Springfield Rush Job

Rahm working hard on the weekend before the state legislature bails out for the summer:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to fix Chicago’s police and fire pension systems cleared its first hurdle at the Capitol on Friday, an approach that requires all city revenue from a Chicago casino to be paid into the funds and gives the city more time to restore the funds’ financial health.

The key to all of this is ....a massive delay in paying what the funds have been shorted for years:

• Key to Emanuel’s plan: Instead of requiring the city to pay a whopping $549 million more for police and fire pensions next year, payments would increase by just $330 million. That would provide the mayor some breathing room as he tries to put together a 2016 budget this fall.

And of course, there's always a catch:

• The catch, of course, is that Chicago does not yet have a casino. Backers of gambling expansion are trying to put together a deal that would bring one to Chicago and other cities as well as provide slot machines for horse racing tracks, but that is unlikely to be accomplished before lawmakers go home for the summer following Sunday’s scheduled adjournment.

And a lonely voice of reason:

• Rep. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, said the measure was repeating past mistakes by putting off payments and amounted to an "underfunding" of the system. She questioned the wisdom of relying on money from a casino that has yet to be approved.
  
  "You're essentially in fantasyland here assuming you're going to get a casino," Ives said.

We'll see if Rauner plays ball with his wine-tasting buddy Rahm and signs anything rushed through the House and Senate at the last minute.

What about this provision though?

• The legislation also includes provisions to ensure that retiring police officers and firefighters who are at least 50 years old and served for 20 years or more get annual benefits equal to 125 percent of the amount earned by people living at the poverty level, as determined by the federal government.

Is that a ceiling or a floor? Is that for new hires who aren't getting the pension as defined under old hiring rules? Is that calculated on everyone on the job retiring and moving to Appalachia? Or Englewood? Because that sounds suspiciously like a reduction in the promises of what we and thousands of others were hired under. How about some clarification?