Cracks in the Illinois pension system are now starting to turn into breaks.

Harvey, Illinois is laying off police and fireman(basic essentials of government functions) in order to pay their pension bill. Pensions are a state constitionally protected. So that means the state will confiscate money from local governments.

Here’s more from Illinois Policy:

An attorney for police and fire unions in Harvey, Illinois, says 18 firefighters and 13 policemen are believed to have been laid off by the city, according to the Daily Southtown.

2017, Illinois’ First District Appellate Court affirmed a trial court’s order that Harvey hike property taxes to pay for its pensions.

The current layoffs come after Cook County Circuit Judge Raymond W. Mitchell denied the city’s request to force Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza to release $1.5 million in tax revenues she had been withholding from the city of Harvey to ensure payment of amounts owed to the police pension fund. The city had failed to make required payments for more than a decade, and the pension fund had sought to garnish remittances to Harvey from the state to ensure payment of the debt.

The story of Harvey should be a cautionary tale for the state of Illinois as a whole. The unfunded pension liability for state pension funds – to say nothing of local pension debt such as Harvey’s – is between $130 billionand $250 billion, depending on who’s doing the analysis and what assumptions they use.