Posts tagged pension debt
Op-ed: California doubles down on pension debt — and dares Congress to bail it out
July 23, 2026 // On July 1, California’s Assembly Appropriations Committee advanced AB 1383, a bill that guts the pension reform Sacramento passed in 2013 to keep its own promises honest. It would drop the public safety retirement age from 57 to 55, invent a new 3%-at-55 benefit formula, and let cities bargain away the cost-sharing rules that reform required. CalPERS already carries more than $179 billion in unfunded liabilities. California’s total state and local pension debt tops $200 billion. Sacramento’s answer, apparently, is to promise more.
3 CT state employee unions to get pay hikes worth 4.5%
December 4, 2025 // The raises, ordered for judicial marshals, their supervisors and a third group that includes probation officers, information technology analysts, assistant clerks, counselors and other support staff, are retroactive to July 1, when the fiscal year began. The award announced Wednesday also increases the likelihood that dozens of additional bargaining units in state government — which haven’t yet settled compensation deals — will get similar raises. And if that happens, it will mark the fifth consecutive year state employees’ compensation has increased by about 4.5%. (A step hike typically adds about 2 percentage points to the overall raise value.)
CONNECTICUT: State Employee Union Cries Recession is Coming to Save Temporary Jobs
November 26, 2024 // One of Connecticut’s largest unions, AFSCME Council 4, is pressuring Gov. Ned Lamont, along with Sen. Paul Cicarella (R-North Haven) and Rep. Mary Mushinsky (D-Wallingford), to intervene in stopping the planned layoffs of 49 federally funded, temporary employees at the Connecticut Department of Labor (CTDOL). In a call to action posted on AFSCME’s website on Oct. 15, the union argued that “these layoffs are NOT due to a shortage of work,” claiming that these workers are still essential as job growth has “severely declined nationally.” AFSCME also painted a grim picture, warning that “a recession is anticipated soon” and suggesting that Connecticut’s government is ill-equipped to handle an economic downturn when it materializes.
Illinois: UNIONS SPEND NEARLY $5M TO PUSH PROPERTY TAX HIKES THROUGH AMENDMENT 1
June 29, 2022 // Illinoisans already suffer under the highest state and local tax burden in the Midwest, thanks to generous contracts and retirements won by powerful public unions from the elected leaders they helped bankroll. If Illinois becomes the only state to enshrine union powers in its constitution, taxpayers will face ever greater demands. progressive tax, fair tax, Mike Madigan, Boeing, Caterpillar, Citadel, constitutional amendment
MADIGAN PLEADS ‘NOT GUILTY’ TO 22-COUNT CORRUPTION INDICTMENT
March 15, 2022 // Besides illegal corruption, Madigan engaged in legal corruption with government worker unions in which he oversaw decades of generous benefits and pay in exchange for $10 million in contributions to campaign committees he controlled. The results have been the nation’s worst pension debt, which grew 753% during his reign.