Bolingbrook Police Pension Fund places 130th among Illinois’ least funded pension systems in 2024

In 2024, the Bolingbrook Police Pension Fund ranked 130th among the most underfunded police and fire pension systems statewide, the Illinois Department of Insurance (IDOI) reported.

The fund follows the City pension system model in Illinois and reported total pension liabilities of $195,113,060, matched with an actuarial funding value of $105,905,554.

This equates to a funding ratio of 54.3%, meaning the fund fell short by 45.7% of the assets actuarially required for pledged retirement benefits.

The resulting funding gap translated into an unfunded liability of about $89,207,506 for the pension fund.

The Illinois Department of Insurance compiles and releases information on local police and fire pension funds—systems that rely financially on municipal residents for support.

As of 2024, the state had 363 police pension funds and 300 fire pension funds. Municipalities may administer either one or both pension systems.

A number of municipalities were not included in unfunded liabilities rankings in 2024, as 64 municipalities were entirely debt free on police or fire pensions that year.

Often referred to as “pension benefits,” police and fire pension responsibilities are regarded as deferred pay. Occasionally, municipalities pledge retirement income to public safety employees before securing dedicated employer or taxpayer contributions, producing funding shortfalls. These create pension debts for municipalities—financial responsibilities for future taxpayers. Communities fund pension systems each year, primarily through property taxes, as found in IDOI’s records.

In 2024, Illinois’ average funding ratio for police and fire pension funds was 65.1%, signaling significant gaps in funding local public safety retirements.

The Glencoe Firefighters Pension Fund recorded the lowest statewide funding ratio at just 0.9%.

The Savoy Firefighters Pension Fund appeared as the most robustly funded pension system, at a 797.7% funding ratio and $149,803 in actuarial assets, well beyond required payouts.

Illinois saw its total statewide pension debt rise by $1.5 billion in 2024, reaching $143.7 billion, per the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, marking three straight years of increases and pulling near its two-decade record of $144.2 billion, reached in 2020.

The Public Pension Division of the State Department of Insurance detailed that suburban and downstate pension systems carried $12.1 billion in unfunded actuarial pension obligations in 2024, for a combined funding ratio of 49.18%, meaning more than half the assets needed to pay promised retirements were unfunded.

A separate study from the Equable Institute found Illinois had the highest proportion of GDP committed to unfunded pension liabilities among states in 2024—close to 20%.

The Illinois Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, identified that contributions from taxpayers to state pensions increased from $614 million in fiscal 1996 up to $11.2 billion for fiscal 2025 as illinois’ pension crisis has intensified the tax burden.

All data in this story comes from the Illinois Department of Insurance (IDOI). Source records are available here.