* Some people are just never happy unless they get everything they want. For instance, here is a press release by R. Eden Martin, the president of the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago regarding the pension reform bill approved yesterday…

“This bill is a small step in the right direction but it doesn’t begin to solve the State’s urgent fiscal problems. The only way to achieve significant cost reductions now is to reform retirement benefits for current state employees prospectively and new hires moving forward. The people of Illinois are not going to be satisfied with tiny steps in the right direction when we have a State fiscal crisis of this magnitude on our hands.”

Senate President John Cullerton said yesterday that his research shows cutting benefits not yet earned by current employees cannot legally be done. And the General Assembly was nervous enough about cutting benefits for future employees that a cut to current employees would’ve been hugely tough, if not downright impossible.

Today’s Tribune editorial was entitled “Don’t be fooled“…

That said, we understand the realpolitik here: Democrats and Republicans who voted for this bill Wednesday can tell voters they’ve done something worthwhile, even if it doesn’t much diminish the state’s current budget crisis or pay down our already staggering unfunded pension obligations.

What the politicians can’t pretend, though, is that this bill repairs how Illinois spends money today. Until they’ve made the major spending reforms that this page and other voices keep advocating, Gov. Pat Quinn is free to keep scaring people with his threat to slash education funding by $1.3 billion.

As we’ve already discussed, the Tribune’s budget cut ideas are grossly inflated and some are even downright bogus. And if editorial board members had bothered to read their own paper, they’d know there are some significant immediate and longterm budget savings in this package…

But the growth in the state’s pension debt should be reduced dramatically, said Dan Long, executive director of the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. Long also said the state will save $119 billion over the next 35 years under the legislation.

Though major pension savings won’t accumulate for years, Quinn and lawmakers plan to use the pension changes to save money as they craft a budget in the face of a $13 billion shortfall. Because the bill allows officials to recalculate the state’s overall pension burden, they estimate saving $300 million to $1 billion in pension payments that would have been required in the next budget.

COGFA has a rough estimate of $500 million to $1 billion for next fiscal year. It won’t cure the deficit, but it ain’t chump change, either.

* Doug Whitley of the Illinois Chamber was far more optimistic than the naysayers…

And so was Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno…

“This bill is not window dressing. It’s substantial reform,” said Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno.

The Sun-Times editorial board, which is way more reality-based than the Tribune’s grumpy old men, praised the proposal as a “giant first step.” But they did have some quibbles…

We don’t think all employees should wait until 67 to retire. Is that really the right age for a kindergarten teacher?

We’re concerned that the cost-of-living reduction is too severe. The bill exempts the financially weak pension systems for police officers and firefighters, which we think is a mistake.

* The bill’s highlights…

* Require an employee to be 67 years old with 10 years of service in order to qualify for unreduced benefits. A person could retire at age 62 with 10 years of service, but with a reduction in benefits of 6 percent per year.

* Cap the salary used to determine benefits at $106,800.

* Base benefits on the highest average salary earned during eight consecutive years of the last 10 years of service. Now the benefit is based on four years of service.

* Would stop compounding annual cost-of-living benefit increases; those increases would be based on 3 percent or one-half of the consumer price index, whichever is less.

* Limit participation in the “alternative formula,” which provides enhanced benefits for high-risk state jobs, to correctional officers, state police and state firefighters.

* Do not allow a person to draw a pension from one system while working a full-time job covered by another pension system. Pension payments would be suspended during such a period.

* Who’s covered…

The measure that passed Wednesday takes aim at 13 pension systems, including those representing state workers, teachers, Chicago city and park district employees, Cook County workers, legislators and judges. Police and firefighters are exempt from the changes.

* The Chicago schools provision…

The plan also gives Chicago’s public schools a windfall to address what could be a $1 billion deficit next school year by reducing the amount that must be contributed toward teacher pensions by $1.23 billion over three years. The measure also extends by 14 years the period when the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund must be 90 percent funded. It is now 74 percent funded.

The Sun-Times editorial addressed that as well…

We support this, reluctantly, because the only real alternative is unconscionable cuts in the classroom. In general, we oppose underfunding pensions. That is, after all, how Illinois got into this fiscal mess in the first place.

* The reaction from union leaders was intense…

“This bill is nothing more than lawmakers shifting the burden of the state’s past mistakes onto future teachers and public employees,” said Ed Geppert, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers. “If this bill becomes law, Illinois will have the highest teacher retirement age in the country.”

The Illinois Federation of Teachers’ political director Steve Preckwinkle talked to me last night about the bill and the union’s political plans. Watch it…

So did AFSCME president Henry Bayer…

* The rationale…

David Vaught, Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget director, said he was concerned that Illinois’ bond rating, which determines the interest rate the state will have to pay on borrowed money, could be downgraded again when the state seeks to borrow about $1 billion in April to fund the capital construction plan.

Vaught said pension reform could help Illinois avoid a slip in its rating because it would show investors that the state is taking steps to address its structural deficit and “the straitjacket of skyrocketing pension costs.” The state’s total pension liability is $126.5, billion, $77.8 billion of which is unfunded.

Thoughts?