Lake County Gazette

Ted Dabrowski thinks it's past time lawmakers in Illinois send a message to taxpayers about the state's out-of-control pension debt.

With the General Assembly Retirement System (GARS) that covers pensions for lawmakers 16% funded, the president of the conservative government watchdog group, Wirepoints, is pushing for an end to lawmaker pensions.

"What we need to get real pension reform started in Illinois is for the Legislature to take leadership by starting with their own," Dabrowski told the Lake County Gazette. "It's the right thing to do, even though there are only 177 lawmakers, and the numbers won't make much a difference to the overall bottom-line."

The GARS system rated as the worse funded of the state's five public employee pension funds, and taxpayers are estimated to be on the hook for in the neighborhood of $320 million in unfunded liability to retired legislators alone. Despite its problems, Dabrowski said he doesn't expect much change anytime soon.

"The biggest reason is legislators in Springfield haven't done much to reform anything," he said. "If any plan should be ended, it's that one, and they could do it without having to worry about interference coming from the unions. The fact that they won't do it is emblematic of the way the state prefers running a bankrupt plan that they keep bailing out with taxpayer money."

Illinois taxpayers are on the hook for more than $140 billion and counting in unfunded liability from all public sector pension funds.

Dabrowski said he's starting to see just one way out.

"The state is going to have to run out of money in order to make a real difference," he said. "That's the only way lawmakers will be forced to deal with the fiscal reality this state clearly faces."