Galesburg Mayor John Pritchard says the city’s biggest financial millstones are health insurance and pension contribution costs.That’s why he’s continuing to advocate for the state to allow police and fire pensions to join the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, the best funded and second largest public pension system in the state.
Galesburg City Council budgeted in 2019 to contribute 15 percent more to these two pension funds, than the state requires but still less than what’s actuarially recommended.
Stagnant housing prices have left the city’s tax levy a little lower than it was in 2010, but pension contributions have more than doubled.
While about a quarter of property tax money went to these funds nine years ago, its now up to 61 percent.
Hindsight’s 20/20, but Pritchard says IMRF and municipal police and fire pensions have had return rates of 11 percent and 4.5 percent respectively.
“If you just looked at Galesburg’s fire pension fund, over the last 20 years on average we would’ve made $1.3 million more on our investments. Which means, if we had done that, we wouldn’t be dipping into millions of dollars of tax payer dollars to fund it every year,” Pritchard says.
Pritchard said he wants to make clear that police and firefighters work hard and deserve their pensions, he simply believes there’s a better way to invest the money.
