Comment: The deadline for putting a Fair Maps amendment on the November ballot expired on May 3. So much for Governor Pritzker’s promise to end gerrymandering.

Lawmakers, staff, and Gov. JB Pritzker’s team have divided into budget working groups meeting via the internet. As they take a close look at what the state can and cannot afford, Chicago is making its money requests known.

Writes Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who applies his expertise in data analysis and risk assessment to evaluate and inform public policy: “The challenge faced by Illinois is the extreme diversity of its communities, broken into four regions — the greater Chicago area, the counties that border St. Louis, the Quad Cities area and the rest of the state.”

“You don’t have to wait until May 30,” he said. “We’ve been thinking about this and working on it for some time now to make sure that we’re going to give people a view into how the phases might work and how many phases there are and what would work in each phase.”

More than 4,400 people remain hospitalized. An additional 46 people died of COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours, bringing the state’s total to 2,662, the governor said. It was the lowest one-day death total since April 19.

The state’s comptroller recently reported Illinois’ unfunded liabilities reached $197 billion for the fiscal year that ended last summer. With the cash crunch from the pandemic, the outlook is bleak.

Homemade signs voiced residents of the Chicago area’s angst.

The relief would include a six-month cancellation of apartment rent, along with an across-the-board ban on rent increases. Homeowners would be able to defer their mortgage payments for the same period without fees and be offered an extended period later to catch up. Added state Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, “We must act to not only flatten the curve healthwise but flatten the economic inequality that exists.”

“COVID-19 has quickly illustrated our reliance on a centralized supply chain. When one segment breaks, disastrous feedbacks occur. Illinois’ top commodities are seeing a rapid tailspin in market prices.”

Comment: If this is accurate, it certainly is true that many will find it better to stay on unemployment than going back to work before August 1.

Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin estimated, based on his conversations with property-owning residents and businesses, the default rate on the tax bills due to be sent this summer will be 30%. He said Cook County typically allows for a 3% default rate when it computes the tax rates needed to raise necessary revenue for local governments.

As of Sunday, 4,701 people in Illinois were hospitalized with coronavirus. Of those patients, 1,232 were in intensive care units and 759 were on ventilators, Pritzker said.

At his news conference and in a national TV appearance on Sunday, Pritzker fired back, saying virtually every state wants help.