Illinois is headed for disaster and I don't want to be here for it (Chicago: sales, home)

[Sunbiz1]

Always goes back to Madigan, who spent our $$ on early CPS teacher retirements etc etc last century. I know 2 living it up in Florida, both retired in their 40's.
Are you kidding me?

"Public jobs, salaries and benefits have been central to the mounting fiscal crisis. Laws and budgets passed on Madigan’s watch have added tens of billions of dollars to the state’s pension underfunding."
https://www.reuters.com/investigates...inois-madigan/

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by damba

This sounds like a myth. Did they tell you this on some right wingnut site?

Yeah, you don't wanna have the left's failed policies brought up on a "wingnut" site now, would you?


Regardless of what is true, the state of IL is in financial disaster, bleeding people and jobs left and right, and you're worried about what site the poster found his news from? Sounds typical of IL. Point fingers while the boat is sinking.


Glad I got out of that hellhole long ago.

[flamadiddle]

So here's a question, which adjoining state is in the best fiscal shape with the lowest overall tax burden? Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri or Michigan (not adjoining, but close enough). Maybe even throw in Minnesota and Tennessee too...

Might as well get a backup plan going and since we love the Midwest, these seem to be the best fit.

[goillini8]

I've given myself 2 years to get out. I came from MN in 1991 to attend college in the Chicago area. Lived in Chicago for 10 years; went to grad school in Champaign-Urbana, then back to Chicago, and then to Springfield. Have been working in the judicial branch of state government for 10+ years. Illinois has generally been good to me. Not really a place I saw myself living for nearly three decades, but it happened. But, I'm ready to get out of government work, and ready to live somewhere else. I have a State pension, and I honestly wonder if it will come to fruition. Since, I'm still 15-20 years from retirement, I wish I had a crystal ball.

"That's the problem. If the law could be revised to prevent anyone receiving a State-funded pension from collecting if not maintaining a legal domicile inside Illinois it would be more fair. I do not pretend that most of those leaving are former Illinois payrollers, but those ought to be forced to stay."

I don't think it's realistic to force people to stay or maintain a residence. I think it would be more realistic to just tax the pension as Illinois income, -- matter where the person lived, they'd have to pay tax on their Illinois pension payments.

[Kluch]

We'll be moving from Tennessee to Illinois here in a couple of months (god-willing). The main reason - to be closer to family. My work has one of it's main offices in downtown chicago and I'll be changing offices so it will be a pretty seamless transition job wise. The financial situation though does scare us as we'll be selling our house to buy a house there. This thread gives me warm fuzzies about the states financial situation

[chet everett]

The thing with lots of the prior "kick the can" kinds of things is that some of them at least had logic behind it -- with stuff like "early retirement" it was a way to help local schools not face sky high retirement costs. Of course that "transfer of future of liability" should have motivated law makers to actually PUT MONEY INTO THE STATE PENSION SYSTEMS but like the idiots they mostly are they instead decided to go along with schemes to "delay" putting the needed funds in or worse borrowing to kinda sorta make up the funds. The folks that signed off on this almost certainly did so after a "sales pitch" from bond issuing firms that basically goes like this -- "Go ahead and authorize a bond issuance. Then invest all the proceeds of those bonds, which will pay bond holders a relatively small return, into things that are mostly going to have better returns, you will be money ahead."

Unfortunately Illinois has a bad habit of A) Using "insiders" to do the investing, where the idiots take so much off the top for the "management fee" that even with stellar returns the deals do not have positive returns AND B) They do not INVEST the whole pile into things that actually have ANY returns -- they take too much to dole out insane "pork projects" for everything like "new power closing doors for municipal buildings" to "matching contributions" for ridiculously fancy upgrades for transit shelters. That makes the various campaign contributors from labor unions and connected construction firms very happy but it does NOTHING to actually keep the pension funds solvent...

Thing too is that even when there were folks "friendly" to labor and such in full control of the US House / Senate and White House back after the 2008 election nobody wanted to touch this mess -- it maybe could have been "Federalized" as part of the 'emergency' type loans and such that were designed to 'fix' GM and Chrysler having issues with their pensions BUT the long history of literal "cocaine and prostitute partying" with insiders like Stuart Levine and Tony Rezko was something the Illinois rooted President wanted no part of -- Stuart P. Levine «

That window of opportunity is long since closed and the remaining options are quite limited. It may be interesting to see if anyone get behind a way for limited interpretation of the supremacy of Federal bankruptcy code might allow for State level courts and law makers to "wash their hands" of the mess -- https://capx.co/congress-can-solve-i...ension-crisis/ In a weird way if the GOP gets their clocks cleaned in the 2018 elections I could see something like that getting passed in a lame duck session as kind of big "we always hated labor" going-away middle finger to the insiders...

[madpaddy]

Originally Posted by damba

I saw that one LOL

Another comment there struck me as slightly misguided though. A woman complaining about property taxes of $4500 on a SFH she inherited, split with a sibling. Does anyone here find that level of taxation on a SFH onerous(?)

On a 68 year old, 1200 square foot, 2BR/1BA home on .14 acres of land? With a Senior Citizen's Homestead Exemption? In the highly average suburb of West Dundee? I find that onerous, even as a (down-state) Illinois resident. People from many other states would find that downright insane.

[flamadiddle]

Originally Posted by Kluch

We'll be moving from Tennessee to Illinois here in a couple of months (god-willing). The main reason - to be closer to family. My work has one of it's main offices in downtown chicago and I'll be changing offices so it will be a pretty seamless transition job wise. The financial situation though does scare us as we'll be selling our house to buy a house there. This thread gives me warm fuzzies about the states financial situation

You'll be fine in your price range. It's those with property taxes well North of $10K that are about to feel the pinch. However, we have an election coming up this November for Governor. I haven't seen any polls yet, but I'm guessing it could go either way. If a Democrat is elected, we are pretty much guaranteed to see an income tax increase and all around higher taxes. I will be voting for the Republican incumbent, Bruce Rauner. He's the only thing keeping taxes from rocketing skyward. If a Democrat is elected Governor, that will be the final straw that will push us to saddle up and ride on to greener pastures...

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

The politicians are going to keep kicking the can down the road because none of them want to deal with it. I don't blame them because I wouldn't want to either. But eventually something has to be done.

The pensions need to be completely reworked. Anyone making over $100K/yr should get an immediate 20% cut.

Yeah, I get that it isn't fair because people were promised those pensions and likely worked for decades because of the promise of a pension. But stuff happens in life. It's also not fair that current taxpayers have to fund this mess.

Chicago is one of my favorite places I've ever lived. I'd love to stay here long term, but the financial status of the city and constant tax increases don't leave me with a good feeling.

They tried to reduce pensions, it was ruled unconstitutional.

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by goillini8

I've given myself 2 years to get out. I came from MN in 1991 to attend college in the Chicago area. Lived in Chicago for 10 years; went to grad school in Champaign-Urbana, then back to Chicago, and then to Springfield. Have been working in the judicial branch of state government for 10+ years. Illinois has generally been good to me. Not really a place I saw myself living for nearly three decades, but it happened. But, I'm ready to get out of government work, and ready to live somewhere else. I have a State pension, and I honestly wonder if it will come to fruition. Since, I'm still 15-20 years from retirement, I wish I had a crystal ball.

"That's the problem. If the law could be revised to prevent anyone receiving a State-funded pension from collecting if not maintaining a legal domicile inside Illinois it would be more fair. I do not pretend that most of those leaving are former Illinois payrollers, but those ought to be forced to stay."

I don't think it's realistic to force people to stay or maintain a residence. I think it would be more realistic to just tax the pension as Illinois income, -- matter where the person lived, they'd have to pay tax on their Illinois pension payments.

That law change would be unconstitutional. Other pension changes would also likely not impact you as at your age you would be "grandfathered".

You'll get your pension, but the state is going to have to keep raising taxes and sell assets to do so.