Politics & Government

Quinn Visits Julian, Talks Financial Reform

Julian students participate in discussion of "epic journey" toward pension and Medicaid reform.

Gov. Pat Quinn brought his controversial push for pension and Medicaid reform to an unlikely venue on Tuesday — the library at Oak Park's

But instead of addressing teachers and administrators, his audience consisted of about 30 eighth graders, who asked the Oak Park native a series of questions about the state's budget issues. A spokeswoman for Quinn said the students created the questions on their own. 

During his hour long talk, Quinn told students that with little more than a week to before the spring Legislative session is scheduled to adjourn, it was time for lawmakers to get cranking. 

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"They're like you, they've got to get their homework done," he said. 

Quinn has outlined his reform plans, a so-called "rendezvous with reality" that would slash spending, trim services for the poor and close state mental health facilities and prisons. Another proposal, announced last month, would increase state employee pension contributions by three percent and raise the retirement age to 67, according to the Chicago Tribune.

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Another proposal on the table calls for shifting the responsibility of funding pensions away from the state and into the state's school districts, universities and community colleges.

These steps to overhaul the pension system, Quinn said, would save taxpayers up to $85 billion and shore up the the unfunded liabilities over 30 years. 

Right now, local school districts are on the hook to pay 0.58 percent of teacher salaries into the Teacher Retirement System (TRS), and teachers contribute 9.4 percent of their salaries to the pension fund. The state hasn't made its required contributions, leading to a critically underfunded system in which the unfunded liabilities have swelled to $83 billion . 

While you'd be hard-pressed to find any argument in favor of leaving the pension mess as-is, the notion of covering employee pensions has Illinois school district officials shaking. 

District 97 Supt. Al Roberts told Wednesday Journal earlier this month that "shifting the responsibility of managing this system to the schools is not the solution, especially in a state with a historically poor track record for funding education."

At Tuesday's "town hall," Quinn also addressed his proposals for Medicaid reform. Introduced Tuesday in Springfield, the proposal calls for decreasing certain benefits like regular adult dental care and "cutting payments to most hospitals and nursing homes," according to the Associated Press. 

Together, Quinn said, public pensions and Medicaid chew up about 39 percent of the state's spending, and told students that figure would grow to 50 percent next year without reform.

"That's really my principle goal in the next nine days is to get the legislature to focus on those important reforms so we do have enough money for our schools, so that education doesn't get squeezed out by other costs," he said. "This is a big battle. This is an epic journey." 


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