* From a Tribune editorial…

Dear John,

We hope this note finds you and your Illinois Senate well. How fortunate that we can write a postscript to our “Dear President Cullerton,” letter published Tuesday: We were relieved later in the day to finally see actuarial math attached to your plan, the one labor supports.

Pension fund managers for teachers, state workers and university personnel ran the numbers on your plan. We’re quite certain that you were among the disappointed.

Instead of the estimated $46 billion in savings to taxpayers that you had projected over the next 30 years, your plan would save closer to $40 billion — at best: That number includes potential savings when existing pension bonds mature and free up some money. But if future legislators divert that money to anything other than pension burdens, your plan’s savings drop to $30 billion.

That’s not much, is it John, compared with some $150 billion that a rival House pension plan is projected to save taxpayers. Plus, your plan would free up only $560 million in the budget for fiscal year 2015. That’s lower than the $850 million estimate you’ve used.

Aww. How sweet.

Those folks are really quite something, eh?

One problem, though: the House’s pension plan hasn’t yet been examined by the actuaries.

* And Senate President Cullerton doesn’t seem to care about what the Tribsters are saying…

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton is urging a House vote on his pension-reform plan even though Speaker Michael Madigan has his own proposal.

Cullerton told The Associated Press Wednesday he believes House members want to vote on his measure to close a $97 billion debt in the pension systems.

House members say the Cullerton legislation doesn’t save enough money. Cullerton says it can survive a court challenge.

* The Illinois Federation of Teachers’ president isn’t backing down, either…

“We have public employee unions saying, ‘Look, we’ll put in the order of $50 billion or more on the table to solve a public problem. I don’t think there’s any other state where that is happening,” Montgomery said.

Montgomery says the Senate plan is constitutional because it gives retirees a choice, unlike the House plan.

The measure gives workers and retirees a choice of benefit packages. For example, workers who want to receive 3 percent cost-of-living increases compounded annually wouldn’t get health insurance.

Even though the Senate pension proposal won’t save as much as the House plan, Montgomery said will still go a long way toward reforming Illinois’ broken pension system

* Here’s some audio of a Montgomery interview from this morning…

At about the the 3:30 mark, Montgomery claims that Nekritz’s own numbers “have never added up,” and blasts her for cutting benefits for the middle class.

* Background..

Illinois House members said Tuesday that Senate President John Cullerton’s pension reform proposal saves less than 60 percent of what he has predicted.

Reps. Elaine Nekritz and Darlene Senger released numbers from an actuarial study of the Cullerton plan that showed it would reduce the public employee pension system debt, now at $97 billion, by less than $6 billion. Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, says his plan would reduce that obligation by $10 billion.

Lawmakers continue to wrestle with the monstrous unfunded liability; there are just 10 days left in the scheduled session of the General Assembly.

Nekritz and Senger met with reporters to lay out the calculations on the Cullerton bill, which was done by pension system actuaries. But they noted the decrease could vary depending on factors used to compute it _ House Democrats say $5.2 billion, the GOP says $5.7 billion.

* Nekritz explains…