On Wednesday, new Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner gave his State of the State address.
The speech wasn’t short on policy ideas – but in one area, Rauner was conspicuously mum: Pensions.
Rauner didn’t so much as say the words “pension” or “retirement” in his speech. Observers say he could be saving that talk for his budget address later this month.
More from the Chicago Tribune, including reaction from credit rating agencies:
For rating agency analysts, who routinely check the state’s pulse for signs of improving health, the assessment was simple: “Show me.”
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On Wednesday, Rauner provided little detail about how he’d tackle Illinois’ largest financial troubles.
The past is littered with proposals to “right the ship, but they didn’t get there,” said Karen Krop, an analyst for Fitch. “We’re looking for an effective balanced budget and a pension solution.”
She said she will be watching closely for the governor’s coming budget proposal — a document that will provide more detail than the agenda Rauner outlined this week. The key, Krop said, would be permanent solutions to the state’s financial problems.
The state’s rating, its financial grade, has been “downgraded multiple times over the last five years because of its inability to find permanent solutions,” Krop said. There’s a “mismatch between spending and revenue,” and while temporary tax increases helped since 2011, they aren’t lasting.
“A lot has to do with the pension liability,” Moody’s analyst Ted Hampton said. “The state is still a long way off from coming to terms with its pension liabilities.”
A potential pension solution remains tied up in courts and is a major reason why rating agencies such as Moody’s have graded Illinois as the most unhealthy of states financially.
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“Illinois’ long-term liabilities, particularly pension liabilities, are very high for a U.S. state and are expected to remain so even with improvement in pension funding from pension reform,” Krop said.
Read the full speech here.
By Steven Vance [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons