Comment: The media’s total silence on this affair is shameful and inexcusable.

Costello said he expects to be a main courier of Pritzker’s $420 million plan to expand broadband internet throughout the state in a program called Connect Illinois. The initiative would especially impact rural and agricultural communities by connecting people to educational, health and business resources with high-speed internet.

Comment: The author says, “Public banks inform a new and worthwhile discussion about sustainability and growth. Let’s consider democratizing capital in Illinois and putting the public in control of its own future.” A bank run by Illinois politicians. Why didn’t anybody think of this sooner?

“The former leader of a wealthy school district is receiving a massive pension boosted by a pair of 20 percent raises given during her final two years. Illinois needs pension reform.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker won passage of the state’s cannabis bill thanks in large part to its equity provisions, which include a pledge to pump a significant portion of pot proceeds into communities hardest hit by the war on drugs. But how that money will be spent, and by whom, is only beginning to take shape nearly a year after the recreational marijuana law passed the General Assembly.

Richard Porter: There is no guarantee of continued employment in the Illinois Constitution, just limits on changes to certain benefit plans while someone is employed. But when employment ends, so does participation in the state’s benefit plans. The terms of a new offer for new employment are constrained only by state law, the labor market and political will, not the Constitution.

The Southland Tax Reactivation Act is proposed as a pilot program involving sites owned by the Cook County and South Suburban land bank authorities, and local municipalities. The land banks can acquire tax-delinquent properties, clear back taxes on them, and present a potential buyer with a clean, unencumbered title to the site.

The jobs of nearly 1,000 State Farm workers in Bloomington are up in the air thanks to the insurance giant’s decision to exit the banking business. State Farm announced March 5 that it was transferring deposit and credit-card accounts to Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank as part of a strategic decision to end State Farm Bank, which the insurer launched 21 years ago.

Policy researchers at the nonprofit Wirepoints added up and divided the future liabilities owed by the state, county and local municipalities in the form of pensions and retiree healthcare costs by household. “When divvied up between Illinois’ households, the ‘shadow mortgage’ each one is on the hook for now totals hundreds of thousands of dollars per household, if not more, depending on who politicians target to repay those debts.

State Sen. Suzy Glowiak Hilton, D-Western Springs, submitted Senate Bill 3008 on Feb. 5. The proposal would amend the State Budget Law to ensure the “rate of growth of general funds appropriations shall not exceed the rate of growth of the Illinois median household income.”

It takes so long to decide appeals in Cook County criminal cases that some people finish their sentences, only to win an acquittal after they’re already out of prison, the Chicago Sun-Times reported in January.

Puerto Rico’s fiscal fiasco offers a glimpse of what the future could hold for Illinois if it doesn’t deal with its own self-imposed economic disaster.

Early and Election Day voting places are stocked with hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes, according to a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Paper ballots are also available on Election Day, so voters need not interact with touch-screen voting. Voters who want to avoid going to any public place whatsoever have until March 12 to request a vote-by-mail application.

The state is tied for 41st best among all 50 states, according to the policy institute Truth in Accounting.

The bill would ensure children under 18 could run a lemonade stand without a permit or license and would not be liable for any unintended injury. The proposal is named for Hayli Martenez, a Kankakee girl who was forced to shutter her lemonade stand last summer by county health officials.

“Voters will address the tax question in the November election. But issues related to corruption and entrenched power will be left to reluctant but nervous legislators to confront.”

Tobolski saw his McCook Village Hall offices searched by federal agents in September. That raid was part of a suburban squeeze that came days after federal agents raided the home and offices of former Democratic state Sen. Martin Sandoval.

Thirty-eight states collect local sales tax revenues, the Tax Foundation reported, while 45 states levy a statewide sales tax.

“There’s no real one solution that I think is going to offer comprehensive, one-size-fits-all relief. And as a result of that, you have things like the Property Tax (Relief) Task Force where you have all these ideas that come together and no one can gain a majority to author a finalized report.”

The state Senate passed a bill in November that calls for setting clocks ahead one hour to daylight saving time Sunday and leaving Illinois permanently on Central Daylight Time. But that bill remains in legislative limbo in the House, and ultimately requires approval from the federal government.

The largest projected population declines over the next five years are in western and southern Illinois. Creating robust job pipelines is one strategy to keep skilled workers from leaving the state. There may also need to be conversations about restructuring that could prove controversial.