The agency’s highest paid operator in 2023, a bus driver, earned $212,232 — more than two and a half times the standard yearly rate. In addition to hefty paychecks for some workers, overtime also affects the transit agency’s retirement plan, as CTA workers — in a perk unique to them among public employees in Illinois — can count overtime toward their pensions. As of Jan. 1, 2023, the plan was just 54.2 percent funded.

According to records from a Freedom of Information Act Request, Mayor Tiffany Henyard put Brandon K. Momon on the government payroll as an “ADMIN. ASSISTANT.” He was paid $7,650, over six transactions between April 6 and June 5, 2023. Momon’s website said he offers “makeovers,” “wardrobe styling,” “image consulting” and “personal shopping.”

“In the wake of several significant missteps by the mayor’s office, where oversight and collaboration was avoided, we need to make sure that the mayor’s office is embracing oversight before we can even move on with this bond ordinance,” Ald. Bill Conway said. He ticked off six recent examples: the NASCAR contract; the costly extension of the ShotSpotter contract; the Fraternal Order of Police contract; the GardaWorld contract for migrant camps; ongoing issues with Favorite Healthcare Staffing, the firm the city hired to run its migrant shelters; and the proposed winterized base camp on a contaminated industrial site in Brighton

The pitch for Spanish-speaking elected officials to directly assist with speaking to migrants wasn’t received enthusiastically by all recipients, as some balked at the administration and allies resorting to aldermen instead of trained public health workers to contain an infectious disease outbreak. Some also questioned why outside city contractors that have driven up the migrant response costs can’t help more. “Look, we’re the legislative branch,” said Ald. Gilbert Villegas. “My staff is not trained to do that. And quite frankly, that’s why we fund the Department of Family and Support Services and the Department of Public Health.”

“What you’re going to see in a number of months is an increase in the amount of homelessness and these folks aren’t going to go back to the landing zone, right? They’re gonna go back to neighborhoods they know. So you’re gonna see it in your viaducts, your parks, your streets, your highways,” said Ald. Andre Vasquez, chairman of the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

“We’ve been warning about this for the past three and a half months. Every time we’ve tried to bring it up with the administration we’re told ‘That’s not our policy, it’s voluntary, we have to respect their human dignity to choose for themselves,’ and now we have little epidemics popping up in the entire City of Chicago,” Ald. Raymond Lopez said.

“If your salary has not increased 2.5 times faster than inflation, chances are you are not a Chicago Teachers Union member.”

Chicago has 316 properties categorized as supermarkets, according to Cook County Assessor data. Nearly 40 percent, or 124 of those properties, would see a hiked transfer tax under the mayor’s tax hike ballot proposal. One of those properties, Cermak Fresh Market, is family owned. If they wanted to open a new location at a similar property, their expansion would be penalized by the transfer tax hike.

“If the mayor and referendum supporters were genuinely committed to addressing the homeless issue, they could have already taken steps to do so with the resources available. The city is sitting on $44 million in federal funds for homelessness it hasn’t used, plus has another $200 million budgeted for that cause.”

The district is under pressure to take action after a group of Black activists blasted the Chicago Board of Education for having a standing committee focused on special education but not on Black students. Currently the effort is being spearheaded by a Black Student Success working group, but a bill awaiting the governor’s signature would create a permanent Black student achievement committee.

It’s at least the fourth active robbery crew that CPD investigators have identified in recent days.

In the petition to the Illinois Supreme Court, the business groups’ attorneys noted in this case, the Bring Chicago Home referendum appears to easily violate the state constitution’s “free and equal elections” clause by allowing the city to confuse voters with two different questions in one ballot measure: “As a result of this combination, a voter wishing to support the (tax) decrease portion alone must also support the increase with the same vote, and a voter wishing to support only the increase, must also support the decrease.”

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and seven of his counterparts in other states and the District of Columbia joined the lawsuit initiated by the Federal Trade Commission, saying the nearly $25 billion deal will kill competition and raise grocery prices for millions of Americans. Mayor Brandon Johnson is now echoing calls to stop the deal, saying through a spokesperson, “All Chicago communities deserve thriving food ecosystems with multiple food access points that provide nourishing and culturally resonant food.”

“The (Women’s) Right to Privacy initiative will lead the nation in safeguarding women’s rights by automatically sealing any court records that contain women’s reproductive health information,” Martinez said. The clerk said her office will use new technology to review, redact, and seal more than 100 million cases in Cook County.

“What Chicagoans think they’re voting for in this referendum is not what it really is. Nothing in this referendum guarantees that the money will actually go to help the homeless,” said Mailee Smith, of the Illinois Policy Institute.

Homicides dropped 14 percent in 2023 from the year before, totaling 625 dead, but that’s still nearly 50 percent more homicides than a decade ago. Of those killed, 111 were age 19 and under – 18 percent of all homicide victims in Chicago. Homicide reduction remains an essential component of Chicago’s efforts on public safety.

That’s now at least five people citywide and four people, including two young children, at the Pilsen shelter to be diagnosed with measles. City leaders now say they’re working to increase vaccination rates at every shelter across the city as a possible eviction date for some shelter residents approaches later this week.

The Illinois Policy Institute has filed an ethics complaint, saying CTU sent a message to members asking them to get students to attend a Friday morning rally at union headquarters put on in partnership with promoters of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s real estate transfer tax. CTU’s response reads, in part, “Illinois Policy’s real problem is with the CTU providing civic engagement and education for our 90 percent student-of-color district.”

The complaint is here.

“(Union President Stacy) Davis Gates is right. Inequity and injustice exist in our schools. But they are perpetuated by our antiquated teachers union-dominated public school system, which denies a quality education to families that can’t afford alternatives to their failing schools. Our deficient neighborhood schools are the fault of CTU leadership. The union has effectively blocked any changes that would improve our public schools if those changes in any way affect CTU members’ job assignments, workloads or job security.”

Cook County voters are staring down more than a dozen referendums to raise taxes in the March 19 primary, including the Bring Chicago Home question championed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. A new report from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas found that in 75 binding property tax-related referendums put on ballots between 2020 and 2023, the average turnout was 32 percent of all registered voters. Seventy percent of the referendums were approved.

Nearly 350 city employees earned more than $100,000 in overtime alone, on top of their salaries, according to an analysis of the data. Of those city workers, 283 belong to the Chicago Police Department.