SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (PNN) - January 27, 2013 - A warning came Saturday morning from state treasurer Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford. The Standard and Poor’s downgrade from A to A-minus puts Illinois last on the list, and means a higher cost to borrow money.

On Wednesday, the state will issue $500 million in new bonds to pay for roads and other transportation projects. Rutherford says the credit downgrade will cost taxpayers an additional $95 million in interest, when compared to a perfect triple-a bond rating enjoyed by 11 other states including neighboring Indiana, Iowa and Missouri.

“Our problem in Illinois is that we have not substantively and fairly addressed the state public pension issue.”

Rutherford points to Governor Pat Quinn and the democratically controlled general assembly for making matters worse in the last two years - raising taxes but not acting on pension reform.

“This problem didn’t come along just now; it’s been accumulating for actually decades. Each time the governor set a deadline and didn’t meet it there was some negative reaction,” said Rutherford. “It’s become quite evident to me that the general assembly has not registered what these negative impacts are enough to cause a change in public pensions.”

Rutherford says reform should come in the form of new cost of living adjustments and sliding healthcare costs based on pension income, all of which is a hard sell in Springfield, but would put the state back on better financial ground.

“Illinois is a very good place and we can turn this place around, but the first thing we need to do is fix this in a fair way, (through) our public pensions,” added Rutherford.