Illinois Policy Institute presentation made in Jax

By Gary Scott on June 29, 2016 at 11:30am

A presentation in Jacksonville by a fiscally conservative Illinois group advocated for a shift in state employee pensions Tuesday night.

Two representatives of the Illinois Policy Institute spoke for an hour to those in attendance at the Morgan County Republican Women’s Club meeting.

The presentation shed light on problems the institute has with “defined benefit” plans, as well as the state’s ballooning deficit- projected to reach $568-billion by 2044.     The Illinois Policy Institute advocates for a 401K retirement program for state employees and a “defined contribution” plan.

Heavy blame was volleyed at Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, with a sign set up featuring his image above the word “OBEY”.

Jacksonville State Representative C.D. Davidsmeyer attended last night’s presentation. He offers his thoughts.

“I think they were pointing out a lot of the state’s problems that everybody understands, try to explain the basics of where we are, how we got here, and possibly propose some ideas on how we get out,” says Davidsmeyer. “Obviously, there’s many differing opinions throughout the State of Illinois, and this is definitely one of them.”

As for the topic of pensions, Davidsmeyer says he doesn’t think there’s a problem with offering options.