I had the opportunity to sit down with Fox Chicago’s political editor Mike Flannery for his Sunday show and talk about pension reform, politics and the state budget.

You can view the Fox Chicago Sunday program here.

For nearly a decade, I have been speaking about the need to reform our public pension systems to stop them from draining the state’s financial resources and consuming valuable tax dollars needed for education, public safety and human resource programs. The legislative pension working group, along with key members of Governor Quinn’s administration, met regularly this spring and were close to a consensus. We met again in Chicago Tuesday.

Last week, I joined Carol Marin of Chicago Tonight and my legislative colleagues in a roundtable discussion of the pension funding situation here in Illinois.

Governor Quinn has called the General Assembly into a special session August 17 to address pension reforms for the state’s public employees and educators. I think the Governor’s move was more PR than substance, but I am ready to work as long as necessary to reach a successful solution to our state’s unfunded pension liability that safeguards the future of both our public employees' retirement benefits and the state's fiscal well-being.

You can listen to my interview with WJBC-AM here.