Rockford Sun

Rep. Joe Sosnowski (R-Rockford) cites rising taxes to fund the pension system as a cause of decreasing population. He joined Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski and colleagues during a news conference on the state’s pension problem revealed by Wirepoints’ research.                                                                                                       

Sosnowski pointed out that raising taxes will not solve the looming pension fund crisis. Wirepoints published a report grading 102 cities in Illinois with a failing "F" for local pensions.

"I live in Rockford, I represent Rockford," Sosnowski said. "You know this city is indicative of the problem. We, as a city used to pay back in 2003 about $7 million into the pension system and that number is now around $23 million."

According to Sosnowski, the result in the increase of taxes has resulted in the dwindling of the population of Rockford and reveals the same pattern happening in the rest of Illinois.

"We're not growing as a state," the Rockford Republican lawmaker declared. "You know the governor may dismiss the population of Illinois and say it was just some college kids going off to other states. But the bottom line is, if we grew like any of our Midwestern neighbors, we would have hundreds of thousands of more residents here in the state of Illinois."

The report released by Wirepoints has also confirmed what many Illinoisans already know: The local pension crisis is causing a lot of financial strain on taxpayers, local government's basic services, and the retirement security of state government workers.

"We're here today, we've got to explore these solutions whether it is a constitutional amendment that allows pensions to be modified," Sosnowski said, pleading to his colleagues to come up with answers now. "We need to reverse this trend. We need to get back to an economy that people can embrace. They want to live here, they want to stay here, their kids want to stay here, and the state can grow like Ted mentioned."

Sosnowski also cited the example of Detroit as a warning, where pensioners lost money when the city went bankrupt.

“Local retirement costs are largely a consequence of the state’s top-down, one-size-fits-all mandates which prevent cities from actually solving their pension problems,” Wirepoints reported.