Illinois legislative leaders are trying to persuade lawmakers to embrace a solution for the nation’s worst-funded U.S. public pension system as unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers and retirees push against the proposal, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. The holiday weekend of lobbying is the prelude to the legislature’s Dec. 3 return, when lawmakers in the Democrat-dominated General Assembly will consider the plan designed to save $160 billion over 30 years and restore stability to the retirement system. Leaders didn’t disclose the measure’s particulars, but labor groups mobilized nonetheless. Illinois’s five pension systems had 40 percent of the assets needed to cover obligations in fiscal 2011, the lowest ratio among states, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That has led to repeated credit downgrades for the lowest-rated U.S. state. Tuesday’s proposal, agreed to by Democratic and Republican leaders, follows months of discussions by a special legislative panel appointed to develop a compromise.
