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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notified the city that it will rebid $176 million in grants that previously went straight to City Hall. “These are pretty serious issues,” said Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, the executive director of the Illinois Head Start Association. “The city based its new structure on Head Start funding and now they are going to lose some of those dollars and some of those children. It now throws a wrench in their planning.”
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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