What’s ahead for Chicago’s pension crisis?

What’s ahead for Chicago’s pension crisis?
What’s ahead for Chicago’s pension crisis?

What’s ahead for Chicago’s pension crisis?

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Now that Mayor Rahm Emanuel has secured a second term, he’s facing the realities of the city’s pension crisis. Chicago owes its four public employee retirement funds $20 billion. Chicago police and firefighters funds make up $550 million of that hole. It’s not just city workers worried about their retirement money; the pension problems make credit agencies downgrade Chicago’s bond rating, creating a tagline for Emanuel’s foes that the city’s economic future is weak. And he’s facing a deadline. The Mayor has to find a way to pay the police and firefighters pension by December. So what would cops like to see happen between now and then? We talk to Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden about the union’s demands for the Mayor to pay the bills.(Flickr/conner395)