-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150212/NEWS04/150219912/the-recovery-reaches-chicagos-law-firms
http://wuis.org/post/civic-federation-advocates-taxing-retirement-income-raising-income-tax Full text of Civic Federation’s report is linked here.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/11/sacramento-bankrupt-California-cities-cut-pensions/?#article-copy Comment: However, the trend remains that bondholders, not pensioners, bear the largest cuts.
By: Mark Glennon* If you follow the state and local fiscal crises, you know the bulk of our problems derive from 1) public pensions, and 2) for Illinois municipalities, unfunded mandates imposed by state government. What’s the root cause of both? Excessive public union power that bought unaffordable promises. For pensions, that story is fairly well accepted. Less known is that municipalities have little discretion to control most of their budgets, particularly on payroll. Municipalities commonly pay an additional 60% on top of salaries to cover pensions and other benefits because those are mandated by the state.
http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/11/even-democrats-are-hating-on-public-sect
Great summary of key points from Detroit: Pay attention, Illinois cities. http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/eight-things-we-learned-from-the-detroit-75967/
The report lists four counties ” experiencing particularly negative conditions” in the areas of poverty, unemployment, teen birth and high school graduation rates: Montgomery, Morgan County, Union County and Wayne Counties. via Illinois’ poverty markers are bad, says new report.
http://www.wandtv.com/story/28081961/backlog-of-illinois-unpaid-bills-could-get-worse
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/ct-downtown-development-0211-biz-20150210-story.html
Orbitz owns CheapTickets, HotelClub. Expedia owns Hotels.com and Hotwire. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/expedia-buying-orbitz-1-33-133251655.html;_ylt=A0LEVvAUrtxUFAoAH7InnIlQ
Illinois says it has reached agreement with the FBI to perform out-of-state criminal background checks for medical marijuana applicants. http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/State-Reaches-Agreement-on-Background-Checks-for-Medical-Marijuana-Applicants-291468321.html
The Illinois school funding bill, Senate Bill 1, recently introduced by state Sen. Andy Manar, would cut special education funding all across Illinois. http://www.bcrnews.com/2015/02/04/cut-special-education-funding/ao7y2x1/
Chicago has discovered a way to use restaurant and neighborhood data as red flags for food inspections. http://www.govtech.com/data/Chicago-Fights-Food-Poisoning-with-Predictive-Analytics.html
The CTA tends to draw more trolls on Twitter than other major public transit systems possibly because the agency doesn’t regularly respond to rider comments, which is key in tamping down critics on social media, according to a new university study. http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/redeye-study-twitter-users-like-to-complain-about-the-cta-20150211-story.html
Rauner’s call to reduce the prison population follows similar moves by governors across the country, motivated mostly by an effort to cut the cost of corrections. Rauner also complained that Illinois’ crowded prisons do a lousy job of preparing prisoners for life after they’ve paid their debt to society. http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/28088382/save-taxpayer-dollars-reducing-prison-population
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-college-of-dupage-buyout-20150202-story.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/redeye-study-twitter-users-like-to-complain-about-the-cta-20150211-story.html?track=rss
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