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Welcome to the Bolingbrook Report. The BR has been operating as the local hottest news source since April 2009. Always controversial, and always on the scene, the Brook Report has over 80,000 hits and counting! The BR is an online electronic news source ran by volunteers and residents of Bolingbrook.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Why is Bolingbrook still waiting for state money for our schools?

Because Illinois is Broke! 
There is no money to give and both political parties are to blame.  This is why so many Illinois voters are pushing independent candidates.

This excerpt is taken from http://www.illinoisisbroke.com/FAQs.aspx

How will this affect me?
The state already can't afford its annual pension contributions. In FY2010 and FY2011, Illinois had to borrow BILLIONS to make its statutory payments to the five state pension funds. Without reforms, these required pension contributions will grow every year and crowd out more and more critical services – such as education, public safety and health care for the poor. By 2045, pension contributions will eat up around 50% of the state's “Big Three” tax revenues (personal income taxes, corporate income taxes and sales taxes) – leading to radical cuts in other services or dramatic tax hikes.

The real answer lies in common sense reforms of these pension and retiree health care plans, reasonable reductions in other areas of the state's budget, and a multi-year plan to balance the budget.

Are reforms for current employees constitutional?
Our legal research, conducted by Sidley Austin LLP, concludes that nothing in the Illinois Constitution should be read to prohibit the State from lowering future benefits, so long as the State meets all its obligations for benefits already accrued and vested. Retirees and employees would lose nothing they already had earned.
Click Here to read entire Sidley Austin analysis.

How bad is the retiree-related debt for Illinois' public employees?
  • The pension and retiree health care debt and unfunded obligations associated with public employees is projected to be more than $140 billion by the end of Fiscal Year 2011 – ranking it among the worst in the nation in terms of debt per household. The Pew Center on the States studied the issue and found Illinois has the worst funded pension system in the nation. Some of the state's pension plans are only about 20% funded. If these funds fail – which is likely unless something is done – current employees will be left with nothing. No one wants that to happen in Illinois.


  • How did this happen?
  • The truth is politicians in both major parties, over many years, ignored the growing costs of these programs and pushed them off to future generations. They have ducked anything that resembled a hard choice.

  • Pubic Pensions Creating Millionaires
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