Spending on state-worker pension benefits grew 586 percent between 2000 and 2015.
The perk costs taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars each year.
More than 1.7 million Illinoisans hold student-loan debt.
State-run teacher pensions have a shortfall of $37,000 per student, while Chicago's shortfall totals $24,000.
Skyrocketing pensions, bloated administrations are pricing students out of college degrees
The crisis threatens to burden taxpayers with massive, ever-escalating taxes to bail out a system that is not sustainable – government-worker pensions consume a fourth of the state’s budget.
Government-worker union officials filed papers with the Illinois General Assembly in favor of the “pension holiday” that contributed to the state’s $111 billion pension debt.
CPS is broke. To preserve funding for the classroom and Chicago's children, and to keep CPS from going belly up, CPS officials must broker significant concessions from the union.
From 2009 to 2014, the state added $8.9 billion in new tax dollars to the education budget, over and above the base amount of $6.8 billion it spent in 2009. Of those new dollars spent, 89 percent went to retirement costs and just 11 percent made it to classrooms.
Since 2009, 89 cents of every new dollar for education goes to teacher pensions
CTU President Karen Lewis has acknowledged that CPS is in dire straits – and that her union may have to make concessions in contract negotiations, including ending the practice of the school district – meaning taxpayers – picking up the majority of teacher contributions toward pensions, which has cost $1.3 billion since 2006.
On Jan. 21 Gov. Bruce Rauner reignited reform talks surrounding Illinois’ worst-in-the-nation pension crisis.
Here's what you need to know about Illinois' $111 billion state pension crisis.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services issued a two-notch downgrade to the Chicago Board of Education on Jan. 15, citing failure to address the district’s structural financial problems.