“Like anybody, we’d love to see the state commit to a 100% funding goal, but so far we haven’t seen any realistic proposals on how to get there. Perhaps that’s something we’ll see with next year’s elections, but we’re not holding our breath.”

Referendums to consolidate townships have been on the ballot in some McHenry County townships recently, but none passed. Voters in 2020 voted overwhelmingly against dissolving Nunda and McHenry townships, and voters in April voted against abolishing the McHenry Township Road District.

“If we have a large crop in South America and a large crop here in the U.S., crop prices will be considerably lower a year from now than they are right now,” one lender said. “This combination of strong commodity prices and low interest rates. I don’t believe the perspective of this combination is likely to stay in place much longer.”

The sale of the center has been authorized by law since April 2019. However, the pandemic has plummeted demand for commercial properties downtown with the rise in remote work. Vacancy rates in Chicago’s central business district hit 17.7% this year, the highest since 2010.

This isn’t Illinois’s first struggle with repaying federal loans. To avoid automatic payroll tax hikes during the Great Recession, the state borrowed $1.5 billion from the feds to supplement the unemployment fund. It took five years to repay that debt. Now, Illinois is on the hook for three times the amount owed during the Great Recession.