While this has been a productive legislative session, our work is not done for the people of Illinois.
Many members rose to the occasion to take difficult votes to save our Medicaid system from collapse, enact retiree healthcare reform and abolish the oft-abused legislative scholarship program. But we have not finished our work to reform Illinois’ pension system, which is drowning in an ocean of unfunded liability.
As I have repeatedly made clear, inaction on pension reform is not a choice. We must fundamentally reform our pension system and we must enact bold reform that eliminates the unfunded liability.
We have made great headway on stabilizing our pension system and we are very close to a solution, but we are not there yet. Therefore, I will convene a meeting with President Cullerton, Leader Radogno, Speaker Madigan, and Leader Cross in the coming week so we can forge a pension reform agreement as soon as possible and return to Springfield to enact it into law.