“One might think the early exit from setting priorities, legislating and budgeting means that everything is just fine in Illinois. It is not fine, as chiefs of police, retail merchants, victims of crime and others have told legislators in Springfield in recent days.”

“The legislature has tasked business and labor to reach an ‘agreed’ bill to settle the remaining balance. When the legislature knows it has a controversial topic that could make a lot of people on either side angry, often they will defer to both sides of an issue to hammer out an agreement that is acceptable to all sides, though nobody is ever truly happy with the final solution.”

Professor Bob Bruno identifies many reasons business look to locate elsewhere — including cheaper labor, lower taxes, cheaper land, tax credits — but that reasoning is shortsighted, he said. “They’ve made a mistake. The most important component is going to be the quality of the labor because all of the value is going to be driven in the production process, and I think that gets overlooked.”

Their proposals were largely appropriations-based, requesting nearly $240 million in funding increases from the current fiscal year for intervention programs such as early childhood education and after school programs. But they also included a grant program for establishing anonymous tiplines across the state in an effort to help solve crimes, as well as a program aimed at expanding a witness protection program.

“When you have two of your three higher education institutions report closing or downsizing within 45 days, that’s definitely going to have an impact,” said Mayor Tracy Welch.

House Bill 1167 restores sick days for vaccinated teachers who contracted Covid-19 during the current school year and provides paid administrative leave for every employee of a public school district public university, and public community college who is required, or whose child is required, to be excluded from school because of a positive COVID-19 test result or close contact with a person who had a confirmed case of COVID-19.

State Sen. Dan McConchie called the $1.8 billion initiative from the Illinois Senate Democratic Caucus disingenuous relief to families. “This is not the real reform the people of this state want and need.”

“Illinois is still bleeding people from every corner of the state,” said Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints, an independent organization that researches the state’s government and economy. While pandemic restrictions may have played a part in the decline, it’s hard to determine how significant an effect they had, according to Wirepoints. “But what we do know is that Illinois lawmakers have made no effort to make Illinois more livable,” Dabrowski said.

Illinois’ 90% funding target already violates best practices, but some have proposed going even lower. That’s a bad idea based on a myth, according to the American Academy of Actuaries.