-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Gov. JB Pritzker promised the passage of the $45 billion state spending plan Friday, the final scheduled day of the General Assembly’s shortened spring session.
“There is no school where the budget is being adjusted unless the children are just not there — they are literally physically not in the building,” said district CEO Pedro Martinez. But advocates fear the cuts could undermine efforts to recover from the pandemic and thrust once-bustling campuses in neighborhoods such as Little Village into a cycle of staff and program cuts that trigger more family defections.
In Chicago, the Chi-Nations Youths Council has pushed for policies to better reflect their community’s history, including working to get city officials to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Nations Day. The group also helped draft a resolution the Chicago City Council adopted that acknowledged that the city sits on the ancestral homeland of tribal nations including the Ojibwe, Odawa and the Potawatomi.
Josephine’s Cooking in Chatham hasn’t paid its property taxes in 12 years. Thanks to the actions of the Cook County Land Bank Authority, it’s avoided losing the property through a tax sale.
For all of last year, we tracked 17 carjackings total in the Loop Community Area – which includes the Loop itself and part of the South Loop down to Roosevelt Road. This year, there have already been eight with the two this week – and it is only April.
CDPH issued recommendations following the latest update to the CDC’s county-by-county community levels map. In Illinois, Gallatin, Hardin, Pope and Saline counties were deemed to be in the high risk category, meaning masks are recommended.
The charge alleges Solis agreed to make campaign contributions in 2015 in exchange for amendments to a zoning ordinance.
Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Raylene Grischow issued a temporary restraining order in the case brought by six CPS staff. “Plaintiffs have due process rights in need of protection which must be afforded to them before they can be excluded from the public school building and prevented from performing their world duties due to their decision not to be vaccinated or submit to testing for COVID-19. When a right such as the one being violated here is alleged, irreparable injury is satisfied.”
In a new version of the budget released Thursday, that provision was taken out. “It does seem like electioneering, you know, kind of giving further evidence to an election year gimmick,” Rep. Ryan Spain said.
From City Hall to Springfield to Capitol Hill, the candy man and candy lady are out in force.
An amendment is advancing at the statehouse on the final day of session to extend the deadline of the so-called “speed bump” that would automatically trigger higher business taxes and lower benefits for the unemployed if the UI debt isn’t paid off.
“Between this spring’s truncated session and the heightened political stakes that always accompany an election year, power dynamics in the Capitol have undergone a quiet but dramatic shift: Despite controlling every conceivable lever of state government as the party with total power in Springfield, Illinois Democrats in the past few months have been forced into a defensive posture, both in direct reaction to the Republican super-minority in the legislature and changing political winds that favor a GOP wave this at the ballot box this fall.”
Italian-American Ald. Nick Sposato, who served on the 30-member committee, said the outcome was pre-determined by the fact that its members were, as he put it, “27 lefties and three righties” including himself.
When the Clean Energy Jobs Act passed in 2021 with electric vehicle language, it specifically excluded motorcycles. But if Senate Bill 2940 is signed into law, it provides an incentive of $1,500 toward the purchase of an electric motorcycle.
“Our people are tired. They are tired of working overtime; they are tired of talking to grumpy people all the time,” said Operations Manager Betsy Smith with METCAD in Champaign County.
The legislation is supported by the Illinois Sheriffs Association and the Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council
“So if we totally froze the gas tax – gave a gas tax holiday, Over the entire course of the year it would be a saving of about $305 a household,” said Dr. Kenneth Kriz, director of the Illinois Institute for Public Finance. “And if we didn’t raise it by… say it was gonna go up by say 2 cents, for example, that would be about 15 dollars per household for a year. So, not a lot.”
In September, Mayor Lori Lightfoot unveiled a $16.7 billion spending plan that lifted the Chicago Police Department’s annual budget to $1.9 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 2021. The plan has so far proved astonishingly ineffective, with the city since experiencing frightening new crime rates not seen in half a decade.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum sued the Center for Covid Control, or CCC, and its testing partner, Doctors Clinical Laboratory, for deceptively marketing testing services and for violating Oregon’s Unlawful Trade Practices Act.
ABC 7 Chicago reports that Pritzker has contributed more than $3 million to the Democratic Governors Association since 2017, with his most recent contribution being $250,000 at the end of 2021. A recent attack ad against Irvin is part of a $700,000 ad campaign by the Democratic Governors Association.
First United Church of Oak Park Pastor John Edgerton’s statement said, in part, “In keeping with the Lenten spiritual discipline of fasting, our intent was to lay aside our usual frames of reference and open ourselves to hearing the Gospel message through the voices of Black People, Indigenous People, and People of Color. Our worship services in Lent have been diverse and beautiful, joyful and Spirit-filled.”
The Marching Illini’s Low Brass Cheer is a blues riff that has been played during Illini Football games for decades. Professor Lamont Holden and student Jarrel Young took the instrumentation and added some Drumline-like snares, following the Atlantic sequencing formula to create the Illini Anthem. “Being the first rap/hip-hop fight song to represent a Big 10 University is monumental. Being from Champaign, this anthem hits home for me,” Young said.
“A governor should not be allowed to issue blanket orders for two years. As we mark the second anniversary of the Illinois pandemic shutdown, we should take time to mourn. We lost more than 33,000 people we cared about. We lost more than 1.2 million total jobs. We lost control of our government.”
Kina Collins, a candidate in Illinois’ 7th district, was also provided $28,000 by Lead the Way 2022. Collins participated in a defund the police rally and has called for the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Last year Chicago suffered 1,836 carjackings. That’s five per day. One of the legislative failures contributing to the jump came when lawmakers rescinded the right of county prosecutors to charge juvenile carjackers as adults. Juveniles have recently been responsible for nearly half or more of carjacking or carjacking arrests in Chicago.
Illinoisans now pay the nation’s 7th-highest combined state and local taxes, Illinois’ effective tax rate for 2022 is now 12.9 percent. That’s a significant jump compared to pre-pandemic 2019 when Illinois’ effective tax rate was 11.2 percent – the nation’s 13th-highest rate.
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