The Police Department budget represents 12% of the City’s total $16.6 billion appropriations for FY2024 across all funds, including grants.
Asked what Congress can do to help alleviate the migrant crisis in Chicago, Ramirez said, “Having adequate federal funding is what has allowed Chicago to welcome tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. When our federal government allocates the proper staff and funds necessary to compassionately welcome our new neighbors, we are able to accomplish far more than one municipality or state can muster by ourselves.”
According to the department, dedicated detectives are now investigating cases that would once be spread among two or three police districts. “It’s important that we now have detectives assigned to public transportation,” said Commander Joe Bird, who heads the public transportation section. “They pick up the pattern a lot faster than we did before.”
Taxpayer costs to care for migrants amount to $1.5 million a day, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said, and now those who faced eviction from city shelters will be able to stay until March. “This is not sustainable, and so the federal government has to lean in,” said Johnson. “As far as what we do, because the cost is $1.5 million a day, we are going to have to push the federal government to do its part.”
The $25 tax on firearms purchases and 1 to 5 cent tax per cartridge of ammunition has been in place since 2012, but was struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court in 2021.
Between 2021 and 2023 most states – 26, to be exact, including all of Illinois’ neighboring states – reduced their personal or corporate income tax rates or both. They returned an estimated $13 billion to taxpayers during those years. Tax reductions in nearby states are scheduled to continue, too.
“The district is projecting a $628 million budget deficit in 2025 when the COVID-19 relief funds run dry. It claims it only has 75% of the public funding it needs to adequately serve its students. That’s a staggering $1.4 billion budget shortfall. The district also claims it has $14 billion in capital needs. The district already spends money less than efficiently. CPS spends nearly $30,000 per student and receives nearly 56% of all Chicagoans’ property taxes, 25% of all state K-12 funding and 40% of all the federal COVID-19 relief funding for Illinois’ public elementary and high schools.”
Instead of letting malls fall into decay, many local municipalities are swooping in to purchase the shopping districts, hoping to revitalize them as community centers that provide sources of tax revenue. Among them, the Bloomingdale Village Board purchased Stratford Square Mall earlier this month for $8.75 million, and West Dundee recently announced plans to acquire Spring Hill Mall.
“Illinois has very little to celebrate these days, with crime up and the state bleeding population to Republican-controlled jurisdictions. The pension system is the nation’s worst-funded. Perhaps the state’s many problems, all of them caused by poor government, explain the governor’s satisfaction that his fellow citizens are increasingly hooked on pot.”
Jim Dey: “The bottom line is that public officials in Illinois — from (Gov. JB) Pritzker on down — have embraced a new hip reality and written off any casualties as collateral damage. To them, it’s party time. Those who know otherwise are on their own.”
Most would assume that being shot in the line of duty – and then treated unfairly by his commander following the shooting – would lead to negative consequences. But anyone who talks to Tom Weitzel sees clearly that he loves law enforcement and the officers he served. In retirement, he has been focused on getting legislation through to make the murder of a police officer a federal offense, and counsels families after losing a loved one in the line of duty.
Mayor Brandon Johnson reportedly has a goal to get the migrants out of Chicago’s 28 shelters and into permanent housing by relying on the new case managers who are at each facility. “The city is pouring out resources towards non-citizens. But many of us can’t even pay our property taxes,” Woodlawn resident Kerwin Spratt said.
The Restrictions on Utilizing Realistic Electronic Artificial Language, or R U REAL, Act, would give the Federal Trade Commission about three months to add a new mandate to telemarketing rules to require telemarketers to disclose if they are using artificial intelligence to mimic a human at the beginning of any call or text message. It would also double the civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.
A five-story office and retail property on downtown Chicago’s State Street sold for a nearly 60% discount, another distress signal from the once-storied shopping corridor.
Beyond a central location to see what state agencies provide care, parents can “upload documents to avoid repetition when applying for all these services,” Gov. JB Pritzker said. “If you’ve ever had to search for these resources, it’s difficult.”
Plaintiffs and Chicago Democrats Natasha Dunn and J. Darnell Jones describe their outrage about the mayor’s handling of illegal migrants flooding their city. “They’re prioritizing migrants in housing and also utilizing land that should be renovated and brought back into the community for community use,” Dunn said.
Illinois has mandated that municipalities have public safety pensions at least 90% fully funded by 2040, straining municipal budgets across the state. A sales tax would be a way to have not only Illinois residents, but people who visit Illinois pay for police and fire pensions, state Rep. John Cabello said.
Prosecutors charged Bertell Johnson, 23, with four counts of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, possession of a machine gun, and three drug-related felonies for suspected cocaine, cannabis, and oxycodone the sheriff’s team allegedly recovered. “This is the 2nd case the [defendant] picked up while on [pretrial release],” Judge Kelly McCarthy wrote as she ordered Johnson detained to await trial.
In addition to fiscal stability, all 50 states were ranked in categories that included crime and corrections, economy, education, health care, infrastructure, natural environment and opportunity. Illinois placed No. 38 in natural environment, No. 39 in economy, No. 35 in opportunity and No. 50 for fiscal stability.
After he was convicted in 2016 of molesting a girl and sexually abusing a young woman, Mohammad Saleem was told by a judge that he’s no longer allowed “at or in the Institute of Islamic Education.” But Saleem still helps supervise the school he founded years ago. And though Illinois law bars child sex offenders from living within 500 feet of a school, Elgin police records show his current residence is “well within” that distance.
“It pains me,” said a student who asked not to be named. “I wish we didn’t live in a world where we look at your Instagram bio and see a flag and decide that means something…It’s hard to prove racism. But in these cases it seems like the skew is there.” He recently swapped the Palestinian flag in his Instagram bio, representing his heritage, to a watermelon emoji, a more discreet symbol of Palestinian solidarity.
“The crisis is so obvious in the city,” said Ida Fiore, a volunteer from Lake Forest who has helped organize care packages for migrants. “We’re asking ourselves, ‘What is the housing scenario for these people? Can a suburb provide any support and relief in the long term?’ And we all look at each other and have a lot more questions than answers.”
“Keep in mind: more than 76% of Chicago high school students and 45% of elementary school students currently choose not to attend their zip code-assigned school. And more than two-thirds of Illinois voters support expanding options for families who want even more freedom.”
In 2020, Illinoisans rejected Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his legislative allies’ push for a progressive income tax scheme in Illinois. And with it, they rejected claims a progressive tax would “modernize” Illinois’ income tax. Right they were. Over the past decade far more states have moved to a flat tax structure than vice-versa.
More than 5,000 English learners have enrolled in Chicago Public Schools over the course of the year, many of whom are the children of migrant families. “The money would help immensely to get these resources, this curriculum, the educators, the TAs into the classroom,” union organizer Linda Perales said. “Right now we’re seeing our teachers that are collecting coats, collecting boots, collecting scarves, they’re doing everything.”
With an investigator vacancy rate of 21.2% and a five-year turnover rate of more than 20% statewide, according to an April 2022 report filed in federal court, state caseworkers and investigators at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services are expected to juggle caseloads far heavier than those outlined in a federal consent decree in the 1988 B.H. class action lawsuit.
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Michael Pfleger, Seth Limmer, Otis Moss III and Ciera Bates-Chamberlain: “There is no guaranteed civic line of funding (or oversight), no procurement power for the Office of Community Safety, and no guarantee — which can only happen by ordinance — that this important office (and its deputy mayor) will remain part of the city’s infrastructure. Likewise, despite a thorough listening tour and wider civic cooperation, there is no
It’s not clear yet, and won’t be until June, what making neighborhood schools “fully-resourced” means. That’s when the district is scheduled to release a strategic plan guiding school district investments over the next five years. One approach singled out in the December board resolution will be expanding Sustainable Community Schools — a model operated in partnership by CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union in which community organizations provide wraparound academic, health and social support beyond the traditional school day.
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