The never ending story of the challenge of communities in Illinois to meet their pension obligations to fire and police personnel visited the Dixon City Council meeting Monday night.
The city took the first step towards the selling of $22,750,000 in bonds to help pay the unfunded police and fire pensions. City Manager Dan Langloss said if the city was already at 100% funding the cities pension payment would be at $500,000. The hard truth is the cities payment this year is $2.5 million and it is fast approaching $3 million. Langloss said the city, even with the economic growth, cannot afford to pay that much yearly.
The council heard from Bab Vale of Bernardi’s Securities who discussed the advantages of doing the bonds. He said the goal is to smooth over the payments, making them manageable for the city.
After the council approved the first step the city has to get a bond rating. City Attorney Rob LeSage said it has been a long time since the city issued bonds. It may be a couple of months before the council needs to make a final decision.
According to state law municipalities must be at least 90% fully paid on pensions.
