The Illinois Senate is considering selling up to $4.1 billion in pension bonds, Pensions & Investments reports. The move will finance all of the state’s required $3.74 billion in contributions to the five state retirement systems for the current fiscal year.
The state already has nearly $13 billion in pension obligations bonds still outstanding from $10 billion offloaded in 2003 and $3.4 billion in January 2010. The state systems are being forced to sell investments at an annualized rate of about 10 percent of their assets to pay monthly pension benefits, as Illinois has not made any of its required contributions since the fiscal year began on July 1, 2010.
