SPRINGFIELD - Communities are indebted to their police and fire personnel for serving as local heroes, but the cost of that debt appears to be burning a hole in the pockets of local governments.

Illinois municipalities are scrambling to fund their police and fire retirement systems, which have grown with the passage of new pension policies approved by lawmakers in Springfield.

Last year, Calumet City invested nearly $3.5 million in its respective police and fire pensions. On top of that annual contribution, the city has directed an additional $200,000 in pensions since 2005 which directly translated to less police and fire protection.

"If we had more funding, we would have had more police officers on the street, we would have had more firemen in the station," said City Treasurer Michael Zimmerman, who adds that 31 percent of the city's finances go to police and fire pension. "It was a financial restraint and it was a direct result of the fluctuations in the pension funds."

Zimmerman says the quality of Calumet City's emergency response hasn't been affected by the financial impact of its growing pension liabilities.

But, programs across the state are fighting for survival while police and fire pension funds take an ever increasing chunk out of cities' fiscal pies.

Officials in Carbondale have gone so far as to reconsider imposing a property tax if they are forced to send more municipal dollars into police and fire pensions - a tax they haven't levied in five years.

"We do not levy a property tax at all for general government, we operate from general revenues, primarily our sales tax which is 7.75 percent," Carbondale City Manager Jeff Doherty said. "What we've seen is, while we've had a nice growth in sales tax revenue, the contribution for public safety pension have grown at a higher rate."

City of Bloomington stands its ground

So far, Bloomington's economy has stood its ground and absorbed the rising pension costs. But, City Manager Tom Hamilton says it's only a matter of time before Bloomington is forced to put community programs on the chopping block while pitching more tax increases.

"It's a general fund expenditure and it's hard to keep track of which projects are getting cut, but what it does is makes it that much more difficult to balance a budget," said Hamilton. "To do so, we've had to raise other revenues and property tax is a revenue residents don't like to see. Who knows what we'll have to do next year."

Next year, select communities may have to make room for new pension expenditures for old firefighters.

State Rep. Donald Moffitt, R-Gilson, has introduced legislation that would rejuvenate pension funds for firefighters who retired before 1971. If approved, the legislation would recalculate those firefighters' monthly pension by reflecting the amount they would have received by January 2009 had the firefighter been earning a three percent increase for each year of pension earned.

"It's removing age-discrimination; there's already a gap and if we don't do something, we're allowing the disparity to widen," said Moffitt, adding that there are 31 firefighters who would qualify for the recalculated pension, all of whom are between 81 and 98-years-old. "It would bring this group of the oldest of the retirees just onto even keel with the same system of current retirees."

The Illinois Municipal League, which lobbies state lawmakers on behalf of cities, says Moffitt's legislation will add pressure on those municipalities, some of which currently fund less than half of their police and fire pension liabilities.

"We have got to come up with some strategies to prevent the debt from continued escalation and that begins with the General Assembly," said IML spokesman Joe McCoy, who says police and fire pension debt has grown by $650 million since the last pension law was approved in 2006. "If we can put the brakes on this now, that would be a tremendous aid to our cause."

Moffitt says any municipality that's "afraid that doing the right thing is going to break their budget, is already in financial trouble."

The bill number is House Bill 4644.

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Underfunded pensions

According to an IML spokesperson, pension funds accounting for 90 percent of liabilities are considered well-funded. Some municipalities with underfunded firefighter pensions as of fiscal year 2006*:

Carbondale - 64.11 percent

Decatur - 62.29 percent

Bloomington - 58.27 percent

Moline - 50.60 percent

Rock Island - 48.66 percent

Charleston - 70.45 percent

Mattoon - 59.03 percent

Calumet City - 67.54 percent

*According to 2007 Public Pension Report released by the Illinois Department of Professional and Financial Regulations and its divisions of Insurance and Professional Regulation.