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The can has now been kicked on all four city pensions, as shown on the chart.
Comment: The Trib’s idea is a Local Government Protection Authority that “would be a quasi-judicial body … to assist the CPS board and administration in finding solutions to stabilize the district’s finances.” But with no legal power to adjust debt, including pension obligations, that new LGPA wouldn’t be able to get the job done. The answer short of bankruptcy is to reconstitute CPS, as Detroit did with their school system. Have that LGPA run the new entity. All the benefits of bankruptcy but easier. See our earlier article on that linked here.
“The evolution of the Chicago Sun-Times took a new — and potentially disturbing — twist in today’s issue, which prominently carried on page 5 a full-page display ad from [unions].”
A seven-figure broadcast and radio buy was made Thursday and Bloomberg plans to be “on the ground” driving that message and supporting those who support the tax for as long as it takes.”
Will County Board is debating pension eligibility for all nine countywide elected officials.
While much of the attention in Springfield is focused on the school funding fight, a bill that aims to unwind Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Medicaid reboot has quietly passed through the Illinois General Assembly.
The bill—which would essentially scuttle what could be the state’s largest procurement ever—is now making its way to the governor, whose approval is a long shot.
The delay in distributing aid is a “credit negative” for Illinois school districts, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report today.
Comment: Thank goodness such places still exist: “At the University of Chicago, we insist that all faculty and students are free to debate, disagree, and argue, without fear of being silenced,” Dean of Students Dr. John (Jay) Ellison wrote in a letter welcoming incoming freshmen to campus.”
A change buried in this year’s state budget would require suburban school districts to pick up a portion of costs for teacher pensions beginning in 2020.
According to a just-released We Ask America survey, a whopping 68 percent of registered county voters who were questioned say they disapprove of how Preckwinkle is handling her job. Just 21 percent give her performance a thumbs-up, with 11 percent undecided.
Republican state Rep. Steve Andersson, whose vote last month to increase Illinoisans’ taxes by $5 billion drew criticism from many in his own party, announced Thursday that we will not seek re-election next year.
Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) on Thursday accused President Donald Trump of emboldening vandals to set fire to a bust of Abraham Lincoln that has stood as a symbol of freedom in West Englewood for nearly a century.
Among the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas, Chicago has both the smallest share of homeowners who have a healthy equity stake and the largest share who are deep underwater on their mortgage, according to Attom Data Solutions.
How much further beyond ridiculous is this going to go?
Since 2000, at least two dozen former lawmakers have worked as lobbyists for ComEd or its parent company, Exelon, alone. A majority of those lawmakers served on their chamber’s energy or public utilities committees. Some even chaired those committees.
Rauner’s amendments to Senate Bill 1 bring nearly $54 million more to the 10 school districts with the highest Latino student enrollment outside Chicago.
From a former member of Mayor Emanuel’s staff and an investor in early-stage companies that hold the potential to solve urban problems: “The key ingredients are governments willing to set narrow rules to ensure consumer protection rather than picking winners and losers and emerging companies willing to play within those rules.”
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Wednesday announced she is naming Ammar Rizki as the county government’s chief financial officer, pending board approval.
Comment: Chicago’s lobbyist registration rules are exceptionally broad. Even casual, innocent communications can be covered.
Comment: Yes, the caricature of the school kid was bad, but the caricature of the fat, rich, selfish, old white guy in the same cartoon isn’t very flattering, either.
In the Chicago area, building permits for all types of housing, for sale and for rent, will end the year 20 percent below the region’s historical average, according to a report released Wednesday by Trulia, an online real estate resource. Only three of the nation’s 20 largest metro areas will end the year farther below their averages:
Shouldn’t that headline be “tries to rehab….”?
If you enter the private Oak Woods Cemetery on Chicago’s South Side and navigate several meandering roads, there you will find it: the largest memorial to Confederate dead north of the Mason Dixon Line.During the Civil War, some 25,000 Confederate soldiers passed through Chicago’s Camp Douglas as prisoners of war. As many as 6,000 died there.
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