The brother of a friend of mine is resigning from the police department just shy of qualifying for the pension. He said he is fed up and refuses to put up with it any more. He is in Illinois.
I suspect that, as McConnel suggested, the law will changed at some point to allow states to file bankruptcy. Illinois will be one of the first candidates, and all those pension plans will go out the window, leaving the retirees with no more that what the PBGC gives them.
“resigning from the police department just shy of qualifying for the pension”
I know a guy in Michigan who left the force a week after qualifying. He was in an “iffy” town, and he figured there was too much of a risk that an “incident” could occur and he would get thrown under the bus. Now he works at an auto parts store biding his time until he is ready to retire. Their loss, his gain.