The latest effort to reach a compromise on a state pension overhaul involves a special panel of lawmakers. The Illinois House and Senate conference committee was created to work out a deal that has, so far, eluded the legislature. GOP representative Jil Tracy of Mount Sterling is one of four Republicans on the ten-member panel which meets for the first time Thursday. She thinks they can come to an agreement:
“We just have a huge task that we have to get done. I mean, that's it. Everyone in Illinois is counting on us. We have to come up with something and I think we will.”
In the spring session, Tracy backed a plan that would force employees to work longer, pay more and receive less money in retirement. She says she would have supported a competing plan with less severe cuts to state employees, university workers and teachers, but that measure was never called for a vote in the House.
Tracy says Illinois must address the issue to make sure the pension systems do not collapse.