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The building’s vacancy rate stands at 69 percent, far worse than the city average of just over 25 percent, which marked a record high in Chicago last quarter. The property was 92 percent leased when MetLife bought it in 2013.
For the first phase, recipients could live anywhere in the city. This time they’ll be limited to one section of the Fifth Ward, where there’s a concentration of children living in poverty. A total of 150 low-income residents will get money from a pool of $900,000 in federal funds.
Raoul brought the action on behalf of the State Board of Elections, which alleges that the material Local Government Information Services has published involved voter data from 2016 and 2020 that was made available only to political committees in the state for political use. How the Lake Forest-based company obtained the information is not clear, the attorney general’s filing said.
Current law requires insurance companies to cover the equipment for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. However, Senate Bill 3414 would secure coverage for 1.3 million people in Illinois who have this chronic health condition.
Advocates noted that the scholarship program would be subject to state appropriations.
More than 2.16 million international visitors came to the state in 2023, up 39 percent from the previous year. Those visitors stimulated the economy with nearly $2.7 billion of spending. The top five countries visitors came from include Canada, Mexico, India, the U.K. and Germany.
“This resolution — fragile though it might be — was possible because we chose to see our students not as a mob but as young people who were in the process of learning. It was possible because we tried respectful dialogue rather than force. And it was possible because we sought to follow a set of principles, many of which I would argue are core to the tenets of Judaism.”
Center for Tax and Budget Accountability Executive Director Ralph Martire explained, “The net tuition really isn’t what we’re getting at when we’re looking at that equitable share calculation. What we’re looking at is creating a vehicle within the formula that over time will assign more of the responsibility for funding the cost of attending a public university away from tuition and fees and to the state.”
State Rep Marty McLaughlin is a member of the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, whose members realized that new taxes would have to be implemented to balance Gov. JB Pritzker’s proposed spending plan. “It flew directly into the face of what the governor was saying in his February address and his flowery fiscal forecast suddenly fell to pieces,” said McLaughlin.
By the time it’s fully operational in 2026, the new Department of Early Childhood will administer programs currently spread across three agencies. That initial cost, estimated at about $13.1 million, is expected to be part of the budget for the next fiscal year, which lawmakers will finalize over the next few weeks.
The Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois-Indiana’s total reported spending in 2023 was $54,875,235. Yet just over $12 million of that amount was on representing its members. That’s less than 23 percent percent of its overall spending. The rest was spent on politics, administration and other union leadership priorities.
“If we’re going to get what we need, we must push for it. We need you to come to Springfield with us next Wednesday, May 15, to advocate for more school funding,” the email read. Teachers can partake in political advocacy on their own time, but this day of action would be during regular school hours and at taxpayer expense.
The resolution – signed by over 1,000 students, alumni, and faculty members, as well as officials from Northwestern’s admissions and civil rights compliance offices – also criticized the university for creating an “Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism” and a “Committee on Free Expression” to address anti-Semitism on campus.
Chicago tows all 121 days the ban is in effect – regardless of whether there is snow. Between December and April, just 15 out of that total of 121 days had measurable snowfall, but a total of 7,745 vehicles got hauled off the streets, facing at least $235 for tickets and tow and storage fees.
A handful of downtown office buildings with lots of empty space are in position to be sold or seized by lenders at sharp discounts to their pre-pandemic values, more data points showing the malaise of the local office sector.
The spontaneous gatherings, in which crowds block off intersections to watch drivers spin donuts in the streets, were headline news a couple of years ago. Coverage has waned as fewer incidents occur downtown, but sideshows are still nearly weekly occurrences in other neighborhoods.
Illinois annually ranks among U-Haul’s top states for outbound migration, meaning tens of thousands of households annually use U-Haul equipment to leave the state to relocate elsewhere in the country.
Under the legislation, the Illinois State Board of Education would create a licensing test for teachers, specifically for teachers looking to be licensed to test 1st through 6th grade. Applicants would also be able to retake portions of the test where they fail, instead of having to retake the entire test.
Jacksonville superintendent Steve Ptacek said, “This is the absolute wrong response from our legislators. There are multiple reasons we have seen a dramatic reduction in teacher candidates, but the most important is that our government continues to facilitate a hostile work environment for educators by removing any sense of parent and student accountability.”
The MIT/Argonne report modeled a hypothetical scenario in which public transit disappeared from the region entirely. It found that travel times would increase by 35 percent, 2 million trips each day would be canceled, and the region would lose $35 billion in annual direct economic activity – to say nothing of ripple effects from lost jobs, shuttered businesses and higher cost of living.
The main campus in Hyde Park has been quiet since the encampment was removed. Some students were pleased to see it go, even if protests continue. “This encampment was illegal, obstructive disruptive and incredibly dangerous we had people from off campus populating our quad for days on end,” student Declan Hurley said.
Jim Dey: “Unfortunately, Illinois is laboring under a Sword of Damocles in the form of a mammoth public pension debt that continues to grow every year.”
“This is an example of the Democrats creating a problem and then coming in through the back door with a solution and the solution is to fund our work shortage issues with illegal immigrants? I don’t think so,” said state Rep. Adam Niemerg.
Deputy Gov. Andy Manar this week sent a letter to the head of the state’s agencies instructing them to identify $800 million in collective budget cuts if lawmakers don’t deliver on Gov. JB Pritzker’s tax requests. Manar’s letter came on the heels of positive news: the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget increased its base General Revenue Fund estimate for the upcoming fiscal year 2025 by $295 million, to $53.3 billion.
While there are 527 chances to be caught by a red-light camera, a few cameras are much more likely to nail drivers. Ten cameras each produced more than $1.5 million in tickets – with one reaping $3.3 million – just during 2022.
In an amendment to the bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin asks for the government to conduct a study on how the federal government can leverage existing programs to help at small, nonhub airports like Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield offer more convenient airline services.
While other organizations have focused on strongly condemning the use of police to disrupt a protest April 26, which resulted in two arrests, the American Association of University Professors encourages the UI to “continue to distinguish itself from many campuses across the nation as a place that upholds the ideals of free speech by limiting law enforcement action to the maintenance of conditions of safety for all members of our community.”
University of Chicago “represents an especially pernicious problem in higher education: the active influence and interference of state political actors within the university itself….. The campus protests there have all the hallmarks of the same sources of finance and organizational assistance that enabled black lives matter (BLM) and the 2020 election riots—and the upcoming DNC convention in Chicago will be subject to a number of irregular influences.”
The move to consolidate follows a December “plan of action” report by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning that highlighted a $730 million annual budget shortfall bearing down on the metro region by 2026. That amounts to about 20% of the transit system’s annual operating costs.
Belvidere Mayor Clint Morris says it’s full steam ahead for the assembly plant, confirming plans with automaker Stellantis are still in motion, but could take time.
For Holly Woodruff with the Illinois Nurses Association, the delays have long-term effects on an already stretched thin medical industry. “It’s hard to keep the good people that we are educating here in the state of Illinois in the state,” she said, “if they can get a license in Missouri within hours, or days, and they’re waiting months and months and months here.”
Officials are planning for potential disruptions inside and outside convention venue; organizers say fundraising has been strong
Northwestern promises to fund two professorships for Palestinians, give five full-ride scholarships for Palestinian students, and build a house for middle eastern and Muslim students. Rutgers promises to admit and give scholarships to ten Palestinian students, build an Arab Cultural Center, hire additional diversity, equity, and inclusion staff with “cultural competency” with Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians, and consider hiring faculty for a Middle East Studies department. Each of these promises has different civil rights implications. Let’s explore each in turn.
“Rivian has its own profligate government patron—the state of Illinois. This week Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced up to $827 million in incentives for Rivian to expand a local plant and hire 550 employees—about $1.5 million per job. An underwater state is coming to the rescue of an underwater manufacturer. Anyone want to predict how this will turn out?”
But according to Pritzker’s office, state funding for CPS has increased by 14 percent or $264.8 million from 2019 to 2024. And over the last five years, Chicago Public Schools has received an increase of $1,542 per student.
“The success of school choice is a story of unique, individualized learning experiences, not one of family wealth or selection bias. The commission’s accusation of systemic racism in the higher education system while ignoring the role of the systematic efforts to deny quality K-12 school choices to poor families, overwhelmingly Black and Latino, is scholarly malpractice.”
Micky Horstman, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “The 2024 CTA budget is already the largest ever, as was Metra’s. Instead of finding ways to make the city more affordable and attractive to new residents and businesses, the city wants to continue spending as if nothing has changed. “
Heidi Mueller comes to her position as the former director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, and following the resignation of her predecessor, Marc Smith, who was found in contempt of court a dozen times during his four-and-a-half-year tenure at the agency. The state’s proposed 2025 budget invests $100 million into DCFS.
Ald. Nicole Lee told constituents last week that she had been notified that the administration was considering plans to build a new temporary shelter in her ward to replace a shelter downtown “before the Democratic National Convention” in August.
A trip to Chicago for a fundraiser with wealthy donors for President Joe Biden spurred protests that snarled rush hour traffic in the Loop Wednesday afternoon.
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