South Central Reporter

After the financial watchdog group Wirepoints has reported that more than half of the cities in Illinois are facing a pension funding crisis, state Rep. Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City) urged for immediate legislative reforms.

The report made by Wirepoints presents what many Illinoisans are already aware of: taxpayers and city government workers will feel the negative impact of Illinois' pension fund crisis.

"These increasing costs are unsustainable, and they are driving up our property tax burden," Wilhour said. "Unless we do some reforms, we're going to keep paying more and more taxes for less and less services until enough elected officials get serious about reforming pensions and streamlining our governments here in this state."

Wilhour also called out fellow lawmakers to become more transparent with their constituents and be clearer about their actions to solve the pension fund crisis.

"If your local reps and senators are unwilling to put these issues on the table then they need to stop talking about property taxes and lowering property taxes," Wilhour said. "You know it's time to be fair to taxpayers in this state. We need to be honest with pensioners about the severity of the problems and the real cost in action on it."

The situation is a challenging task at hand, according to Wilhour.

"It’s our obligation as elected leaders to do tough things that are necessary to save the broken pension system in the state of Illinois," he said.

The Wirepoint report, which analyzed the negative effect of local pension costs, was conducted by studying the finances of the municipalities for 16 years from 2003 to 2019.

The organization’s research utilized data from the Illinois Department of Insurance, the Illinois Comptroller, and the U.S. Census Bureau, according to Wirepoints.

The study showed that “As the local pension crisis has worsened, the cost to taxpayers has soared.”