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Under the 1848 constitution the legislature gave out more than 80 tax exemptions of various sorts to newly chartered institutions, according to legal documents in the case. That’s two state constitutions ago.
But city budget officials have said the $552 million for CPS that would come from a surplus of special taxing dollars, known as TIF, are not allocated per school. They are provided to CPS by law as one amount that the school board would decide how to spend. A spokesperson for the mayor said Tuesday the amount of the TIF surplus “is one of the least controversial parts of the budget.”
Edgar Lopez, the CEO, has blamed CPS funding and enrollment policies for the network’s financial troubles. Aspira’s financial health has been impacted by declining enrollment, a district-wide trend that has impacted other charter operators. Charter schools get money from CPS for each student they enroll. But CPS officials have taken the charter to task for budgeting based on “unrealistic” enrollment projections.
Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey said jails have turned into revolving door facilities while police arrest and re-arrest as responsibility, accountability and community safety go out the window. “Illinois doesn’t need more tinkering, clarifying, or re-wording,” Downey said. “It needs a reset — a moral and practical acknowledgement that the SAFE-T Act’s detention scheme is beyond saving.”
As of November, there are 1,260 offenders under the adult probation, including 208 for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, two for reckless homicide, and 11 for attempted murder. Under the chief judge, offenders are free to roam around during the day; they just have a curfew they need to be home by.
Gov. JB Pritzker said state lawmakers are already talking. “I believe that we need to have a system that is more progressive and less regressive than the one that we have now,” Pritzker said. “I think it is something that is being talked about by members of the General Assembly.”
The president spoke at the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Pardoning outside the White House Tuesday. Referring to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as well as the governor, Trump said crime in Chicago is out of control. “The mayor is incompetent and the governor is a big, fat slob. He ought to invite us in, say, ‘Please make Chicago safe,’” Trump said.
Illinois led the nation by producing about 485 million pounds of pumpkins in 2024, or about as much as the next four leading states combined. According to the Census of Agriculture, Illinois had 524 fresh market pumpkin farms in 2022.
Realtor.com reports the state currently has just 42 percent of the active housing listings it had before the pandemic began.
“We are, in effect, under the authority of two men who have lost the plot: A mayor who behaves as if federal law were an optional suggestion, and a governor who appears eager to affirm that misunderstanding. These clowns are a joke, a joke on us. But it’s not funny anymore, if it ever was.”
The outside investigation also found $26,000 in Amazon charges were billed to Argo Community High School superintendent Bill Toulios’ school credit card between February 2022 and 2025. Investigators said Toulios’ attorney refused to provide a full, unredacted accounting of the charges.
Illinois’ tax policies are a drag on the state’s economy, as is shown by the state’s worsening tax competitiveness rating compared with other states. Illinois recently dropped six spots in the national rankings, losing out to 37 other states and putting in the worst performance of any state in the Midwest.
“As if Chicago didn’t have enough problems lately, investors have now turned their noses up at the city’s latest bond sale.”
“If the markets already perceive Chicago as such a fiscal basket case that there’s tepid-at-best appetite for the most risk-free debt the city has to offer, it’s not a stretch to worry that the city will struggle to finance future needs. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration surely isn’t helping to reassure investors by proposing the City Council approve a record-setting $3.8 billion bond authorization.”
“Just as Chicago’s fiscal plight exposes Johnson’s foolish ideology, it highlights Illinois governor JB Pritzker’s cynicism. … In opposing Johnson’s head tax while quietly loading new pension costs onto the city, the governor has tried to buy union goodwill today and stick future taxpayers with the tab. He has mortgaged Chicago’s future for his vanity presidential run.”
Not that Johnson is the first mayor to find his Finance Department missing out on piles of cash. The city’s unpaid ledger stacks up to a whopping $8.2 billion dating back to the early 1990s – enough to cover about half of Johnson’s budget proposal, if he could wave a magic wand to make generations of debtors pay up. Unpaid fines and fees from administrative hearings still make up the biggest chunk of money owed to the city at $3.1 billion.
Ald. Brian Hopkins is renewing his call for a vetoed “snap curfew” that would allow emergency youth restrictions, while Ald. William Hall has introduced a new ordinance requiring social media platforms to act on posts promoting illegal teen gatherings.
“Chicago is disguising its discriminatory actions under the pretext of ‘racial equity,'” America First Legal counsel Alice Kass wrote in the complaint. “Bureaucrats have embedded ‘equity’ principles throughout the Chicago government, including in the CPD, where race is a central consideration in recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention decisions.”
“Given that Electronic Monitoring has become the main alternative to incarceration under the SAFE-T Act when judges opt not to detain those accused of serious crimes, the currently lax state of EM enforcement obviously is a serious threat to public safety.”
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