Thursday, March 19, 2009

Nearly all Illinois state workers face furloughs, higher health-care costs

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 would require most state employees to take unpaid days off work and foot a bigger portion of health insurance.

Nearly all state employees, except those working in public-safety jobs or who provide direct patient care, would have to take four furlough days — one for each quarter of the year. That would reduce state costs by an estimated $36 million, according to Quinn’s administration.

In addition, current state employees and retired state workers who aren’t yet eligible for Medicare would have to pay a greater share of their health-care costs. That shift would slice another $200 million in state expenses, officials said.

Quinn also will call for overhauling the state’s pension system, and part of that would involve increasing current state workers’ pension contributions by 2 percentage points.

Other changes, affecting only new employees, would set a later retirement age and reduce pension benefits. The result would be a two-tiered, defined-benefits pension system for state workers, said Jack Lavin, Quinn’s chief operating officer.

1 comment:

Gerard S. Denys said...

Why don't we just review the whole budget. Pull all the waste and corruption out. You would probably be able to cut taxes.