ward where he makes several statements he finds a pension shortfall must be mad he finds that the pension shortfall goes to the crux of the dispute and the dispute was about and then he also says it raises the key question of how the city is going to me and the result is an award that is about pension and not about six let me ask you a question was any evidence presented about what the actual or the actuarial impact would be on the shortfall based upon the firefighters that would be affected by this rule or was it just the overall mention of list the city's various pension obligations they don't contain the actuarial sumption that's where the speaker comes from but i don't recall any evidence based on new hires versus old tires the evidence is that the assumption comes from the idea that everybody all of the fire which will fire employees are tired which is retired at one time like the what with the obligation because that's where the big that was the only actuarial assumption that was thrown leave policy today it is rather some projection that would include all liabilities including the pension liability for the future if everybody the expenditures in the pension fund or increase revenue and you break that down the way to reduce expenditures would be to let's say reduce the number of engineers or reduce the pension benefits  obligations facing the city were sides the issue specific issue of this case well i don't mean to suggest that you can't consider it and i think one of the statutory factors is the overall compensation is confronted with costs they decided in this particular case to take they actually did because they thought it was going to reduce their how are we supposed to give deference to all those children who we are by giving deference if there's a reasonable way we can assume that the arbitrator was just considering this is a arbitrator had exceeded interest arbitrator had exceeded the and it is part of you know we're seeking to undo the award which created this new second tier so that obviously what we're asking but it's it's really doesn't there's too much time educate that's correct if that's correct well ask really but i'm glad you agree it's an opinion based on experience in addition thinks there's some other faulty logic some implausible explanations the idea that the city you know is so strapped at the top of patients that it must take steps now to prevent future problem oh well that's certainly what i understood from reading this that you know it could be that just the like for firefighters so much you want to hear more thousand dollars and snack connected in any way with trying to sweeten a part of the collective bargaining here but i suspect they thought that this was probably to try to sweeten the pot so that the going to be just imposing this new rule on the firefighters is that what's going on right but they also the whole if the city offered him nothing but change the sixty's policy i don't think they're going to be very happy about this but so you know the whole this is of collective bargaining with public employees is somewhat problematic but i well i mean the idea that you would give away money while claiming you're poor is what you take issue but collective bargaining is not limited to the issue of money they can offer time off for all sorts of other things increase of personal d address what the arbitrator said he was trying to address but tell us what you believe he was trying to address well as a set of page thirteen he thought he needed to do something about the pensions for if he was moved by that he was compelled to do something which is the last page of a twenty one india and it's the next to last sentence before the award we have the foreign language the interest in the welfare of the public are served by this change because it better to now start raining in some of the city's legacy costs as opposed to facing a day of reckoning when if i'm dressed the city may be facing much more drastic steps so i'm not so sure that i read that he was necessarily trying to address something right now i think he was saying the city has provided this information regarding what the future may look like it's speculation is that definite and so it's appropriate now to put something in place that may be able to impact that and for van you know that having such a damaging effect is that wrong if that's what you saying but again i don't i security benefits and someone is applying for those benefits may say you know i was diagnosed with whatever by my doctor and such and such stated so retroactive to that day i have been in the position prior to be in this far as having the mental illness or whatever it is to qualify for this isn't this a little bit temporary their experience have situation basically that back date only relates to the fact that you have to be employed at that time it doesn't pension fund itself one said interpretation falls by the wayside union's entire argument falls without belaboring the point and without repeating all the arguments that we've included in our briefs and what you've heard here simply looking at the context of centrist arbitration proceeding and looking at how the award was crafted demonstrates that the arbitrator was under no misapprehension that he was going to immediately solve any inherent funding deficit right away you begin with looking at the party's proposals he were clearly sick leave by back the polls anyone who reads those proposals the green that they were not involved in the pension fund and you look at the evidence that was presented at the hearing to the interest arbitrator especially the city's witness its budget director he was discussing almost six almost exclusively the city's pension obligations per illinois statute he was referencing the pension fund as the cause for what was going to make the city have to pay a lot more money in the future we were not presenting arguments or evidence suggesting that the pension fund itself should be shared by the interest arbitrator when you look at the party supposed hearing to the interest arbitrator result no suggestion by any parties that the interest arbitrator had to solve the pension fund deficit all by himself well despite the lack of argument or fairness the lack of focus on almost appears as if the arbitrator's and gay gene establishing public policy and the arbitrators itself says this turns on a half ton upon how much weight if any should be given to the city's projection that require him to get sued or the interests and the welfare of life except that he's used the words that he use to make it seem as if that has become a primary factor in his thinking and then he's to be a white knight that helps the city of blues when you read his award in the context of the evidence that was presented we believe and we think a fair interpretation of the award was simply that he was using that reference to pension shortfall pension liability thirty seven point six million as simple shorthand don't different than let's say our politicians are commentators in the media will sometimes refer to the state pension crisis as just in short and the pension crisis yeah but when we make when arbitrator's make decisions i hope we're not speaking and talking like the people up there that want votes or want certain public policies we're supposed to be basically on the issue so that is a level to take that into account absolutely that would call into the factor of the public interest and welfare if the evidence at the hearing would be persuasive enough to convince the arbitrator that it is in the public interest free up money in one area we don't think that that's actually one of the elements in under the section fourteen because those are very are doing what he's doing for the greater good that we don't have any reasonable expectation that the city will pay any attention to that because throughout the state local local governments municipalities and those guys across the street aren't keeping any problems with all due respect if i with all due respect if you take it was logical extreme if there was some sort of for or some sort of condition placed on it saying i'm going to grant you your proposal but the condition is that you have to use that money if you take that to its logical extreme no employer th would ever be able to eliminate or to modify legacy costs because of the cost but it might entail in the future because there's always on expected things that might arise there might be a  hoping that they will do that i think he was convinced by the city's arguments and the evidence on repotted evidence that we were going to be having these pension funding liabilities fifteen to twenty years out and then it was time now to start helping save some money and free up some money to address those pension costs the city i polled the city council the city council so yeah it's a real problem but right now we only got enough money we will save enough money from this to fix some of the for him to accept that argument and to allocate and to grant the city's proposal it is raise your own known how is it rational for him her why it's rational because it makes sense that the city may then take that squaw savings and allocate it to other more pressing needs in the future it's rational to believe that it's rational to understand that meaning that it's not the on the realm of possibility that it will happen  have achieved through voluntary bargaining to have a lot of the unions actually reduce its legacy costs for union was not agreeable to much interest arbitration the police union gave us another trade off in another area that satisfied our l mine ok i'm i'm saying that it is entirely speculative and i think irrational to make a determination based on what you think the city might do if you're not we would say though that if you take that wi there are certain provisions in one municipality for their firefighters and it differs from another that they can't get around seemingly no matter what well the reason in the basis what our budget director testified is that this obligation has been imposed on it by the general assembly there are now very strict benchmark dates and benchmark funding contribution rates that the city is going to have to meet in the next fifteen or twenty years there is no way to get around it that is what is causing this prices in terms of funky not the pension deficit itself but the funding so in answer to your question there is no way to get around that statutory obligation to the city will have to be have to be faced with so they will have to come up with the money someplace and as opposed to the state i'm not sure how the spirit works  guess the city if they don't parry would be subject to being forced litigation were going on it would be forced to pay and i am not a pension expert but i believe the statute in question that imposes additional obligations if certain for mechanisms which involve the state comptroller and there are certain ways for them to actually take the money from the city either by reducing grants or reducing other types of state contributions so there are mechanisms in place from their return his point of view this if the city is truly suffering a financial crisis why did it offer one hundred thousand i would like to just stress that to the court under interest arbitration principles most interest arbitrators will say the party that seeking to achieve a breakthrough in collective bargaining is seeking to change make a significant change in the contract provision not only has to show the need for the change but actually as part of collective bargaining has to extend and offer something financial or something else of value to the union the city was taking the position that listen we don't think we need to offer a quid pro quo here but mr arbitrator if you think that we do hold the union once we say we will offer them one thousand dollars per employee now in terms of offsetting the burden that will have on the collective bargaining unit in the future then is theory behind why the city offered the one thousand dollars per firefighter possibly ninety six ninety seven by five years that's where the hundred thousand comes out one time not rebutted and very lightly cross examined during the interest arbitration hearing hoardings the budget director's estimated costs of four firefighter sick leave by then the city will more than three and more th compensate for that one hundred thousand dollars twenty to thirty years in the future as more and more firefighters retire with a reduced sick leave by quotes in the estimates we were making in our brief was based on a hypothetical of ten firefighters retiring after twenty years of service with fifty percent of what they would have been retiring with now for every additional firefighter they were tires that will be that much more the other key factor is our estimate was based on current dollars assuming that their wages and the cost of simply never ever increase for the next twenty or thirty years we actually put a quote or we've put a calculation in our brief that suggests that assuming even a modest wage increase over the next twenty or thirty years that overall cost or that pos avians to the city is going to be in the millions of dollars by the time we get to the two thousand and thirty s which is that important time period we're going to be facing that two thousand and forty benchmark the fully funded benchmark date where we're going to have to be contributing more and more money into the fund so again we believe that it was perfectly rational and reasonable for the arbitrator to look at that one hundred thousand dollars and think to himself the cost savings are going to more than outweigh that one hundred thousand let me ask you a question yes you're the arbitrary ok forget the thousand going back to primary would you have written a decision the same way financial pension funding contribution obligations that it will have to face and fifteen to twenty years that are being caused by the inherited funding deficit i think he could have used language like a i don't i don't i don't mean that kind of way but i mean just say section for teenage factors which the arbitrator didn't do don't get me wrong but then it is the key i believe what the arbitrator was doing was he was bootstrapping in trying to explain what the interest why the interest in the welfare of the public factor weighed in the city favor and he was describing why he thought that could he have or what i have maybe focused more on the actual statutory language i might if put in that situation but i believe that's what he was essentially doing and from a in light of the deferential standard that court is required to give to this arbitrator and the arbitrator's language if there's any possible i believe that's the supreme court standard in router says rockford products where there is any possible way to construe you're supposed to interpret it in that way we believe that we've presented first of all we disagree with the union's interpretation but even even if you do assume that there is some ambiguity in the word it can be construed in a way that  barlow twice during their arguments the city suggested that the city is going to have to contribute more in the next fifteen twenty years which and i think it was brought up by the court that well maybe in twenty years you're going to have more pension to contribute money to keep this thirty seven million six hundred thousand dollars pension issue happen there's a war doesn't do that it doesn't do anything the only thing it does is in some future date it turns the switch off and what was the benefit before is a different benefit and then at that time in twenty years after all of these pension contributions should have been made to keep their pension debts happening then at that time it may it could it