-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
he May S&P CoreLogic Case Shiller indices showed the largest year over year gain for single family homes in 22 months at 3.7%. However, that still leaves Chicago ahead of only 3 cities out of 20 total.
One of the nation’s largest health insurance companies plans to enter the Obamacare marketplace in the Chicago area for the first time, bringing new competition as other insurers exit or go out of business.
By: Mark Glennon* Among the most inexcusable and infuriating parts of our pension scandal is the difficulty of getting actuarial reports, which all pensions get annually. Some Illinois municipalities publish theirs promptly. Most do not. Try to get them and you’ll often get jacked around. Here are three recent experiences: Cook County On July 8, 2016 I FOIAd Cook County’s office of the President, thinking they should have the actuarial report for 2015, though it was not yet on their website. On July 11 they responded saying they didn’t have it yet and suggested I ask
More than a dozen taxpayer-funded golf courses in Illinois have turned to legal gambling in the past three years, though with mixed results.
“I think the best speaker I had for today was Terry O’Sullivan” the guy who made those comments, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan said with a smile.
By: Mark Glennon* If you follow our pension problems closely, you probably think Cook County faces an unfunded pension liability of about $6 billion, which makes it about 60% funded. That’s how it has been very commonly reported over the last year. Under the new accounting standards of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which are now gaining wide acceptance, the unfunded liability in fact was $15.3 billion and was 36% funded as of 12/31/15. Details are contained in an actuarial report recently completed that I had to get through a Freedom of Information Act request. If
The recently passed stopgap “is a spending plan based not on actual revenue numbers and projections, but solely on what the General Assembly thinks should be the state’s short-term spending priorities.” David McSweeney is a Republican state representative from northwest suburban Cary.
The City of Chicago recently reported an alarming 50% increase in interest expense from 2014 to 2015. Last year, the city spent over $860 million in interest, before spending a dime on any public services.
For Illinois’s colleges and universities, the end of a record-long political fight over the budget isn’t bringing the financial consequences to a close.
“Time is not about to run out for Chicago,” said a Moody’s spokesman at a panel discussion titled, “Are We On The Brink?” Comment: The name of that panel belies a central problem with ratings agencies — they focus mostly on near term default risk but ignore disaster that’s inevitable in the longer run. If you don’t already know how ratings agencies work, see The Big Short.
Part of the answer is failure of leadership from past and current governors and legislators, and perhaps worse, deceptive financial reporting and communication.
“It’s long past time for them to act. Illinois homeowners now face the highest median property tax rate in the country. At 2.67 percent, homeowners in the Land of Lincoln pay double the national median rate.”
Uniquely burdensome taxes and fees make Illinois unfriendly to entrepreneurs, and drive businesses and families out of state.
The nation’s third most-populous city has the highest unfunded pensions of “virtually all” 8,500 local governments that Moody’s rates across the country.
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