WBEZ | Economy

Architect’s Pilsen vision is green and fashion friendly

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:23:00 -0500

Architect Patricia Saldaña Natke grew up on the 4800 block of South Marshfield Avenue, in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood. Her parents, immigrants from Mexico, worked in the Stockyards.

Some days after school, Saldaña Natke would take the bus away from her aging, blue collar neighborhood with its bungalows and smoke stacks, up to the Loop, and marvel at the sparkling skyscrapers and expansive public parks in the city’s downtown.

“I would look at the beautiful buildings and wonder why those kinds of spaces weren’t in existence where I lived,” Saldaña Natke recalled. “That’s the reason I became an architect; I felt that public places should be the greatest in the area of most need.”

Saldaña Natke channeled those beliefs into UrbanWorks, the architecture and planning firm she founded, which specializes in socially and environmentally conscious planning and design work -- the kind she dreamed about as a kid. She’s set her sights on one Chicago hood in particular: Pilsen.

“[Pilsen] needs to be a place where people can move upward in mobility,” Saldaña Natke said. “The entire core of why I work in Pilsen comes to the fact that there are neighborhoods that need a lot of attention.”

UrbanWorks’ previous Pilsen projects include a college dormitory intended to help keep students from the neighborhood on the path to academic success, a high school designed to resemble the copper canyons of Mexico and Saldaña Natke’s most ambitious project: a master plan for Pilsen.

In architecture and planning circles, a master plan is a grand vision for the future development of a neighborhood.

“It’s much more than a wish list,” Saldaña Natke said. “It may be implemented slightly different than the plan shows, but the core of it should remain intact.”

This plan isn’t funded, but Saldaña Natke is working with 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis and the Department of Housing and Economic Development to assemble funds to inch her vision along.

Saldaña Natke consulted with Pilsen residents in a series of community meetings, including a neighborhood-wide meeting at Providence of God Catholic Church in 2004. The resulting plan aims to build on Pilsen’s assets: its strong Mexican cultural heritage, its historic architecture.

“The community says church steeples are its high rises,” Saldaña Natke said.

It calls for a main commercial drag zoned for pedestrian use and access to the Chicago River.

The plan also addresses what Saldaña Natke says are the neighborhood’s challenges: While the west side of Pilsen is served by the CTA’s Pink, Green and Orange Lines, the east side has few transportation options, leaving the neighborhood disconnected.

And, there is a surprising lack of green space in Pilsen. According to Saldaña Natke, the city requires two acres of green space for every 1,000 Chicago residents.

“But the Park District just said to us that the recommended amount is four acres of green space,” she said. “[Pilsen] is over 18 acres short.”

So, UrbanWorks’ master plan starts there. Saldaña Natke envisions more green space along the neighborhood’s largely industrial waterfront, and the transformation of an abandoned, surface-level railway that runs along Sangamon Street into a stretch of park—something like New York’s High Line or the Northwest Side’s Bloomingdale Trail, only without the elevation. Then, she hopes to transform the abandoned buildings that line the railroad into a fashion and textile incubator.

A fashion incubator?

Yes, Saldaña Natke says.

“You shouldn’t need to go to 900 North Michigan or Michigan Avenue to see all the high-end fashion shows. Why can’t it be in the neighborhoods?”

You can hear Saldaña Natke describe her dream in more detail in the audio above.

Dynamic Range showcases hidden gems unearthed from Chicago Amplified’s vast archive of public events and appears on weekends. Patricia Saldana Natke spoke at an event presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation in April of 2013. Click here to hear the event in its entirety.

Robin Amer is a producer on WBEZ’s digital team. Follow her on Twitter @rsamer.

Chicago to renovate Navy Pier, build arena

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:10:00 -0500

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a multi-million dollar renovation plan Thursday that includes remodeling Navy Pier and building a 10,000-seat basketball arena near McCormick Place that would be the home court of DePaul University's basketball teams.

In a news release on Thursday, Emanuel's office said the first phase of a $278 million project to renovate Navy Pier will begin in the fall and will cost about $166 million. The city will put up $110 of that and private restaurants and the Chicago Children's Museum will put up the rest.

The arena built near McCormick Place also will be used as a hall for conventions and trade shows. McCormick Place and DePaul will each put up $70 million to design and build the arena.

Construction on the arena is targeted to begin in 2014, and officials hope to have it ready in time for the 2016-17 season. The facility likely will be able to host 17 men's basketball and 10 women's games.

The arena could be a boon for a once-proud men's program that has struggled in recent years.

The Blue Demons are coming off their sixth straight losing season and haven't made the NCAA tournament since 2004. They are 30-64 and just 6-48 in Big East play in three years under Oliver Purnell.

But there was a time back when Ray Meyer was the coach and Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings were electrifying fans that the Blue Demans were the most popular basketball team in the city. That also was before Michael Jordan landed with the Bulls.

The DePaul men's team has played most of its games at Allstate Arena in suburban Rosemont, Ill., since 1980, making it difficult for students and fans living and working in the city to attend. The small crowds and older arena probably weren't an easy sell for recruits, either.

Many fans were hoping DePaul would build an arena on or near its main campus in the vibrant Lincoln Park neighborhood, but finding landing in a densely populated area was no small task. The school reportedly turned down an offer from Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to play at the United Center.

The new arena at McCormick Place would be near several major highways and be reachable by train from DePaul's campuses in the city.

Calumet brain trust tackles environmental issues across state line

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:24:00 -0500

Although county lines parcel out the southern shore of Lake Michigan like garden plots, the environmental issues that unify people from Michigan City, Ind. to Chicago do not respect political boundaries.

Nor do most economic issues. Industrial decay and depopulation have left communities throughout the greater Calumet region with some common problems, as well as shared opportunities.

That was the message from the inaugural Calumet Summit, a conference convened this week in Gary, Indiana’s lakefront Marquette Park by the Calumet Stewardship Initiative.

The summit follows some major moves in the Calumet area, not least of which is the Millennium Reserve initiative, dubbed the nation's largest "open space" project. (Although it might better be described as a regional plan that ties conservation to urban redevelopment.)

After 140 years of heavy industry, many of the region’s factories have closed and left brownfields, violence and unemployment in their wake. And while efforts to rehabilitate the Great Lakes have mopped up some pollution and begun to clamp down on invasive species, a report released Tuesday by the international body that advises Canada and U.S. on the lakes said the area still faces serious challenges. Agricultural runoff, flooding, drought, and the march of both invasive species and a changing climate are among the problems that plague people who call the southern end of Lake Michigan home.

Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, said as much Tuesday at the Calumet Summit. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a federal funding program initiated by President Barack Obama’s administration, has enabled environmental work and research in recent years. Perhaps more importantly, Brammeier said, it has brought attention to the region and galvanized those already doing important work on the ground.

"As important as the money is the near-universal expression of support for the program year after year," he said. "That’s really at the heart of the success in moving money to entities on the ground."

Volunteer environmental stewards and planners alike see a future in green development.

Few people articulate that vision better than Lauren Riga. Tapped by Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson to head Gary’s new department of Green Urbanism, 28-year-old Riga previously served as a U.N. delegate at the 2010 climate change conference. About one quarter of Gary's buildings are vacant. As Riga and the mayor look to spur an economic revival, they plan to incorporate green infrastructure into new development. Meanwhile local and state agencies have helped rehabilitate habitat along the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, home to a series of fragile ecosystems known as pannes — wetlands nestled between sand dunes.

"[Riga] represents a new way of thinking for the region," said Andrew Pelloso, an environmental consultant who formerly worked for Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management.

"Everyone seems to see the region by Gary’s fate and fortune so what they do matters," he said.

Whether updating Northwest Indiana's stormwater infrastructure or retrofitting Chicago schoolyards, presenters at the summit emphasized action.

"Between now and the next summit go out and do something," U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky told the audience, "or everyone will have wasted their time over the two days."

Pelloso said for all the region’s challenges, and the bureaucratic headache it can be to get things done, the conference’s take-home message was affirming.

"We’re bound together by a common resource,” he said. “Not by state lines.”

Chris Bentley writes about environmental issues. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

Illinois businesses work to sort out the Affordable Care Act

Thu, 16 May 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Illinois businesses are preparing for the Affordable Care Act to go into full effect in 2014, and a leader from the Illinois Chamber of Commerce says some are considering limiting work hours to avoid future healthcare costs. But costs and logistics vary widely across different types of firms.

“It’s one giant puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle,” said Laura Minzer, the Executive Director of the Health Care Council for the for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

She says employers, small and large, are scrambling to figure out which provisions of the federal law will apply to them and their employees. Businesses with under 25 employees may become eligible for tax credits for providing health care, while businesses with over 50 workers could face fines if they don’t provide affordable insurance for all employees working 30 hours or more.

The number of workers receiving employer-sponsored health care has declined steadily in recent years. Now, Minzer says limiting employee hours to under 30 is on the table for some bigger businesses worried about new health care costs.

“The cost of their benefits is not going down and it will not go down with this law,” said Minzer. Indeed, insurance premiums have been steadily rising, and experts expect to see a continued rise nationwide. But cuts to hours may be nothing new: the proportion of workers in part-time jobs has been on the rise since 2007.

One in five adults in Illinois is currently uninsured, and if they can’t get employer insurance, some will become eligible for government subsidies through the “marketplace” (formerly known as the exchange), which is a state and/or federally-run service intended to centralize and streamline shopping for private health insurance. Sliding scale subsidies in the form of tax credits will be available to those making up to four times the federal poverty level. Currently, Illinois has agreed to an insurance marketplace run jointly by Illinois and the federal government, but Minzer says the Chamber of Commerce supports opening a state-run marketplace by 2015.

“Even with all the concerns that we have about affordability, we see value in...the fact that you have a one-stop-shop for health insurance,” said Minzer. “The state is in a better position to administer that.”

States also have the option to expand Medicaid eligibility to adults making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, an option that’s already being piloted in Cook County. However, because of a controversial Supreme Court decision, states can opt out of the Medicaid expansion, and Illinois has yet to pass a bill that would expand Medicaid statewide in 2014.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce also supports the Medicaid expansion.

That’s because there’s a benefit for business: employees who receive Medicaid would do so without triggering penalties for their big employers (as opposed to seeking out insurance through the marketplace, which would trigger penalties). Recent reports have found that larger businesses have a financial incentive to support Medicaid expansion and avoid fees for not providing health insurance to low-income employees.

Bills to expand Medicaid and to establish a state-run insurance marketplace are creeping through the Illinois General Assembly, and the federal/state insurance marketplace is slated to open October 1, 2014.

Lewis Wallace is a Pritzker Journalism Fellow at WBEZ. Follow him @lewispants.

Illinois Lt. Gov supports medical marijuana

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:51:00 -0500

Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon said she is in favor of a bill allowing the medical use of marijuana, explaining Sunday that testimony from seriously ill veterans and other patients helped change her mind.

"As a former prosecutor my first reaction was, 'I'm not interested in changing our laws on medical marijuana,'" she told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

But she said that after hearing from patients and reading up on the bill, she's convinced the regulations are strict enough.

Backers of the measure, which has cleared the Illinois House and awaits a Senate vote, have said the same thing.

The plan, touted as the strictest in the nation among states that have legalized medical marijuana, would authorize physicians to prescribe marijuana to patients with whom they have an existing relationship and who are living with at least one of more than 30 medical conditions, including cancer.

The proposal creates a framework for a pilot program that includes requiring patients and caregivers to undergo background checks. It also sets a 2.5-ounce limit per patient per purchase and sets out state-regulated dispensaries.

Supporters say marijuana can relieve continual pain without the detrimental side effects of prescription drugs. But opponents say the program could encourage recreational use, especially among teenagers.

The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Illinois Sheriffs' Association are opposed to the measure, saying there's no sure way to figure out whether a motorist is driving under the influence of marijuana.

But Simon told the AP the bill is strict enough to prevent misuse.

"It does a good job of both getting medical marijuana to people who need and keeping it away from those who don't," she said.

Gov. Pat Quinn, a Chicago Democrat, has been noncommittal whether he would sign the bill, saying instead that he is open-minded to the idea.

Simon is weighing a run for another statewide office instead of seeking another term as lieutenant governor. The Carbondale Democrat declined Sunday to say which office she will run for, saying she will wait to see how other shape up.

Simon is likely choosing between Illinois' attorney general, comptroller or treasurer. In recent months, Simon has played up her law-related background and accomplishments including as a pro bono lawyer and prosecutor.

Her decision comes as the 2014 governor's race is heating up and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is weighing a possible challenge to Quinn.

Laid-off workers open their own factory

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:29:00 -0500

A few hours before the grand opening of New Era Windows Cooperative, Melvin "Ricky" Maclin is standing in the middle of the factory, beaming.

"All of this is ours," he said. "We have our own trucks, our own forklifts. It’s a whole new world."

Maclin’s title is the same as the 17 other people who work here: worker-owner. Together, they vote on decisions about the factory. He proudly shows the place where they jackhammered the floor to install water pipes. He says the workers didn’t know how to complete some of the steps to set up the factory, but they learned. They also took classes on business management.

"At first we thought we were just lowly factory workers," Maclin said. "But now we see we have so much more in us."

Maclin says that being a worker-owner means that for the first time in his life he has control over what happens to him. Back in 2008, when the factory was closed for the first time, he was devastated.

"This was right before Christmas," he said. "I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to buy my grandkids a doll for Christmas. It was a dark time, it was like we were in a free fall."

Maclin and the other workers of Republic Window occupied the closed factory. They were later paid the severance wages that they were legally entitled to receive. A California- based company called Serious Materials bought the factory and hired back the workers. But not long after, they also closed down.

The workers decided to do things differently that time and buy the factory themselves.

Working World, the organization that provided them with a credit line to help open the cooperative, says it would cost most companies $5 million to open. It cost New Era less than $650,000.

The first windows made by the factory will be titled the “1110 Series” after their union, United Electric 1110.

Shannon Heffernan is a reporter for WBEZ. Follow her @shannon_h

Report: Drop money in the river, watch it float back

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:57:00 -0500

The glitzy towers of downtown Chicago are filled with offices that boast impressive financial returns, but their biggest cash flow may be one they all share: the Chicago River.

A new report commissioned by Friends of the Chicago River and Openlands says each dollar invested in the river provides a 70 percent return. Completed, planned and proposed improvement projects, the report says, amount to 846 new permanent jobs, 52,400 construction jobs and $130.54 million every year.

“Investing in the Chicago River pays us back,” said Lenore Beyer-Clow, policy director for Openlands.

Friends of the Chicago River, which began as a project of Openlands, has championed the once neglected river since it was a “back alleyway full of sewage and trash,” in the words of the new report. Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel have both called attention to the resource, most recently when Emanuel announced a plan to expand the city’s Riverwalk by six blocks. But Margaret Frisbie, the group’s executive director, said despite recent progress most people still don’t appreciate the full benefits of investing in the river.

The report looked at four major completed or planned projects involving the river over the last 30 years: the deep tunnel stormwater project TARP; disinfection of wastewater at three area treatment plants; $500 million worth of green infrastructure investment citywide over 15 years; and $93 million in projects by the City of Chicago and Chicago Park District.

The benefits came in the form of additional business income, tax revenue and jobs, but also avoided flood damage and sewage treatment costs. Investing in the river boots property values along its shores, too.

Wolf Point and River Point are among the high-profile riverside developments in the portfolio of real estate firm Hines Interests.

“Why are we focused on real estate along the river?” asked Greg Van Schaak, senior managing director for Hines. “It’s very simple: it’s more valuable.” Van Schaak said whereas rent in most towers varies by floor, buildings along the river retain the same value from the first floor through the fiftieth.

Van Schaak added that most of the major companies — Boeing, MillerCoors, BP — who recently opened offices in Chicago did so in riverfront buildings. “I don’t think that’s an accident,” he said.

Money talks, but it’s impossible to neatly quantify many of the benefits that natural systems provide. That may make it difficult to invest strategically even when all parties agree on the overarching value of a natural resource like the Chicago River.

“There are all these ancillary benefits to green infrastructure that aren’t quantified when you only look at economic returns,” said Debra Shore, an MWRD commissioner. Environmental benefits like carbon sequestration, soil retention and fresh air are valuable too, Shore said, but don’t yet appear on the ledger of an economic analysis.

McCormick Place offsets 100 percent of power with wind energy

Wed, 08 May 2013 21:00:00 -0500

As conventioneers pack up their model turbines and fly home from the 2013 Windpower exhibition at McCormick Place, they have the wind at their backs.

That’s because the nation’s largest convention center announced this week it would purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs) to offset 100 percent of its energy use with wind power. The three-year arrangement with Atlanta-based Sterling Planet will procure credits worth some 331,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, according to McCormick Place, or about as much as 69,000 passenger vehicles each year.

The cavernous conference center uses about 130 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, but its plan to buy RECs doesn’t mean wind turbines will now be wired to McCormick Place. As with electricity aggregation deals that scored 100 percent renewable energy for Evanston and Oak Park, the credits can come from established wind farms anywhere in the country. When renewable energy power plants generate power, they rack up credits that they can sell on the open market.

According to Ryan Thorpe, director of facility operations for McCormick Place operator Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the wind power credits came “at little or no additional cost” than their previous power arrangement.

McCormick’s move is not the first example of a large purchaser getting bullish on renewable energy. Walmart set a goal to become powered by 100 percent renewable energy, pushing distributed generation and long-term contracts to buy actual energy, not just credits. Google, too, has made major purchases. But a company buys power in a different way than a municipality.

The REC deal also comes as McCormick Place tries to cut its energy and waste costs in a bid to brand itself as the nation’s “green” conference venue. In April it won recognition as an environmentally sustainable conference center from the American Society for Testing and Materials, using a new certification process introduced last year. Its West Building also earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Certification.

Laudable though those initiatives may be, the idea of a green conference might seem an oxymoron — no matter how light their footprint inside the exhibition hall, guests still fly long distances to be there. The value of face-to-face interaction, though, is tough to deny and harder to quantify. Whatever the waste involved with traveling en masse for conferences may be, it amounts not to an indictment of conferences themselves, but instead makes clear how fossil fuel use is embedded in nearly every aspect of modern life.

Chris Bentley writes about the environment. Follow him on Twitter at @Cementley.

Mayor, Illinois lawmakers make case for Chicago casino

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:38:00 -0500

Visitors to the nation's third-largest city are usually spotted wandering the Magnificent Mile, snapping pictures of the Willis Tower and sampling Chicago-style deep dish pizza, but if some persistent Illinois lawmakers and Mayor Rahm Emanuel get their way, a glitzy casino would be on their agenda, too.

Trying to land a Chicago casino has become an annual sticking point, despite political gusto from mayors and legislators who want to expand gambling in Illinois. Gov. Pat Quinn has axed two gambling bills and invoked images of infiltrating "mobsters." Along that same theme, the head of the Illinois Gaming Board said the pending plan is inherently problematic because of the way a Chicago casino will be managed.

Still, the latest bill — which recently cleared the Illinois Senate and also would allow slot machines located in lounges at O'Hare and Midway — appears to have the best chance yet.

Quinn has softened his stance as Illinois faces mountainous money problems. Meanwhile, Emanuel is pushing hard for the proposal, lawmakers are eager to rework it and business leaders would love the chance to plant a casino in Chicago — the largest American city to date — with thousands of noisy slots, an entertainment venue and a continuous flow of money-spending tourists.

"It's not just another riverboat casino, it has the potential to be a destination in its own right," said Jack Johnson, head of the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau. "Anytime you can add another destination to Chicago, it's one more reason to come."

The bill calls for five new Illinois casinos, including one in Chicago, and airport slots. If airports want them, Chicago would be unique among U.S. airports outside Las Vegas. The plan would establish a Chicago Casino Development Authority, a board of mayoral appointees. The Illinois Gaming Board would have regulatory oversight, but most everything else, including contracts and day-to-day operations, falls to the city board.

And there's the potential rub.

Some experts raised concerns at the Chicago setup when compared with urban casinos — in Philadelphia, Detroit and New Orleans — where the state board oversees everything.

"That is a rare situation," said Doug Walker, an economics professor at the College of Charleston. "Anytime you have a new group of regulators, there's another potential area for corruption."

That very issue prompted state gaming board head Aaron Jaffe to question why Chicago needed its own board and resulted in a spat with lawmakers during a hearing on the bill last month. That followed similar questions from Quinn, who vetoed gambling bills over lack of ethical standards. It's a theme he often brings up in a state where four of the last seven governors have gone to prison, including his predecessor Rod Blagojevich.

Even opponents who typically raise concerns about potential social costs — including increases in problem gambling — are also talking about ethical concerns. Partly that's because it's not hard to find corruption headlines in a city that's been under a court order to root out political patronage or where federal data shows more than 1,500 public corruption convictions since the mid-1970s.

"They've had scandals ... all kinds of scandals," said Anita Bedell, head of the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems. "You think it's going to be different now?"

Lawmakers acknowledged some of those concerns in the proposal, adding a ban on political contributions from the industry, an inspector general and, most recently, stating explicitly that the state board has final say over all regulation.

But the Chicago board remains in place.

"They're like the business manager," explained Democratic Sen. Terry Link, a bill sponsor. He says it's not unlike other Chicago entities. The state created the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns McCormick Place, a convention center. Both the mayor and governor appoint members.

Emanuel, who said he supports Quinn's ethical oversight concerns, also defended a city board, saying it's needed to protect Chicago taxpayers' interests.

The mayor boosted his support for the casino this week by pledging 100 percent of revenue will go to schools. The move comes as he proceeds with a controversial plan to close 54 schools and follows last year's teachers strike.

Quinn has said he'd support more gambling if it helps Illinois, including nearly $100 billion in unfunded pension debt, the worst nationwide. The plan is expected to bring in roughly $1.2 billion in one-time revenue and about $270 million annually. But Quinn has been noncommittal on whether he'd sign the bill if House lawmakers approve it. He's also reticent on specifics, like what he thinks of the Chicago board.

Meanwhile, urban planners and tourism officials hope a Chicago casino boosts business. No specifics on a location have been publicly discussed, but some potential sites have been mentioned.

Urban planner Kim Goluska, who for nearly two decades did casino research for former Mayor Richard Daley, said possible sites include the glass-paneled James R. Thompson Center downtown, a state building with an enormous atrium; the Congress Plaza Hotel on Michigan Avenue; and Chicago's former main post office, a dingy building straddling a freeway.

Others include a former hospital site on the South Side and McCormick.

Johnson said that any site could work, depending on transportation. He pointed to the success of Wrigley Field and the Steppenwolf Theatre as tourists destinations, which aren't downtown.

Goluska said any casino should be incorporated into the city's urban core to buttress other businesses. His top pick would be the Thompson Center, which is walking distance to Chicago's Theater District, shopping and hotels.

"The spinoff benefit of doing this right should make the gaming revenue pale by comparison," said Goluska, president of Chicago Consultants Studio, Inc. "It's important that this is done right."

Illinois House takes first major vote on pension reform

Thu, 02 May 2013 17:35:00 -0500

The Illinois House of Representatives took a major vote Thursday afternoon on pension reform. Many lawmakers said the plan is critical to the future of state government.

Shortly before House members passed the latest pension plan by a vote of 62-51, Speaker Michael Madigan (D-22) spoke about the proposal’s importance to the basic functions of government.

“In my judgment, this is a critical action that must be taken now,” Madigan said. “Must be taken for future budget-making. Must be taken for the fiscal well-being and reputation of the State of Illinois.”

State Representatives Esther Golar (D-6) and Camille Lilly (D-78) voted present.

Illinois has the worst-funded pensions of any state in the country. It has nearly $100 billion in pension debt.

The bill, which passed with two votes to spare, includes measures like raising the retirement age and capping pay increases state employees get in retirement. One of the most controversial aspects of pension negotiations, a proposal that would shift the cost of downstate and suburban teachers’ pensions from the state onto local school districts, was not included in the House-approved bill. Madigan said he wants to address that issue in a separate bill.

Labor groups vehemently oppose the plan and say it goes against Illinois’ constitution. Because they have vowed to sue, Madigan said he left judges’ pensions out of this bill so that there would not be a conflict of interest when the measure is debated in Illinois courts.

Instead, the measure approved by the House would affect teachers, university workers, lawmakers and other state employees.

The potential lawsuit and constitutionality of the bill were also on the mind of House members as they debated the plan.

“We have no choice,” said House Republican Leader Tom Cross (R-97). “If I’m a state worker or if I’m a teacher, a university worker, I have every right to be mad as hell.”

This is the first major bill the full House of Representatives has approved on pension reform, but its future is uncertain in the Senate.

Senate President John Cullerton (D-6th) supports a different plan that would give retirees the option of getting state-funded health care coverage in retirement, or getting pay increases. Cullerton has argued that option meets the standards set by the state constitution. On Wednesday, Cullerton’s office released a statement saying labor leaders have, “offered a credible and constitutional plan for consideration.” But no details of that plan have been made public. Before Wednesday, labor groups had asked lawmakers to change how the state taxes different industries as a way to pay for pensions, but that idea has garnered little attention from legislative leaders and the governor.

For his part, Gov. Pat Quinn has praised both Cullerton’s pension plan and the bill the House approved Thursday. He has said pension reform is his top priority, but some lawmakers from both parties have been critical of the governor for not doing more to pick a side in the debate. In a statement after Thursday’s House vote, Quinn said, “Today’s action sends a strong message to the people and businesses of our state: Illinois is ready for reform and we understand that this reform is critical to building a brighter future for all.”

Tony Arnold covers state politics for WBEZ. Follow him @tonyjarnold.