Keeping Our Promises pays off the city's pension debt on a fixed 20-year schedule written into law. A voter-approved Pension Promise line on the property tax costs the median homeowner about $2.14 a day, or $65 a month, and ends when the debt is gone.
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PART OF THE NEW BURNHAM PLAN
WARRANTY
Keeping Our Promises: Paying Off the Pension Debt
We keep our promises to retirees, police, firefighters and city workers, and the pension debt finally ends.
The city's pension debt is paid off in 20 years on a schedule written into law, and then the charge ends. It costs the median homeowner about $2.14 a day, and you vote on it.
Chicago owes its four city pension funds about $36.4 billion more than they have. For decades mayors and legislators paid less than the benefits cost and passed the bill along. The state's minimum payment barely covers the interest, so the debt keeps growing, and 76 cents of every city property tax dollar already goes to pensions. That's money that isn't fixing your street or keeping your library open.
So we stop managing the debt and pay it off. Every fund goes on a fixed 20-year schedule, written into city ordinance, and the city never pays less than the funds' own actuaries, the experts who calculate what each fund needs, say it should. Paying more, sooner, costs less in total: when the municipal fund got an extra $168.7 million in 2025, its actuary said it would cut the city's required payments through 2058 by about $342 million.
To pay for it, you vote on one dedicated line on the property tax, the Pension Promise. It's about $2.14 a day for the median homeowner, or $65 a month. It only ever goes on top of the payment state law already requires. It also takes about $324 million of pension payments off the city's operating budget, which closes about a third of the city's projected 2027 budget gap.
We'll bring the cost down too: pool the four funds' investments to cut fees, give future hires a Wisconsin-style plan, where workers and the city split contributions and raises after retirement rise and fall with investment returns, so it can't build up a new debt, and push Springfield to treat Chicago teachers like teachers in the rest of the state.
WHAT IT WON'T DO
It doesn't cut anyone's pension. Retirees and current workers keep every dollar they earned. The new design is only for people the city hires in the future, bargained with their unions.
It isn't a charge that lasts forever. The Pension Promise line ends when the debt is paid off.
It only ever adds to what the city pays. It never replaces it.
It doesn't borrow or play games with the books. There are no pension bonds, and future taxes are never counted as money already in the bank. The line pays in cash, every year.
It doesn't take money from your neighborhood. None of the money for the Remodel Fund (the neighborhood fund) or the Spine Line (the new subway) goes to pensions, and the money the city gets back as TIF districts close stays in the operating budget.
How it connects
Nothing in this plan works alone. These are the questions people ask next, and the policies that answer them.
Where does the TIF money go? TIF (tax increment financing) districts set aside the growth in property taxes for development deals instead of schools, parks and city services, and the plan winds them down. None of that money goes to pensions.
TIF Abolition →
What if we win the parking meters back? Dibs On Our Streets challenges the 2008 parking meter lease. If the city wins, the meter money goes to the pension funds, on top of the Pension Promise payments.
Dibs On Our Streets →
What's the other line on my bill? The Chicago Remodel Fund is a separate voter-approved line on the property tax that rebuilds neighborhoods block by block.
Chicago Remodel Fund →
Does the Spine Line help pay pensions? No. None of the money for the Spine Line, the new subway, goes to pensions.
Spine Line →
How do we get more people sharing the bill? Housing Abundance lets more homes get built again, so more neighbors share the city's bills.
Housing Abundance →
Who checks the books? Honest Government puts the city's spending and contracts on public dashboards and takes away the city decisions that can be sold.
Honest Government →
FISCAL IMPACT
Revenue Generating
RENOVATION STEP
Warranty
SHOW THE FULL POLICY DETAILS
01
Where it ranks
HOW WE DELIVER IT · PROTECT IT
#2 of 3
PROTECT IT
75 / 100
Enables
Scale
Long-term
PROVEN It pays off the $36.4 billion pension debt in 20 years through a separate voter-approved Pension Promise line on the property tax, about $2.14 a day, or $65 a month, for the median homeowner, which ends when the debt is paid. It frees up money in the yearly budget for every city service. It follows Philadelphia's example. It reaches every taxpayer, because pensions take 76 cents of every city property tax dollar. People feel it slowly, as the debt stops crowding out services.
See all the priorities
How I set them
02
How it works
Pay the debt off in 20 years, by law
A city ordinance requires the city to pay at least the full amount each fund's actuaries calculate every year, and enough more to pay every fund's debt off on a fixed 20-year schedule, counted from the first year the Pension Promise line, a new voter-approved property tax line for pensions, is collected. The schedule is closed: it doesn't roll forward, so the debt actually reaches zero. That includes the laborers' fund, which is on a rolling 30-year schedule today that never reaches zero.
Until the line is collected
Until the Pension Promise line is collected, the city keeps making at least the extra payment its own policy already requires on top of the state minimum. It never cuts that payment.
The Pension Promise line
The Pension Promise line is a separate property tax line that voters approve. It raises about $1.29 billion a year above the state minimum. For the median homeowner, that's about $2.14 a day, or $65 a month. It ends when the debt is paid off on the 20-year schedule. It doesn't stop at 90% funded, the state's target, because the promise is to finish paying. It also takes about $324 million of the city's extra pension payment off the operating budget, the budget for day-to-day city services, where it sits today with no money set aside to cover it.
The line only adds to what the city pays
The rule sets a minimum for the total the city pays, and that minimum is written into the ordinance and the ballot question. Every year the city pays at least the state-required payment, plus its own extra-payment policy, plus what the 20-year schedule needs. The line can never be used to push the total below that. The line may pay for the city's extra payment, but it never replaces the state-required payment.
Extra money goes on top of the schedule
If the city wins back the 2008 parking meter lease, that money (the meters brought in $160.9 million in 2024) goes to the pension funds above the actuaries' number, so the debt is gone sooner. None of it is counted until it arrives. I oppose the sale of the lease, which the City Council approved on September 29, 2026, and the plan counts no money from it. The city's share of money freed up from TIF districts (areas where growth in property taxes is set aside for development deals) stays in the operating budget to close deficits. The Spine Line (the new subway planned under Western Avenue and 95th Street) and the Chicago Remodel Fund (the voter-approved neighborhood fund on the property tax) send no money to pensions.
Lower what the debt costs: pool the investments
The four funds are run by independent boards, and each hires its own outside investment managers. Together the four pay about $42.7 million a year in direct investment fees. Illinois pooled about 650 suburban and downstate police and fire funds in 2019, and the director of the firefighters' pool says its costs fell from 0.57% to 0.12% of assets. At a similar level, Chicago would save $21-25 million a year in fees. Large funds also tend to earn more, possibly about $20 million a year (CEM Benchmarking, 2022).
Stop new debt from building up
For workers Chicago hires in the future, the plan proposes a Wisconsin-style design, bargained with their unions: workers and the city split contributions, and raises after retirement rise and fall with investment returns instead of being guaranteed. Nothing changes for current workers or retirees. It isn't a 401(k): Chicago's police officers and firefighters aren't in Social Security, and a 401(k) wouldn't touch the existing debt either.
Equal treatment for Chicago's teachers
The state pays 98.2% of employer pension costs for downstate teachers and 36.3% for Chicago's ($368 million of $1,014.5 million). Chicago Public Schools (CPS) pays its $646.5 million share from the property tax. Equal treatment would be a property tax cut of up to about $646 million a year. The plan pushes for it in four ways: the same rule for every school district; a bargain in which Chicago pays the actuaries' number on its own funds and the state phases in equal treatment; working with allies already pushing for it; and an advisory question for Chicago voters on the November 7, 2028 ballot.
What the plan will never do
The plan will never cut earned benefits, which the Illinois Constitution protects. It will never borrow to make pension payments (Illinois's 2003 pension bond is the warning). And it will never count future tax money as if it were already in the bank, as Jacksonville and Pittsburgh did.
Growth helps; it doesn't pay the debt
At 3 million Chicagoans, the plan's ten-year goal, each resident's share of the debt is about 9% smaller. But interest on the debt runs about $2.46 billion a year at the funds' 6.75% assumption. Growth makes the payments easier to carry, but only paying the debt ends it.
03
What it costs
Pension Promise line, above the state minimum
~$1.29B a year
Cost to the median homeowner
~$2.14 a day ($65 a month)
How the line is sized (simplified model)
20-year payoff of the $36.4B debt at 6.75% (~$3.37B a year) + the city's share of new benefits (~$0.5B) - the 2027 state minimum (~$2.58B)
The funds' actuaries' number above the state minimum
~$835M a year (sum of each fund's latest report)
Taken off the operating budget
~$324M a year (about a third of the projected 2027 gap)
Pooling the four funds' investments
~$21-25M a year in fees saved, plus possibly $20M a year from scale (not counted in the line)
Remodel Fund property tax line + Pension Promise line (median homeowner)
~$3.89 a day ($118 a month), ~31% of a $4,597 bill
All three ballot lines (Remodel Fund, Pension Promise and Spine Line)
~$5.38 a day ($164 a month), ~43% of a $4,597 bill
The size of the line is a target from a simplified model that combines all four funds. Its cost is based on the median homeowner's $4,597 property tax bill (tax year 2025) and is converted to a homeowner's cost the same way as the Remodel Fund's. It will be recalculated fund by fund and checked against the Cook County Clerk's tax rate report before it's final. Why 20 years? A 25-year finish would cost the median homeowner about $16 a month less but $5,400 more in total payments over the life of the debt. A 10-year finish would add about $88 a month, putting the Remodel Fund and pension lines at $207 a month, or 54% of the median bill. Monthly figures are the yearly charge divided by 12.
How long we take to pay it off
Paying the pension debt off faster costs more each month and less in all, because the debt grows at 6.75% a year while it's unpaid. I picked 20 years. Paying it off in 10 years costs too much each month on top of everything else, and 25 or 30 years cost thousands more in all. For the median homeowner:
10 years
A day
$5.05
A month
$154
In all
$31,000
20 years (our plan)
A day
$2.14
A month
$65
In all
$40,800
25 years
A day
$1.61
A month
$49
In all
$46,200
30 years
A day
$1.29
A month
$39
In all
$52,000
These are campaign estimates from a simplified model of all four funds combined. "In all" is the median homeowner's share of every payment Chicago makes to retire the debt over the schedule. A 30-year finish would save about $26 a month and cost $11,100 more in all, and it would finish paying the debt around the same years that the state's own schedule aims only to reach 90% funded.
04
What it takes to make it happen
CITY COUNCIL
Pass the 20-year payoff ordinance in Year 1, with the actuaries' number as the minimum payment. Approve the pension payments in every budget. Pass the Pension Promise line.
VOTERS
Approve the Pension Promise line on the March 21, 2028 Illinois primary ballot, alongside the Remodel Fund and Spine Line questions. An advisory question on equal treatment for Chicago's teachers goes on the November 7, 2028 general election ballot.
SPRINGFIELD
Pass the state law that makes the vote binding. The Remodel Fund needs the same law. If it hasn't passed, the question is advisory, and the City Council passes the line on the condition that voters say yes. Pooling the four funds' investments needs a state law (the 2019 law left Chicago out). The Wisconsin-style design for future hires needs a state law. Equal treatment for teachers' pensions needs action by the state, and the fight for it will happen in phases.
UNIONS
Bargain the Wisconsin-style design for future hires.
THE FOUR PENSION BOARDS
Keep running the funds; they are independent boards under state law.
05
Timeline
YEAR 1
The City Council passes the payoff ordinance. The city keeps at least its current extra payment and never cuts it. The requests to Springfield for the state laws begin.
MARCH 21, 2028
The Pension Promise line goes to voters.
NOVEMBER 7, 2028
An advisory question on equal treatment for Chicago teachers' pensions goes to voters.
FIRST YEAR THE LINE IS COLLECTED
The 20-year schedule starts, and about $324 million of pension payments comes off the operating budget.
EVERY YEAR
The city pays at least the floor: the state-required payment plus its own extra-payment policy plus what the 20-year schedule needs.
20 YEARS AFTER FIRST COLLECTION
Every fund's debt is paid off, and the line ends.
06
Where it's worked
Chicago today
At the end of 2025 the four city pension funds were 28.1% funded, with $36.43 billion unfunded: municipal 28.2%, laborers 44.1%, police 26.4%, fire 25.2%.
SOURCE: A CITY THAT WORKS, CHICAGO PENSION DASHBOARD (FY2025 AUDITED DATA) ↗
(OPENS IN A NEW TAB)
Chicago today
The police fund's actuary projects that under the state schedule the police debt grows to a peak of $14.9 billion in 2035, and $3.4 billion is still owed in 2055. In that valuation the actuaries' number was $1,416.7 million against a state minimum of $1,040.3 million.