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The $31.5 million program will include $500-per-month payments for 5,000 households for 12 months and will focus heavily on low-income families financially hurt by COVID-19. Lightfoot’s proposal, which is part of the mayor’s $16.7 billion budget plan, still requires approval from Chicago’s city council.
“Fifty percent of our members nationwide cannot fill certain job openings that they have,” said Mark Grant, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. “If you can’t be open as many hours as you want? That will cut into your profitability.”
They recently moved into an office space there, signaling they’ll be around for a while, though they have no illusions that they are here to do anything but supplement the much larger CPD force. “Having the sheriff down there calmed things a lot,” said Ald. Emma Mitts.
During its investigation, the Office of the Executive Inspector General found that Mauro Glorioso, then executive director of Illinois’ Property Tax Appeal Board, had deleted 200 emails related to the appeal on Oct. 2, three days after he had been interviewed about an earlier complaint, according to a report. Dozens more were deleted Oct. 5.
The Illinois State Police say a staffing shortage, more first-time gun owner applications, an antiquated computer system and most recently, the pandemic, have caused the department to fall far behind.
The result: Illinois’ unemployment trust fund debt is around $5 billion. Taxpayers are already paying interest on that debt with around $10 million due for this year and up to $60 million due after the next year, if the debt isn’t paid off.
After final Census data was released in August, Democrats passed revised maps. They sent those to the governor on Sept. 2. Pritzker has yet to act – but the next hearing in the federal case Republicans and MALDEF have against the maps is Oct. 7.
“When and if funds become available, perhaps forthcoming federal dollars,” state Rep. Lindsey LaPointe said, “this bill will help create a framework so funds can flow and we can help rebuild our school social work pipeline.”
“The LaSalle/Central TIF district, which is downtown, took in about $216 million in property taxes last year. In contrast, the TIF district in Englewood—generally regarded as one of the neediest communities in Chicago—took in about $2.5 million. I think that’s a picture-perfect example of what Mayor Lightfoot was getting at when she derided ‘systemic racism’ and our ‘failure to invest in people and places,’ concluding that ‘none of this has happened by accident.'”
Commissioner Kevin Morrison has requested a legal opinion from Kim Foxx’s office, and plans to introduce a resolution at the Cook County Board meeting: “The Cook County Board of Commissioners should support their constituents by responsibly using their taxpayer dollars to do business only with companies that are not funding a war on access to health care.”
General Manager Marc Poirier said his staffing agency has close to 100 open positions, in everything from industrial and warehouse to clerical and office work. “The workers’ expectations have increased and in response, a lot of companies have had to increase their wages. The minimum wage is $11 an hour, but I don’t think maybe one in 20 people would even consider that currently, based on some of the research we’ve been doing.”
A statement from five advocate groups said “The shift of more than $3.2 million from the school resource officer program into restorative justice and other holistic approaches to school safety is a welcome policy change that we believe will improve the educational environment for Chicago Public School students.”
For comparison, Illinois had 27,384 filed during the week of September 7 last year. However, Illinois saw only 6,614 claims during the same week in 2019.
“We are desperate for staff, and I will say it again, there is a staffing crisis, and that staffing crisis could be worse very soon,” said Matt Pickering, of the Health Care Council of Illinois. He believes the vaccination mandate for workers in congregate facilitates in Illinois may drive some people out of the industry.
Despite reforms implemented in the past, the outstanding debt owed for city tickets continues to grow, from about $1.45 billion in February 2018 to more than $1.8 billion today, according to city officials.
The program has an initial funding allocation of $400,000 — so it could potentially be exhausted fulfilling the applications of as few as 16 people.
CEO of the Illinois Biotechnology Innovation Organization, iBIO, in Chicago: Allowing the government to dictate what a company may charge for a novel drug will have a chilling effect on innovation. Economic studies on the impact of government price setting, including non-partisan reports by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), have warned that “negotiations” will result in fewer new medications, essentially defunding R&D for the most challenging diseases. This could mean less money for new treatments for Alzheimer’s, cancer and rare diseases.
“They think if they get to the Illinois state line or Chicago that the Lake County Sheriff’s Department will not chase them. Well, that’s incorrect,” Lake County Indiana Sheriff Oscar Martinez, Jr. said. “We will chase you. We will catch you. And we will take you to jail… we will extradite you back into Indiana where our prosecutor is a stickler on crimes here.”
More than 50 security incidents would take place across the state. Claimants threatened to bomb offices via phone and in person if they didn’t get the help they needed; some vandalized the properties by urinating on the building or pouring oil in the claimant drop box; and one person approached an employee at their home asking for help.
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi: “The more digital an economy gets, the more unfair the distribution of costs becomes if property tax is a principal source of revenues. Taxing income generated, regardless of how physical assets are employed in generating the income, more fairly distributes the costs of investing in education and government services and does not discriminate against the kinds of commercial and residential activities that make cities thrive.”
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