash on hand to make the full payment and still pay its employees.
Never before has the nation’s third-largest school system either missed or reduced a pension payment the district wasn’t authorized to skip or cut by the Illinois General Assembly.
A partial payment this time around would be a dubious and dangerous first that could trigger a pension fund lawsuit and a further drop in a CPS bond rating that’s already been reduced to junk status.
But sources said top mayoral aides are arguing behind the scenes that desperate times require desperate measures.
The bad news in the big , Blue city continues:
Established in 1895, the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund is the oldest of 646 public pension funds in Illinois.
It has assets to cover just 51.5 percent of its liabilities and paid $1.3 billion in service, retirement, disability and survivor benefits in fiscal 2014.
The fund has 63,194 members. They include 30,654 active employees, 4,818 inactive members and 27,722 beneficiaries.
Public education doesn't seem to work , in Chicago.
