I’m trying to get a real grip on the financial hellscape of my home state, Illinois, for a novel I’m working on. The Illinois constitution ensures the benefits

I’m trying to get a real grip on the financial hellscape of my home state, Illinois, for a novel I’m working on. The Illinois constitution ensures the benefits of public sector employees, and these benefits, once enacted, cannot be diminished. Basically, it made short term political sense to increase benefits, and so politicians did, whereas in the long term this spelled doom. In order to fund the pension, the state cuts services and puts assets from the school system into hock. Teachers, cops, firefighters, municipal workers, et. al. consume the state’s finances, and every plan that has been proposed to reduce the pension problems, even if endorsed by the union, has been challenged by individual members and been ruled unconstitutional by the state’s Supreme Court. It seems like teachers in Illinois are on a defined benefit plan where the contributions are a percentage of the salary. Increasing the salary of starting teachers statewide to $60,000.00 would have staggering consequences in Illinois. It’s pretty interesting, if bleak. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/pensions-101-understanding-illinois-massive-government-worker-pension-crisis/ https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/pensions-101-understa...