If you listen to the angst coming from the Northwest Municipal Conference, you'll be led to believe that Illinois firefighters are trying to gobble up the last taxpayer dime, like some Pac-Man gorging his way through a maze of electronic dots.
 
You'd be right to listen, but you'd be incorrect to believe everything the municipal officials may say.

Recently the municipal conference, which is comprised of local government officials from northwest suburban Chicago, painted a grim financial picture for municipalities. At the core of this gloomy portrait, so say the mayors and village board presidents, is their inability to keep up with growing pension demands from their firefighters.

For the record, the Associated Fire Fighters of Illinois went into this year's legislative session in Springfield armed with a pension reform package. More importantly, the package we introduced in the General Assembly contains no requests for increases in benefits for our members. Rather, we have put forth legislation that addresses the financial concerns voiced by municipalities not just in the northwest suburbs, but statewide.....to read the rest of the article please follow the link to the Daily Herald's website.  If youare unable to find the full story or the link no longer works, please contact the webmaster for The Lisle-Woodridge Fire Fighters.