Pension crisis endangers Chicago's future

Thursday, December 12, 2013

CHICAGO — It’s not the vision of a world-class city that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel typically likes to portray.
More teachers losing their jobs, thousands fewer police and firefighters on duty, less frequent trash collection and miles of potholed roads going unrepaired — all as property taxes soar.

But that’s the scenario Emanuel and others have said could befall the nation’s third-largest city if the state legislature — which passed a landmark measure last week to address Illinois’ severe public pension shortfall — doesn’t deal with Chicago’s own multibillion-dollar pension problem.