< The 2015 Pension 40: The Long Climb

Bruce Rauner, 58, inherited more than just a $4 billion unbalanced budget and imploding credit ratings when, backed by Chicago business interests led by Citadel’s Kenneth Griffin, he became governor of Illinois in January. He also got the most underfunded state pension system in the U.S., with only 43.4 percent of benefits bankrolled, compared with 55 percent in the second-worst state, Connecticut. Illinois has been operating without a budget since July because of a stalemate between the Republican governor and the Democrat-controlled legislature. In an effort to shrink the state’s now-$6.9 billion debt by “a couple of billion” dollars a year, Rauner, former chairman of Chicago private equity firm GTCR, released a 500-page pension reform bill in July that rattled many cages, from the Chicago Teachers Union to Democratic state senators. Rauner laid out plans to effectively reduce benefits for police, firefighters and teachers, and remove state and local workers’ pensions from collective bargaining. Critics howled, arguing that the plan was unconstitutional, just like former Democratic governor Pat Quinn’s 2013 pension revamp, which the Illinois Supreme Court knocked down in May 2014, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s (No. 9) plan, which a Cook County circuit court voided in July 2015. A legal challenge undoubtedly awaits. Meanwhile, the state can’t release the $560 million November pension payment because of what the Chicago Tribune called a grotesque stalemate; the Illinois’ comptroller has warned that the debt could balloon to $8.5 billion by year-end if a deal isn’t reached. Rauner, a Harvard Business School graduate, was elected on a pro-business, antiunion platform. His campaign promised to cap the current pension system, shift to a defined contribution structure and check near-retirement wage hikes for government employees. Getting any of that done has proved to be difficult. And Rauner finds himself trapped in the no-win zone of a pension crisis.

 
The 2015 Pension 40

1. Bruce Rauner Illinois 2. John & Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation Sponsored Fireside Chat: Why We’re Bullish About Asset-Based Private Credit Sponsored by Castlelake November 3, 2025 3. Chris Christie New Jersey 4. Randi Weingarten AmericanFederation of Teachers 5. Phyllis Borzi U.S. Department of Labor

6. Kevin de León California 7. Alejandro García Padilla Commonwealth ofPuerto Rico 8. Laurence Fink BlackRock 9. Rahm Emanuel Chicago 10. Sean McGarvey North AmericanBuilding Trades Unions

11. John Kline Minnesota 12. J. Mark Iwry U.S. Treasury Department 13. Damon Silvers AFL-CIO 14. Jeffrey Immelt General Electric Co. 15. Joshua Gotbaum Brookings Institution

16. Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. 17. Mark Mullet Washington 18. Terry O'Sullivan Laborers' International Union of North America 19. Raymond Dalio Bridgewater Associates 20. Ted Wheeler Oregon

21. Thomas Nyhan Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund 22. Karen Ferguson & Karen Friedman Pensions Rights Center 23. Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee forMultiemployer Plans 24. Robert O'Keef Motorola Solutions 25. Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley

26. Kenneth Feinberg The Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg 27. Orrin Hatch Utah 28. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University 29. Ian Lanoff Groom Law Group 30. Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business

31. Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees' Retirement System 32. Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services 33. Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research 34. Denise Nappier Connecticut 35. W. Thomas Reeder Jr. Pension BenefitGuaranty Corp.

36. Hank Kim National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems 37. Paul Singer Elliott Management Corp. 38. Bailey Childers National PublicPension Coalition 39. Amy Kessler Prudential Financial 40. Judy Mares U.S. Labor Department