More cities across Illinois are using most, if not all, of their share of property taxes to pay for public safety pensions and the Illinois Municipal League says state mandated sweeteners don’t help.
A Texas developer plans to build nearly 500 homes on the site of the former Cabrini-Green housing complex, another big step in the city’s long-running push to redevelop the Near North Side property. The Chicago Housing Authority said its Board of Commissions has picked a team led by El Paso-based Hunt Development Group to develop 480 units of mixed-income housing on a 6.9-acre site at Larrabee Street and Clybourn Avenue. The project will include a 21-story tower, 32,900-square feet of retail space and several connected mid-rise buildings and low-rise townhomes, according to the CHA.
Comment: This is becoming more preposterous by the day.
Executives with mid-sized businesses in Illinois are far more optimistic about their prospects in 2017, but they lag well behind similarly sized companies around the country in how they view their local economies. A new survey of bosses of mid-sized businesses released today by JPMorgan Chase carries hopes for the economy in 2017. But it reflects the relatively sour mood prevalent among business owners about Illinois’ economic environment.
With Illinois facing a “death spiral,” noted economist Brian Wesbury cannot understand why Gov. Bruce Rauner hasn’t spoken out against recent talk of an added tax hike, which he believes would exacerbate the issue.
Illinois is among the five states at the bottom. The rankings are based on financial information contained in the audited financial statements for each state for Fiscal 2015 as summarized by the Institute for Truth in Accounting, and a composite ranking of each state’s competitive posture in 2016 based on independent assessments by CEO Magazine, CNBC and Forbes. The report also includes disclosure of whether each state had a net positive or negative migration for the period July 1, 2015-June 30, 2016 according to the US Census Bureau.
“This seminar, concocted by one of the nation’s most prestigious schools, undoubtedly will become a template for other mass indoctrinations. It will blossom into the latest fad approved by America’s education “experts” who have burdened America with so many failed school systems.”
Comment: A pretty good two-minute summary of the New Trier controversy.
When Chicago Public Schools just put a freeze on half of every school’s remaining discretionary money to save $46 million, CEO Forrest Claypool blamed Gov. Bruce Rauner for the cuts, saying he has no regard for the city’s impoverished black and brown children. But it turns out that the way Claypool decided to cut school budgets this time — by freezing the rest of every principal’s discretionary money — has hurt majority Hispanic schools at twice the rate of schools serving mostly white children, and cut poor schools at twice the rate of wealthier ones.
Jeff Kirsch and his wife, Angela, run the website GetOutOfIllinois.com, which helps people who are fed up with what Jeff Kirsch describes as high taxes, bleak winters and drawn-out state budget drama.
At issue are the programs approved by five states—California, Oregon, Illinois, Maryland and Connecticut—that require employers to automatically deduct as much as $5,500 a year from employees’ paychecks for deposit into an individual retirement account.
Leaders at Monday night’s meeting said it was too late to make changes.
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