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“Once you start seeing dispensaries pop up on pinnacle real estate corners in Chicago, it’s going to have a real impact on culture and it’s going to bring a whole new set of folks into the space.”
Investors welcomed the opportunity to meet and hear directly from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but they remain hungry to see the details of how she will tackle an $838 million deficit.
An exceptionally candid and firm editorial.
The Chicago Police Department will soon join forces with the video doorbell company Ring — potentially giving cops access to thousands of cameras fixed to residents’ front doors around the city.
Police have “no hesitation” to partner with Ring and will announce a pilot program soon, a Chicago police spokesman says.
Chicago is one of six U.S. cities on the list.
The evidence includes Cubs gear at Miller Park.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
California’s ability to regulate the pollution limits of cars and light trucks should not be limited by the federal government, Illinois’ top lawyer argued in a joint court filing Friday, because those standards positively impact the health of his constituents.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined a group of 22 other states, the District of Columbia and two cities in suing the federal government after it moved Thursday to revoke the most populous state’s ability to set stricter emission specifications than those required by President Donald Trump’s Administration.
The lawsuit is testing the waters for how federal and state powers will
“Our elections are rigged and rotten. More of us need to wake up to that realization. The fix is put in when politicians from one party or the other draw political districts to their own party’s advantage after each census, which will happen next in 2021. In Illinois, both Republicans and Democrats have done the rigging over the decades. It’s wrong every time.”
Representatives of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (CDSA) engaged marketgoers in discussions about the campaigns they are involved in, from lifting the ban on rent control to establishing single-payer healthcare. But one effort in particular seemed to catch the most attention.
“We’re trying to bring ComEd under municipal control,” CDSA member Matthew Cason told Patrick Petranek, a Logan Square resident whose eyes lit up at the prospect of Chicago’s largest electricity provider, Commonwealth Edison, being taken over by the city. Petranek said he supports more transparency around fees and signed a petition in support of
An actuary’s perspective — Mary Pat Campbell.
All Peoria property owners will receive another bill in October. The city needs $1.2 million by the end of the year to fund police and firefighter pensions.
(Their headline, not ours.)
Democrats have been speculating in recent weeks about the possibility of the economy falling back from recovery into recession and its adverse impact on President Donald Trump’s re-election bid in 2020.
But Democrats, at least those in Illinois, might want to reconsider what they wish for because a deteriorating economy would have a devastating impact on a financially distressed state like Illinois. For starters, a recession would reduce revenue at all levels of government.
Our condo was just off Michigan Avenue facing east, with a view of the lake and the Bean. One day my husband said “We need to sell this condo now before property taxes go up and we lose money on it.” I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t. We bought a to-be-built house in Las Vegas in October 2014, moved into that house in September of 2015, and the condo closed in December of that year.
Our cost of living has gone down 40%. Our current property taxes are 1/3rd of what the condo’s taxes currently are. We
Progressive aldermen are teeing up their proposals to plug the city’s $838 million budget hole, including a $35 head tax for businesses with more than 50 employees, asking “wealthy nonprofit organizations” to begin making payments to the city and boosting the hotel tax.
The mayor in recent months has floated a variety of “help us” proposals, the most viable of which is to have the state assume unfunded Chicago pension liabilities as part of a package in which it also would help underfunded plans in numerous municipalities around the state. She’s facing a projected $838 million budget hole.
Activist teachers formed a national committee and prevailed on the National Education Association to adopt a resolution of endorsement. Thus was conceived the BLM at School National Week of Action, to be held annually the first week of February to set the tone for Black History Month. The following year, school districts in more than 20 major cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Seattle incorporated BLM at School Week into their curricula.
“You didn’t read about it? Probably not. That’s because it happened in Chicago.”
In a recent talk at Chicago’s City Club, Senator Steans managed to endorse most every piece of double talk, gimmickry and evasion of responsibility we’ve seen on pensions from the Illinois General Assembly.
That’s the bottom line of the latest annual look at the conditions of the government retirement systems in the 50 states by Moody’s Investors Service. Illinois’ adjusted net pension liability as of June 30, 2018, stood at a cool $240.8 billion. That’s more than any other state, with California coming in second—its population is more than three times ours—at $230.8 billion and Texas coming in third at $132.8 billion.
The committee already rejected one of the most obviously needed reforms — a prohibition on lawmakers running tax appeal businesses.
There’s nothing wrong with putting a casino in Chicago. But counting on it, as Lightfoot put it in last month’s speech, as “a structural solution to address long-term problems”? That’s as short-sighted as playing the slots to pay your bills.
Jeff Carter: Remember the Facebook status on relationships, “It’s Complicated”? That’s the status of my relationship with the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.
In a perfect touch of further irony, the lawmaker, a Chicago Democrat, said “That’s what happens to my constituents. They get s— on all time.” (Yes, he really said that.)
A Chicago teacher: “Now my eyes are open, and I can see just how far CTU has strayed from the mission I thought I was funding: supporting teachers.”
“Reparations could take many forms, but the most straightforward would be cash from the government.”
May sound familiar.
In the State of Illinois, non-home rule units of government located in counties subject to the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) are limited in the size of their annual property tax extension to 5% or the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), whichever is less. However, the limitation is subject to some exceptions and can be increased by referendum. The Forest Preserve District of Cook County is reportedly considering asking taxpayers for a larger levy to pay for pensions and a large backlog of land restoration and maintenance needs.
By Richard Porter a lawyer in Chicago and Illinois’ national committeeman to the RNC.
Improvement, finally! That’s no doubt how many Illinoisans reacted to news about Illinois’ latest audited financial statements. Take a closer look, however, to get a major lesson on how misinformation about our financial crisis is spread.
“In their 2012 strike, nearly 30,000 Chicago Teachers Union members planted a flag for labor militancy in public education. Today, they’re again on the verge of another strike — and they may be joined by 7,000 SEIU education workers, says socialist magazine Jacobin. “A strike by the SEIU and CTU together this fall could land a blow against everything wrong with our schools and much more besides: racism, poverty, inequality, union-busting, and the contempt of the city’s 1 percent for the workers who make Chicago run.”
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will speak directly to the municipal bond market’s buyside at the city’s annual investors conference on Sept. 20.
Saying a crisis is solvable and actually solving it are two different things. And the Democrats existing ideas barely scratch the surface.
Nice collection of the empirical evidence by Greg Hinz: “The weakness is in capital flows, the amount of money spent to buy or sometimes build new structures. Consider it a sort of leading indicator as to whether investors consider a given area worth the risk of plunking down their money in exchange for returns that can be many years away.
According to a new report by real estate investment bank Eastdil Secured, office building capital flows here dropped a heart-pounding 87 percent in the first six months of the year compared to last year…. Similar research comes from RCA/CBRE…. A
“But…there are signs that the conga line of capitalists looking to pour money into downtown real estate is thinning. Office building capital flows here dropped 87 percent in the first six months of the year compared to last year, according to one study. Similar research projects that in terms of all commercial transactions, Chicago still will
If congestion pricing’s main objective is to fill a general budget deficit, then it is simply another tax. If that is the reason for it, let’s not wrap it in the virtue of reducing congestion in downtown. The brief life of the county’s tax on sugary drinks should have taught us that lesson. Without the proper groundwork, congestion pricing will amount to little more than an unavoidable tax levied on those who, by choice or necessity, drive into the city for work or play.
Comment: The “Fair Tax” isn’t even here yet, but proponents like the Sun-Times are already admitting it won’t be enough. A few hundred million dollars more, or perhaps a billion more, from a tax on retirement income won’t make much difference either. Our pension system is a bottomless pit.
“Teachers, don’t be goaded by your strike-hungry union leaders into a walkout. It’s unnecessary. Kids shouldn’t be locked out of their schools for who knows how long to feed an ego-driven demonstration of power by CTU leadership. You have a fair contract on the table.”
In a sharp break with City Hall convention, two Chicago aldermen fronted measures for now-indicted Ald. Edward Burke that steered millions of dollars in property tax breaks for Burke’s law clients in his Southwest Side ward.
Some Illinois lawmakers supplement their income doing property tax appeals work at private law firms. A property tax relief task force that includes some of those lawmakers killed a proposal to end that conflict of interest.
That would appear to leave the mayor with no alternative but to cobble together a budget that includes: a hefty property tax increase; an increase in ride-hailing fees; a smaller version of Emanuel’s $10 billion pension borrowing and another round of “sales tax securitization” bonds; a tax increment financing surplus; and, perhaps, cuts that include permanently eliminating the 3,000 vacancies that existed at the time she ordered her hiring freeze.
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Sate Rep. Kelly Cassidy said the name was formed as an inside joke after an NPR Illinois story dubbed the group with a more wholesome moniker: “The Marijuana Moms.” “And, you know, that was cute and everything, but we were also like, ‘We’re
For tax and tech wonks.
Now, Doe is demanding the balance of the $3.5 million he says the disgraced former Speaker agreed to pay. The lawsuit stemming from that demand, is set to go to trial November 18th
As Illinois embarks on a massive gambling expansion of up to six new casinos and the addition of slot machines and table games at horse tracks, revenue from the state’s 10 existing casinos last year dropped more than 3% , continuing a decadelong slide.
The loss in revenue from casinos, however, was more than offset by a continued increase in the state’s take from video poker and slot machines at bars, restaurants and truck stops. The full report from the legislature’s
Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the Rev. Leon Finney, Jr., a clout-heavy Chicago minister and longtime affordable housing advocate, according to documents obtained this week by WBEZ.
The decision in Retirement Board of the Firemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund v. Chicago stands to impact state grant intercept requests filed with state Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s office by all four of the city’s pension funds.
Sickening: Of the 124 deaths of children in the 2019 fiscal year that had been in contact with DCFS in the previous 12 months, about 17 percent of them have preliminarily been ruled a homicide.
Comment: Susana Mendoza has converted the Comptroller into an office of political propaganda.
Inaccurate data prevented the inspector general from making a thorough assessment. But the results he did produce were, nevertheless, alarming for a department charged with overseeing 425 city buildings, 10,000 vehicles and pieces of equipment and purchasing new vehicles while maintaining old ones.
The department known around City Hall as “2FM” did not meet the industry standard of at least 95% “fleet availability” in 2017, according to the audit.
Even more troubling: Only 12.9% of preventive maintenance was performed in a timely manner in 2017.
Despite the power Madigan holds, there does seem to be some political will and momentum in changing the way Illinois draws its legislative map. Gov. Pritzker campaigned on Fair Maps and although he hasn’t given specifics he vowed to veto any map that is politically gerrymandered.
“We have created a system under the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act where you can use taxpayer money and the government to go after your enemies,” he said.
The withholding of payment against a business could be used as leverage against a business that’s not seeing eye-to-eye with a local labor union, Risch said.
Comment: In a sense, this isn’t actually “news,” and it’ not among the topic we cover, but it somehow seemed like murder is worth an occasional mention.
The Chicago Tribune reports that work will begin this fall on the largest modernization project in CTA history, a $2.1 billion reconstruction project that goes by the name of Red-Purple Modernization (RPM). The overall project, which will take a total of four years to complete, will modernize the signaling and train controls and rebuild four stations on the North Side elevated, on which Red, Purple and Brown line trains operate.
Presented without comment.
Less than a year into office, Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough faces potential federal court oversight of hiring amid a watchdog’s accusations that she’s “running an illegal patronage employment system.”
Veteran anti-patronage attorney Michael Shakman said in a new legal filing that Yarbrough has put the politically connected into jobs that are supposed to be free from such influence, asked her employees for campaign contributions on their private cellphones and transferred certain supervisors to far-flung offices in hopes they’ll quit.
Calling us “fringe” indicates more about the perspective of Illinois’ political establishment than it says about us.
Comment: Our strong suspicion is that they are indeed thinking about that.
Runaway overtime at the Chicago Police Department isn’t the only item in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s cost-cutting crosshairs.
She also hopes to hammer out a new firefighters’ contract that eliminates treasured union perks and outdated staffing requirements that cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
How does one keep the natives — aka Illinois taxpayers — from getting restless?
Don’t tell them the truth.
Exhibit A for that proposition is a news release recently issued by Comptroller Susana Mendoza about the state’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report that put a positive spin on Illinois’ disastrous financial situation.
Reason’s response to a recent similar article in The Atlantic.
A coalition of progressive groups and a handful of aldermen are getting specific about increases to a bevy of taxes to fill Chicago’s budget hole, including restoring and increasing Chicago’s corporate head tax to $16 per month for large companies, instituting a 3.5% tax on office leases, a hike in the hotel tax from 4.5% to 7.5% and a local income tax on those earning above $100,000 a year.
That’s just the start. See their whole “Re-imagine Chicago Platform linked here.
Comment: Senator Heather Steans’ comments on pensions deserve a separate story, which we will try to get to soon. They are nonsense.
Chicago’s finances and the state’s finances do not, unfortunately, represent the totality of the dilemma faced by the residents of the Land of Lincoln.
https://ilbusinessdaily.com/stories/513202311-31-6-of-households-in-sauk-received-food-stamps-in-2017
Lightfoot said she has ordered a review of Finney’s “significant portfolio” of public housing after the Chicago Sun-Times shined a light on a federal judge’s stunning allegations of fraud, self-dealing and mis-management against Finney’s former nonprofit.
States such as New York, California and Illinois use residency audits to claim that your recent interstate move was just a tax dodge and that you still owe their state income taxes.
Michael A. Pagano, dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs and director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Meter all water users and charge a price to replace the system’s infrastructure. Charge a market price for parking as well as road use, starting with congestion pricing. Ask the legislators in Springfield for access to an earnings tax at the place of employment, like Ohio’s cities, or a payroll tax on employers, and reduce the property and sales tax rates. Broaden the sales tax base by imposing the sales tax on
A national republication of our Wirepoints story.
Comment: She still can’t get fast the first sentence without blaming the budget impasse or Rauner.
The State of Illinois recently reported its biggest annual financial loss ever. Instead of clear reporting on that, we’ve seen perhaps the most glaring example yet of how the state’s finances can be misunderstood, misreported and intentionally distorted.
Workers are moving from New York City to Charlotte. N.C., and Orlando, Fla., and from Chicago to Nashville, Tenn., and Indianapolis, according to an analysis for The Wall Street Journal by LinkedIn.
If the Mayor expects the Council to go along with an unpopular tax hike, she may have to drop her plans to cut their ward responsibilities.
Two former Democratic state senators are asking a Cook County judge to order Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza to pay back wages they and other lawmakers gave up when legislators voted repeatedly over a decade to freeze their salaries. The request from Michael Noland of Elgin and James Clayborne of Belleville was filed Wednesday in a lawsuit the former lawmakers brought against Mendoza, a fellow Democrat.
The state’s ban on buyouts is supposed to limit severance pay to 20 weeks. In the case of Thomas, Western officials and their lawyers came up with an alternative — two years of sabbatical leave worth $570,000 and then a return to a faculty position paying $200,000 a year. It was a price they were willing to pay to avoid a big fight over Thomas stepping down.
Outside Chicago, a recent Wirepoints examination found that 57% of 630 downstate police and fire pension funds showed funding ratios of less than 60%. Many are in far worse shape, even for governments meeting their statutorily required contributions. That includes the state’s five funds. In 2001, the state was paying about $1.4 billion into its pension system. By 2017, that number jumped to $7.6 billion, a 450%
The executive order is “really about showing the trade unions that they have another ally in Springfield.”
For decades, the South Side powerhouse’s nonprofits got millions in public housing money. Now, he’s facing allegations of fraud and self-dealing.
Greg Hinz: “Hard data backs up my anecdotal impressions. As first reported by my colleagues Alby Gallun and Danny Ecker, retail vacancies in the metropolitan area are hovering around 11 percent, within a percentage point of the highest level in nearly two decades. And average asking rent per square foot is lower than it was in 2001, based on data from CBRE.”
“What we know for certain: Chicago has a pension disaster. Springfield has one, too. Future stability and prosperity are on the line. Lightfoot doesn’t have a plan yet, but says she’s determined to act. That puts her one step ahead of Springfield.”
“The whole idea of a countywide elected official being able to file suit against the county strikes me as being an inherent conflict of interest,” Morrison told Chicago City Wire. of . “When you are a politician and have legal activity with that same government you represent, to me that is an inherent conflict.”
Lightfoot called the 3 percent COLAs built into public employee pensions “unsustainable” and implied Illinois needs a constitutional amendment to fix a broken system. She was right. Too bad she had to take it back.
Comment: Long overdue; years behind SEC reporting for private companies.
“It is not entirely clear, though, how Chicago will cover its increasing pensions bill as well as its current spending, given its credibility problem in the capital markets.”
The Clean Energy Progress Act the Clean Energy Jobs Act.
“No matter what you call them, these bills both would benefit Exelon and, if passed, would raise Illinois resident and business’ (ratepayers) electricity bills significantly in the process.”
Proponents are not just conveniently ignoring the fact that, if either of the two proposed bills passes, electricity rates are guaranteed to increase, but they are actively saying the opposite.
The unanimous vote taken at the CTU’s house of delegates meeting Wednesday evening sets the table for a Sept. 26 vote which will decide whether members authorize the union to strike.
The earliest the union would go on strike is Oct. 7.
“It’s almost foolish financial decision-making to not go to Will County or Indiana,” a local businessman said.
Preckwinkle responded with a refreshing degree of frankness.
“The labor unions pushed it,” Preckwinkle said of the prevailing-wage and apprentice requirements adopted by the county board by an 11-4 vote in March 2018. Labor unions generously supported the campaigns of commissioners facing primary challenges in an election that was held a week
More than 16,450 Chicago Public Schools students were homeless last year, half of them concentrated in ten South and West Side wards, underscoring the need for a “dedicated revenue stream” to combat the problem.
He also says, “There are 115,000 self-admitted adult street gang members in the city of Chicago,” he said. “That doesn’t include the juveniles. That is major challenge for law enforcement and society, and we’re not going to police our way out of it.”
S&P said it expects that the city “will continue a trend of using surplus tax-increment financing district revenues to plug the budget gap,” but the agency sees that revenue source as “unpredictable and therefore one-time in nature.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
The free program through Chicago Public Schools could come at a major cost to community-based early childhood centers, many of which offer far more than preschool for four-year-olds, including infant and toddler care as well as after school and summer programming. The preschool expansion, coupled with new requirements for centers that receive public funding, is hurting centers across the city, including Concordia Place in the Avondale neighborhood on the North Side.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
“We would view any measure that would lower annual contributions into Chicago’s pension systems negatively. That’s a reference to talk that Lightfoot might seek to lower and move farther into the future the pension-payment ramp adopted at Emanuel’s request.
They define the state’s landscape and mirror its culture. They are resilient, useful and hearty. No other state produces more. Three-quarters of Illinois, nearly 27 million acres, is farmland. Around 10 million of those acres are dedicated to soybeans. But how did they get here? An 1850 Japanese shipwreck.
A pension actuary’s perspective.
Comment: Far too late for these laws to be of much use. The only “teeth” that matter are those for reducing or restructuring debt, and only federal bankruptcy can do that.
State Representative Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) wielded his position as Minority Leader to push legislation that would create more work for law firms like his by encouraging municipal government entities to go further into debt through the issuance of more bonds — protecting bondholders over taxpayers, along the way.
https://www.wglt.org/post/rep-brady-very-difficult-job-awaits-new-property-tax-task-force#stream/0
Rather than banking pension systems’ rising surpluses in flush years, elected leaders in California, Illinois, New Jersey, South Carolina, and elsewhere expanded worker benefits—promising that financial markets could underwrite the new costs.
A lesson for Chicago as it considers a hike in transfer taxes on high end properties, to which Mayor Lightfoot is committed: New York hiked its transfer tax on sales over $2 million on July 1. July sales of Manhattan homes and apartments for $2 million or more shrank to the lowest level for any month in more than six years. It was the slowest pace for such sales in the month of July since 2009.
Jacobin is a leading socialist publication.
Comment: Of all the BGA’s idiotic fact checks we’ve covered here, this may be the dumbest, trying to capture the entire climate debate in a single article and asserting any conclusion as a fact. And her conclusion, for what it’s worth, is that Congressman Sean Casten’s claim is “mostly true” that most climate scientists agree the planet will face an irreversible ‘worst case scenario’ if climate change isn’t tackled within the decade.
When Illinois legislators promised a ban on “golden parachutes,” they promised more than they have delivered.
In a stunning blow to worker privacy, the state agreed to hand over workers’ personal information to AFSCME, including their sex, personal cellphone numbers and personal email addresses, with no limit on how the union uses employee information and with no regard to whether the employee is even an AFSCME member.
“We could very well be looking at 100% of our property taxes going to police and fire pensions and still not totally address the problem,” the mayor said. “The unfunded part (of pensions) is blowing up. The ability for any of us to get to a 90% funding ratio by 2040 is impossible.”
Peoria is hardly alone in this concern.
Marbury vs. Madison be damned.
Includes a link to Wirepoints research.
Cook County’s public health system expects to provide a staggering $590 million in health care next year that it won’t get paid for.
On Friday, Cook County Health CEO Dr. Jay Shannon warned that the amount could climb even higher if new federal rules begin in October. Those rules would deny permanent residency or visa renewals to immigrants who use or might use government programs like Medicaid. “The chilling effect that this may have on people accessing services that they have a right to, is right now a large X factor,” Shannon said
Union leadership seems to have looked at teacher uprisings in certain red states and in Oakland, Calif., and drawn the conclusion that the same tactics will work here, igniting a grassroots brushfire of support for their cause. But teachers in those districts truly are miserably paid and their schools woefully underfunded. Chicago teachers, however, have been well paid for years, and Chicago isn’t Oklahoma or West Virginia. Chicagoans understand the connection between good schools and a city’s economic viability. They’re also smarting from the tax burden being placed on them. And they’ve just elected a mayor who ran not on
llinois has committed $500 million toward the construction of the institute and other university facilities, contingent on matching private sector funds. Gov. J.B. Pritzker hasn’t provided a timeline for releasing that money.
The Tennessee treasurer told the Sun-Times, “When I became aware of the risks associated with IIP’s business model in light of federal law, I requested the investments staff to sell the stock.” He said his concern is about the Controlled Substances Act, which makes it illegal to “knowingly open, lease, rent, use or maintain any place, whether permanently or temporarily, for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing or using any controlled substance” — which marijuana remains under federal law despite Illinois’ and other states’ moves to legalize it.
A spokeswoman for the city’s Finance Department said the agency is examining whether to make commercial property a part of the tax increase. If it’s included, it would be the second time the administration has expanded the proposal’s reach since Lightfoot began publicly discussing the idea in recent weeks.
Initial discussions involved applying a higher tax rate to sales of homes valued at $1 million or more, similar to a proposal offered by progressive aldermen who want the money earmarked to help the homeless. But in her address about city finances Thursday night, Lightfoot said the tax should
Comment: Very sad news indeed. They’ve been among the few voices in Illinois media recognizing the scope of our crisis. Along with filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy and notifying employees of potential layoffs starting this October, News-Gazette Media will be sold to the family-owned Champaign Multimedia Group LLC, an affiliated company of Community Media Group.
By continuing practices such as automatic raises and taxpayer-subsidized platinum health insurance, along with a new $2,500 bonus, the AFSCME contract will transfer more than $3.6 billion in extra compensation from taxpayers to state workers.
Such job growth is “essential to helping close Chicago’s racial health and wealth gap,” said some promoter.
Comment: “People could very well buy into the opposition’s argument that the state can’t be trusted to keep this new tax focused only on high-income taxpayers.” Ya think? and so far we’ve only heard from the state and Chicago. Still to come are Cook County and hundreds of other municipalities across the state state that are broke.
Comment: Read the text of the speech linked here if you want, but she said nothing concrete. Her cash budget numbers, as usual, mean little because the real problem is growing pension debt. She said nothing specific about what revenue or reform measures she will pursue. The only exception is a progressive real estate transfer tax, which she said she is committed to. We called that an Exit Tax on the wealthy when we wrote about it. Mayor Emanuel rejected it as “treating homeowners like ATM machines.”
Just released today, we will be taking a close look and writing about the highlights.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot-faces-challenges-after-100-days-in-office-558627691.html
How the Windy City takes its citizens’ vehicles.
“Warren Buffett said recently, be wary of investing in states like Illinois that quite frankly are digging themselves a deeper hole and really have no way out in terms of their fiscal outlook, their pension allocations,” DeSantis, referring to the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO, said during the Enterprise Florida meeting in Jacksonville. “I think there is an opportunity to talk to some folks and drive some investment here in Florida.”
“Working class Chicagoans need a budget that taxes the rich and powerful corporations to pay their fair share,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “ … The time has come to tax the rich instead of continue to rely on fines, fees, and regressive taxes that have pushed out Chicago’s black and brown families out of our city.” No specifics are offered, however.
Lightfoot on Wednesday sought to downplay any expectations of specific budget solutions in Thursday’s address.
Lightfoot took office on a mission to take down the machine. When it comes to the city’s finances, the biggest blockade to investments that will improve upward mobility for residents is the pension problem. She can best lead a new Chicago if she helps stop this problem from grinding through city revenues.
Comment: Mr. Hertz, formerly with the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, last year authored an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times calling for a progressive increase in the real estate transfer tax, which we wrote about here.
The Civic Federation supports the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) proposed budget for FY2020 because it demonstrates continued financial stability in the third year of Evidence-Based Funding from the State of Illinois. However, the Civic Federation continues to be concerned about the District’s long-term financial sustainability
The latest example is the tax structure developed for recreational cannabis in Illinois. A group of state lawmakers essentially admitted that they just might have set the tax rates too high.
Code for America is doing the work for Cook County at no cost to taxpayers, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said Tuesday, adding that the automation provided by the group’s digital system will do the work in a fraction of the time that it would take bureaucrats to do the task.
Churchill Downs blames prohibitive tax rates that would penalize it relative to competing Chicago-area casinos.
The Chicago Teachers Union wants the school board to delay Wednesday’s vote on a $7.7 billion budget, claiming it doesn’t address critical staffing needs or fulfill Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s campaign promise of equity in education.
Chicago Teachers Union boss Jesse Sharkey talks like a socialist tough guy, lives in a posh Rogers Park estate and drives a Tesla.
To many of us, some things seem obvious. When you’re so broke that your survival is threatened you don’t raise pay. You don’t keep facilities open that are half full. You don’t provide lavish retirement benefits. You expect employees to contribute to their own retirement.
We think that way because we live in an alternate universe.
The outcry from county leaders has been consistent for years: This tab is unsustainable.
“Where does it end?” asked John Daley, a veteran Cook County Board commissioner. “We’re at a point now, when you look at these numbers, you can’t continue this.”
Comment: Taxpayers helped fund it. According to Curbed Chicago, incentives included $6.4 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and $1.5 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credits expected to generate $15.2 million in equity. The City of Chicago also sold two city-owned lots for $1 each to support the development.
On Aug. 26, the Illinois Civil Justice League, an organization which advocates for reform of the state’s civil court system, released a report indicating the state’s tort system hits those in the Chicago metropolitan region with $3.8 billion in annual direct tort costs annually.
Despite not having a vote, Cook County residents have a big stake in the outcome. The county’s chief judge has a $272 million budget and an army of 2,400 employees, which doesn’t even include the 400 judges the office oversees.
“I know that people have gotten new assessments that are 50% higher. Property taxes are the last thing in the world that I want to use as a lever but at this point in good conscience I can’t take anything off the table,” Lightfoot said in a new interview.
A “Social Equity License Application Assistance Program.”
Comment: See our own recent article linked here on how this relates to Illinois.
A new law requires any county board member or elected local governmental official to forfeit their salary at the beginning of their next term if they are receiving pension benefits for service as a county board member or elected officer.
1.5% annual appreciation rate, the lowest rate in 44 months. This places the Chicago area 5th from the bottom of the rankings of the top 20 metro areas that they track. Several former high flyers have fallen from grace and are now below Chicago: New York, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle. Seattle, surprisingly, is actually seeing falling home prices.
Lawmakers sent nearly 600 bills to the governor from the Spring legislative session. The deadline for the governor to take action on those bills is this week.
The nascent lottery sports pilot is limited to parlay wagers, meaning bettors pick the outcomes of multiple games as part of the same bet. Such parlay cards were long illegal in most states outside Nevada — though ubiquitous in office pools, local taverns and with neighborhood bookies
The pain from lawsuits in Illinois isn’t limited to the purses of the companies that get sued, but is spread to the pocketbooks of every state resident, a new report said, estimating the state’s high level of litigious activity costs the average Chicago area resident $811 each, every year.
On Aug. 26, the Illinois Civil Justice League, an organization which advocates for reform of the state’s civil court system, released a report indicating the state’s tort system hits those in the Chicago metropolitan region with $3.8 billion in annual direct tort costs annually.
That part about politicians spending Other People’s Money on Peotone? Thus far that’s been a fool’s bet. What’s missing is a buy-in from the private sector — specifically the airlines and e-commerce giants that the airport supposedly would serve.
https://news.wttw.com/2019/08/25/ex-rep-joe-walsh-making-longshot-gop-challenge-trump
Failure to deliver essential service marks a milestone with statewide implications. It exposes just how long Illinois officeholders are willing to ignore the state’s fiscal crisis, and it has important legal implications as well.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
Pension actuary: “The only way to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis twin perils of underfunding or volatility and unsustainably high contributions is a Defined Contribution plan (or, failing that, risk-sharing pension plan) in which contributions are nothing more than a routine part of payroll expenses, year-in and year-out.”
Lori Lightfoot’s “State of the City” speech could be something new: a speech by a Chicago mayor that means something.
“There was a time, not so long ago, when it would have been laughable to suggest Democrats kick Madigan to the curb. That time is over.”
“It seems that Mr. Obama may have messed with the wrong bunch of environmentally sensitive stakeholders. On Thursday a federal agency called the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation said in a letter to the Federal Highway Administration that the plan needs more study and that it’s ‘concerned that not enough detail is provided to properly characterize the nature and intensity of the adverse effects to the cultural landscapes’ of Jackson Park and Midway Plaisance, another park nearby.”
Illinois is more dependent on food stamps than any other neighboring state
Comment: This is a sad but significant low point for legal reasons we will write about shortly.
The Chicago Teachers Union is taking fire after a trip to Venezuela by a four-member delegation made the headlines. The CTU delegation knew exactly what political and economic system it regards as a model. As awful as they are, Chicago’s public schools have not reached the level of desperation the collapsing system in Venezuela has. But if the CTU is allowed to keep putting its socialist ideals into practice, Chicago may get there.
Why exactly doesn’t Illinois’ political establishment recognize that only drastic policy changes will reverse the population outflow crippling the state?
Comment: “Mayor Lightfoot should endorse a community-led process to reach 100% clean energy by 2040,” says the executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council. No mention of cost, for a city that’s beyond broke.
Both CTU and AFT, along with the largest teachers union in the country, the National Education Association (NEA) have been major supporters of the #RedforEd movement, which launched in Arizona in March 2108 with the organizational assistance of a former CTU member and has subsequently spread throughout most states in the country.
Nah.
Over 9,000 school administrators earned more than $100,000 per year, and they’ll each receive $3 million or more in pension benefits during their retirements, according to a Illinois Policy Institute analysis. While school districts pay administrators’ salaries and benefits through local property taxes, state taxpayers are on the hook for those pension costs.
The work permit process starts with a letter from a parent or guardian to the child’s school asking for an employment certificate. The school administrator then reviews the criteria and determines if a work permit will be issued. Criteria for approval include the safety of the child in the potential workplace.
Under the new legislation landlords are prohibited from evicting or retaliating against a tenant based on their citizenship or immigration status. They are also not allowed to intimidate tenants by disclosing or threatening to disclose a tenant’s citizenship or immigration status to any person, entity, or immigration or law enforcement agency.
The utility amassed $30 million in bad debt just in the first half of 2019, about double last year’s pace, as heating bills continue to rise and collection efforts remain muted. The cost gets passed on to paying customers.
Illinois is 3rd highest.
Thank you to our tipster for making this a national story and to teachers who know the difference between right and wrong.
Illinois Tier 2 teachers, with their 9% contributions, and using the plan’s valuation assumptions, are actually subsidizing everyone else.
A judge is about to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Foxx, while the Democratic bosses of Cook County don’t need to hear what that probe might uncover.
On Tuesday, leaders of a campaign to use a Chicago real estate transfer tax increase to fund an aggressive effort to reduce homelessness slammed the new mayor for abandoning their cause now that she’s eyeing the same revenue source to help balance her first budget.
But CoreLogic’s Deputy Chief Economist Ralph McLaughlin said he expected the slowdown to turn around in the coming months.
For 26 years, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s office was run by a chief of staff who used “fear” as motivation and could “make or break” careers, a massive report on harassment in state politics revealed on Tuesday.
Rents rose again in the second quarter, but construction is slowing down amid rising costs, affordable housing regulations and uncertainty about property taxes.
The combined state and average local sales taxes in Illinois ranked seventh in the nation, according to a new analysis from the Tax Foundation based on July 2019 data.
The city and Comcast are making it easier for low-income families in Chicago to get a significant discount on internet. The Internet Essentials program offers internet for just $9.95 plus tax a month. That means anyone who participates in SNAP, Housing Assistance, the National School Lunch Program or other programs is eligible for the offer.
More on the story that we brought to light in our article linked here.
An actuary’s perspective.
Comment: This legislation repeals the state’s Kyoto Protocol Act of 1998. It limited state action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the United States Senate effectively rejected the Kyoto Protocols by a 95 – 0 vote because they were so onerous, costly and unfairly excluded developing countries. But Illinois had put it into state law so it was bound by rules the federal government no longer intended to follow. In other words, what was rejected in Washington by an overwhelming, bipartisan vote had been just fine for Illinois.
The proposal’s future could hinge on whether the city or the state — or both — is willing to take a smaller cut of tax revenue, and whether supporters can round up the votes to alter the gambling legislation that was frantically put together as the General Assembly’s spring session went into overtime.
Raise taxes and take on more debt, but do it gradually. Never mind reforms, corruption, hostility to employers and all the rest. Like the mythical frog, nobody will jump out, they seem to think.
Comment: Good grief! Look at this ridiculous survey, referenced in the article, that the city is asking residents to fill out on what to do with taxes and spending. Just make up a zip code and anybody from anywhere can fill it out. And you can bet CTU and other unions have armies already swarming this.
While some Illinois residents vote to leave with their feet, others cast their ballots for elected officials who barely acknowledge this problem.
How much worse does it have to get before they do?
An interesting debate has arisen on one particular aspect of the proceeding now pending in an Illinois court to invalidate certain state bonds.
An actuary’s perspective.
A must-read by former Sec. of State and Treasury: “Imagine your business could treat borrowings as revenues, avoid cost recognition by not paying expenses and report less debt than actually owed….. Fortunately, accounting for private-sector enterprises doesn’t enable such activities. But accounting for state and local governments does, and with big consequences. For example, Chicago used proceeds from the sale of 75 years of parking meter revenues to plug a single year’s budget shortfall…. Today, state and local governments are using GASB’s permissive rules to report unfunded pension liabilities at just one quarter of the $4 trillion the same
It’s another eye-opening instance of the indicted Chicago alderman mixing his law firm’s business with city business. And it resulted from big errors by former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios.
Lightfoot still plans to ask the Illinois General Assembly to empower Chicago to raise its real estate transfer tax but wants to use the projected $120 million a year in new revenue to close a $1 billion-plus budget shortfall.
According to the property tax assessor, that is.
A new film, “Lincoln Is Crying: The Grifters, Grafters and Governors of Illinois,” combining documentary and comedic fiction, “exposes some of the biggest crooks who pillaged the Prairie State, including felonious aldermen, corrupt state representatives, thieving congressmen, scandalous mayors, larcenous governors and even a couple of cunning comptrollers.”
But the mayor still offered no specifics on the kind of help she will seek; it could include permission to raise the estate transfer tax, as well as allowing the city to tax professional services, including attorneys and accountants.
A lesson for Illinois: New York’s newest casinos are already struggling for survival, as an oversaturated market has cannibalized gaming revenue.
It’s a fair question after a financial analysis released Aug. 13 by the Illinois Gaming Board suggested that the much-anticipated gambling house could be dead on arrival because of “onerous” taxes on the facility imposed by state lawmakers—new taxes that would be so high as to make it impossible to finance the project. The consultancy hired by the Lightfoot administration to analyze five
A Cook County grand jury has subpoenaed city election records related to 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn’s challenge to a college student’s nominating signatures during the last City Hall campaign, the Tribune has learned. Quinn, the hand-picked alderman of House Speaker Michael Madigan, the 13th Ward’s Democratic committeeman for decades.
In June, Obama beat a federal lawsuit to stop him from building his Center in Jackson Park. But he and the Obama Foundation didn’t have much time to celebrate: This month, he’s facing a report from the city’s Department of Planning and Development claiming the project will have an “adverse effect” on the park and Midway Plaisance.
A year ago, the mayor and the city council would have ignored that report. No longer — Obama doesn’t have that kind of clout anymore.
While Cullerton made a public show of denying himself a legislative pension for which he was legally qualified, he was — allegedly — stealing one from the Teamsters.
The fine print in the state’s 610-page recreational marijuana bill could provide some challenges to getting retail sales up and running by Jan. 1
The face is that of Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, whose visage—literally—appears on stationery of the newly formed Vote No on Blank Check Committee and likely will dominate millions of dollars in coming TV ads from the group over the next year and a half.
“The people of Illinois understand that for 34 years Madigan has been at the center of every major issue in this state, and that he’s at the center of this one,” said committee Chairman Greg Baise, who runs another group, Ideas Illinois, that has been criticizing the tax plan.
Comment: This assures that the state will vastly overspend on its capital projects. The prevailing wage law in Illinois is a rigged farce, as we wrote before. The average total full-time-equivalent compensation, including benefits, for all job categories over all counties is $119,000.
Tax rates or casino profit margins will have to be slashed if the proposed Chicago casino is to become real. And the deal will have to pass Springfield—again.
President of the Associated Fire Fighters of Illinois in Springfield: “We look forward to showing that unions want real pension funding solutions, because firefighters deserve to know their retirement will be there and taxpayers should finally be confident it’s being funded in the most efficient manner.”
These aren’t your grandma’s Cold War–era pols. Inside Chicago’s far-far-left political wavelet.
“We talked to a number of different financial experts who are in the business of financing casino enterprises, and person after person that we talked to told us that the tax structure that’s embedded into the statute that passed is not one that would allow for a casino operator to be successful because it takes too much money out of the deal upfront. So we will see what the report tells us, and then we’ll respond,” Lightfoot said.
The Supreme Court last year gave states a green light to collect online sales tax from out-of-state businesses without setting guardrails. And what do you know? States are now testing the limits of their taxing power and creating a web of regulatory trip-wires for small businesses. Some states like Arkansas, Colorado and Illinois exclude “marketplace” sales on sites like Amazon and eBay from their thresholds for individual sellers, but many do not. And some states require marketplaces to collect sales tax for third-party retailers. The upshot is that a retailer who sells on eBay, Shopify and Amazon will exceed different
An Illinois Supreme Court Justice has received a homeowners exemption on a home where he doesn’t live.
Two suggestion from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning: First, state should re-examine its criteria for disbursing revenue to communities. Criteria should take into account things like infrastructure condition and the cost of service delivery, not just population and retail sales. Second, the county’s property tax classification system forces businesses to shoulder a higher share of the tax burden. By phasing out the property tax classification system over several years,Cook County could reduce the commercial/industrial tax differential, encouraging new business investment that will rebuild local tax revenue.
In a letter today to U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham, all 15 Democratic members of the state’s Washington delegation expressed “concern” about the status of preparations for the big count and asked for an update on what’s being done—especially for hard-to-reach groups such as low-income households, people of color, immigrants and the homeless.
The ordinance would address housing concerns within 2-miles of the planned Obama Presidential Center, setting aside 30% of new development for affordable housing, creating a community trust fund, providing property tax relief and giving tenants the right of first refusal.
She said the factfinder, attorney Steven Bierig, had mostly sided with what the city was proposing to the union. Bierig is an arbitrator and mediator specializing in labor and employment disputes.
Even though the state’s massive gaming expansion was signed into law over six weeks ago, the Illinois Gaming Board still has to draft hundreds of rules governing application and oversight procedures that aren’t spelled out in the law. And while state lawmakers initially said they thought sports betting could launch in Illinois in time for the NFL kickoff in September — or at least by the Super Bowl in February — there’s no rollout in sight.
All operators would have to pay $1 million to renew licenses every four years. After that, Illinois will take a 15% tax on
“Among the five states that experienced the biggest net drop in adjusted gross income – Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois and New York – around half of the income those states lost came from people earning more than $200,000 a year.”
A view from the left.
Conducted in Denver, the location of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Blago’s silver mane was still bottle brown; his demeanor gracious but frenetic, and his insistence on reciting poetry by the legendary British writer Rudyard Kipling was … well, weird.
The poem was called “If”; a primer for becoming “A Man.”
Comment: Too bad they didn’t address the actual objections to the tax.
Comment: Administrative consolidation is a good idea but won’t move the needle much, which these authors failed to emphasize.
They are hardly alone. Illinois state and local governments spend more on pensions as a percentage of revenue than any other state – and nearly double the national average.
State’s financial situation is worst in the nation and hasn’t necessarily bottomed
Loaves & fishes.
The budget released Thursday invests $619 million in “critical building improvements” at more than 300 schools, the district said. The schools are attended by 161,000 students citywide.
Some state agencies have begun to send out vouchers for back pay withheld by the previous administration. State agencies have been calculating the amounts owed to each employee, and the first few checks and electronic deposits are coming through.
Comment: Another sad result of the tough media environment. They were a major source of news about state and local government, and we often posted their stories here.
The federal government pays for 80 percent of major highway projects in Illinois — and both Davis and Graves said Illinois is poised to gain federal matching funds.
“The state legislature passed a robust capital bill,” Davis said, funded in part by a doubling of the state’s gasoline tax from 19 cents to 38 cents. “We have to live up to our end of the bargain by putting a highway bill together to make sure that those improvements go to every community in Illinois. I want to see more diversification. I want to see less volatility when it comes to
The National Labor Relations Board previously gave the giant rats a wide berth but it’s shifted its stance under the Trump administration. The board is weighing whether to crack down on their use, on the grounds that the rats may be scaring away customers from “neutral” businesses not involved in the labor dispute.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is poised to lower the boom on beleaguered Chicago taxpayers on Aug. 29 — by disclosing a shortfall that tops $1 billion — during a prime-time speech that, she hopes, will be carried live by some media outlets.
So far, the new mayor has only described the deficit as “north of” the $740 million acknowledged by Emanuel’s chief financial officer and said there is “no question” she’ll be forced to raise taxes.
She has refused to say more until she had potential solutions to present on the revenue and spending sides.
Illinois had 17 new homes built per 10,000 people last year. That’s far below the national average of 41 new homes built per 10,000 people.
Those who write that a constitutional amendment to Illinois’ pension protection clause are spreading a false, public union talking point.
The story of how this truck stop came to be a gambling gold mine, the story of why it’s even considered a truck stop, is one element in a brazen series of maneuvers over several years by a video slot and poker operator to squeeze money from a struggling city.
In a recent ranking of the 50 busiest airports in the United States, Midway pulled in last overall, weighed down by an abysmal score for amenities offered.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
A family in far southern Will County, on the edge of the Chicago area, hopes to make taxpayers and a group of school administrators pay after school officials there allegedly turned a deaf ear to years of racially-motivated bullying directed at their bi-racial son.
A coalition of Illinois small businesses recently spoke out against the hardships a proposed video-gaming tax hike would cause them.
Corruption costs Illinois taxpayers at least $550M per year
t’s a tough question to answer, but it’s one City Hall must get right as it weighs proposals that could either make Chicago more livable for many or stifle residential construction altogether.
Austin calls the Sun-Times to complain about a weekend story by the Watchdogs detailing the 14 times that Austin and her six children and stepchildren have declared bankruptcy, often while holding government jobs.
“First, the progressive income tax would fund just four months of a single year’s pension payment. The money would all be spent before even accounting for new spending Pritzker has proposed, such as universal pre-school or a state-run public option health insurance plan.” “Second, lawmakers must be honest about why previous, larger tax hikes have failed to deliver on their promises. The 2011 income tax hike was supposed to fix our ballooning unpaid bill backlog and mounting pension debt. The 2017 income tax hike was supposed to balance the budget.” “Third, lawmakers must be honest with their
“This article provides the legal basis for Illinois and other states to justify needed and reasonable modifications of public pension benefits that are unaffordable and insurmountable through pension reform legislation or a Constitutional Amendment. This article discusses and explains why all states can learn and should follow what the U.S. Supreme Court and virtually all state courts have vigilantly protected as the necessary and required attribute of government for the benefit of all.”
A nice breakdown of where the new capital spending will go, by category, and how it will be paid for.
More than $120,000 went to campaign and political funds tied to just one of those legislators, state Sen. Don Harmon of Oak Park, a main sponsor of the 2018 bill expanding medical marijuana in the state.
Among critics, CTU V.P. Stacey Davis Gates is a “true believer” who lacks the practical streak needed at the negotiating table. Even she describes herself as “unmovable.”
All the detail you might want on the budget for the new fiscal year that began last month, from Illinois’ Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.
Continued healthy growth in revenue from personal income and sales taxes.
“Now-retired Ald. Ricardo Munoz, 22nd, who wasn’t subtle in explaining how The Chicago Way operates. ‘Pick your ten friends and make them millionaires,’ Munoz told the BGA. ‘Get them the contracts from the city and make them millionaires.’ That is precisely the culture Lightfoot has vowed to eradicate. She ran for office promising to end the practice of aldermanic ring-kissing and favoritism…. Let’s see if she can apply those principles at one of the city’s untouchable vessels of greed — O’Hare.”
For years,Colie epitomized the excesses and arrogance associated with the old guard of Chicago’s unions. He feasted on pricey dinners and drank hard while sticking others with the bills, surrounded himself with younger women, drove expensive cars and used a wealthy Chicagoan’s 76-foot yacht, at no cost, for a trip to Europe.
The aptly nicknamed Charles ‘Chip’ Schmadeke is getting ready for a whirlwind bidding process for six new and highly coveted casino licenses. Ex-bosses say he has the right temperament for the high-stakes, low-glamor job.
Now facing federal scrutiny, Chicago Ald. Carrie Austin and her 6 children and stepchildren have filed 14 times to get out from under debts including taxes and unpaid parking fines. Most cases were filed while they were on City Hall’s payroll.
Adorned with a pink stripper pole attached to the afterdeck, the 58-foot powerboat dubbed Flying Lady was a regular in the often raucous party spot just off the downtown shore, serving essentially as a floating nightclub, complete with tipsy guests dancing to pulsating DJ music and bikini-clad women performing acrobatic pole moves to the cheers of sun-drenched crowds.
Million-dollar-home buyers with their eyes on clouds gathering over the local and national economic outlook pulled back in the first half of 2019, resulting in a double-digit drop in the number of luxury homes sold in the city and the larger metropolitan area.
Truth In Accounting Research Director Bill Bergman said taxpayers need to be cautious of such reports. Credit rating agencies are looking out for bondholders.
The question now is whether he is prepared to follow through on his commitment even if it means taking on the entrenched powers in Springfield. We hope he can count on the staunch, vocal support of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is also on record in favor of the change.
Their draft reparations ordinance will be introduced in September, when the City Council reconvenes after the traditional summer recess. It calls for:
• Free education, job training and apprenticeship programs at the City Colleges of Chicago “leading directly to job opportunities for the impacted population” along with a “curriculum that seeks to undo the lingering effects and trauma of the Transatlantic slave trade.”
• Free public transportation on the CTA.
• Development of an early childhood education plan at Chicago Public Schools for African American students living in poverty along with “tutors and specialized attention for
Comment: It’s best seen as a primal scream of frustration and disgust.
Comment: Well, well, well. Comrade Klonsky now favors property tax caps. Well, at least for neighborhoods like his (he lives in Logan Square).
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Candace Gingrich will serve as vice president and head of business development for Revolution Florida, a sister company to Illinois-based Revolution Enterprises.
A detailed look at the story we first covered.
“We lost our neighborhood school, the streets are riddled with potholes and there’s gunshots. What are we paying for?” one resident said.
The new cabinet-level position focuses on examining systemic racism that exists in Chicago and figuring out policies to help correct those racial disparities.
A national republication of our Wirepoints article.
GateHouse Media, owner of the Journal Star, is in merger talks with Gannett, owner of USA Today and dozens of other newspapers across the country. If the deal closes, the merger would result in one Wall Street corporation owning the nation’s two largest newspapers groups by circulation.
The Office of Financial Analysis, which is supposed to inform aldermen on the budget and costs of other government operations, is without a director and has only one staff member as the city faces a more than $700 million budget gap.
Comment: Per our article that brought this trip to public attention, the delegates unquestionbly claimed there were there on behalf of CTU. See the delegates own statements on that linked here.
The big promises include hiring 250 more nurses and 200 more social workers over five years. It also includes providing more case managers so schools with 240 of more special education students can have at least two, she said. But no word on how to pay for it.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/amara-enyia-staffers-file-wage-theft-grievance-513392701.html
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“We’d like to take a moment to express our appreciation for the Illinois National Guard troops now headed to Afghanistan. To them we say, ‘Godspeed and good luck.'”
A onetime labor leader with ties to several prominent Illinois politicians pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday in a lesser-known extortion case that still threatens to reach deep into the state’s halls of power. As part of his plea deal, former Teamster chief John T. Coli will cooperate with the feds in other investigations. Coli admitted to taking part in a scheme to extort $325,000 from Cinespace Chicago Film Studios, the clout-heavy studio that is home to such hit TV shows as “Chicago Fire” and “Empire.” He pleaded guilty to receiving a prohibited payment and filing a false
This article is from 2010.
Illinois is sixth worst but has highest labor costs.
The metro area now is gaining employment faster than the country as a whole, and faster than New York, L.A. and Denver. Is it a real shift or just a seasonal blip?
Naperville, Libertyville and Bloomingdale vote themselves weed-free.
You’d think this came from a parody site, but it didn’t.
Dozens of former elected officials have kept campaign cash for themselves. It’s all legal under a loophole in the state’s ethics reform. ‘I’m the charity,’ says one ex-legislator who pocketed $583,357 — the biggest money-grab. A few examples:
Last year, former 36th Ward Ald. William J.P. Banks wrote himself a $291,708 check when he shut down his campaign committee, and former Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno of Lemont took $36,157 from her still-active campaign fund.
Some other big beneficiaries of campaign cashouts: former state Sen. James DeLeo, D-Chicago, who took $271,681, and
“Chicago has an opportunity to define its energy future,” said Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, one of the sponsors of the measure to study municipalizing ComEd, in a statement. “[T]hrough municipalization Chicago could accelerate decarbonization, and implement a progressive rate structure that ensures better rates for working-class Chicagoans.”
Use this handy tool to find out.
“Chicago’s handling of the presidential center violates the venerable public-trust doctrine, under which a municipality owes a duty of loyalty and care to its citizens analogous to a corporation’s duty to its shareholders. Cities must follow transparent procedures and work to maximize residents’ gains, not give huge public handouts to politically powerful private entities. Chicago officials should, in fact, feel a higher duty to provide fair value to the public because of the huge conflict of interest raised by the longstanding relationship between the Obama family and the city.”
The funding strength of retirement systems across the U.S. rests on rosy assumptions. The very fact that stocks and bonds have enjoyed bountiful returns since the 1980s explains why they probably won’t in the future.
Agents have questioned current and former village employees about a contract given to a politically connected security company and over possible wrongdoing in the suburb’s public safety department.
The district’s 2019 pension contribution totaled $809 million, of which $239 million is coming from the state and $430 million from a special pension levy. The teachers’ fund is at a 50.1% funded ratio.
Comment: Good to see the BGA finally acknowledging what’s a catastrophe in many suburbs, which we’ve been documenting for years.
“Ms. Preckwinkle ignores the overwhelming evidence that CCSA Kimberly Foxx is not working with the police, but against them,” FOP spokesman Martin Preib told Chicago City Wire. “Her bail reform strategies are part of that pattern, along with her willingness to release convicted killers on frivolous claims of wrongful conviction.”
Wanted: true reformers.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2019/7/26/8930350/campaign-funds-illinois-elected-officials-personal-payouts-ethics-reform
A good summary of how the ordinance works.
Takeda will depart the area by the end of the year, taking its 1,000 positions to the Boston area. Walgreens and Mondelez International are moving 1,300 and 400 jobs, respectively, to Chicago’s core, following other national and international firms once headquartered in sunny suburban locales.
Concentration benefits firms like Nuveen and Vanguard, as well as some investors, but critics see risks if the market cools.
For more than 50 years, the airport has been plagued by corruption and costly delays. The politically connected cash in. Meanwhile, passengers trudge through a transit hub that persistently underperforms.
Chicago’s fair workweek ordinance aims to be the broadest in the country. It covers employees working in building services, health care, hotels, manufacturing, restaurants, retail and warehouse services. It also includes temporary workers in those fields.
Retail power sellers will need to shift from month-to-month prices to fixed prices for 12 months under reform legislation taking effect next year. Here’s how CleanChoice Energy, which has leaned on variable pricing in the past, is responding. Effectively, CleanChoice is saying that buying renewable energy certificates from Illinois wind farms, which allows it to make its green-energy claims, costs far more than RECs from out-of-state wind farms. That flies in the face of the message that the renewable power industry is delivering, which is that the cost of producing wind power has fallen dramatically in recent years and
A proposed order, introduced today in the City Council by 22 members, calls for hiring a consultant to determine the feasibility of “municipalizing” ComEd in Chicago.
The goal is to use a hike in the real estate transfer tax to boost services and housing for the homeless. Mayor Lori Lightfoot campaigned on a similar proposal but says the sides aren’t on the same page yet.
Chicago police have for years compiled profiles on every citizen who spoke at public meetings of the city’s police disciplinary panel, a process that included running criminal background checks and internet searches on activists, a police union official and even relatives of an innocent woman killed in a high-profile police shooting, the Chicago Tribune has learned.
Politicians can’t afford to ignore growing public resentment of excessive property taxes, a powder keg that needs only a spark to explode into a full-fledged tax revolt with unpredictable consequences.
Records obtained by the Tribune reveal that the checks went to Kevin Quinn, a former top Madigan lieutenant and brother of 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn, after he was dismissed from the speaker’s political operation in early 2018 amid a sexual harassment scandal. The checks came from accounts linked to five current or former lobbyists for utility giant ComEd, including Madigan’s close confidant Michael McClain, records showed. McClain’s home in downstate Quincy was raided by the FBI two months ago.
New study: “We know that corruption has a negative effect on firm value. It’s a deadweight tax on firm value…. Further analysis in the paper suggests that corruption is particularly harmful to shareholder value when state governments are controlled by a single party, consistent with the notion that interparty competition deters corruption.”
There’s something particularly unsettling about federal agents barging into the homes of Speaker Michael Madigan’s closest confidants. The raids didn’t unfold at campaign headquarters or a law firm or a City Hall office. They were unannounced impositions into sacred spaces, into living rooms, along picture-framed hallways, near tossed shoes and empty coffee cups and unmade beds. They were personal.
Salute to the car. It was a Dodge, say other reports.
With a double-digit plunge in home sales in June, the Chicago area’s housing market reached its 12 consecutive month of declines. In Chicago, 2,766 homes sold in June, 13.3 percent below June 2018, according to data released by Illinois Realtors, the statewide trade group.
In the nine-county metropolitan area, 12,002 homes sold, down 11.6 percent from a year earlier. The local declines were far steeper than the national dip. Nationwide, home sales fell 2.2 percent in June from a year ago.
Comment: The statist magazine includes Pritzker among those “thriving.” As for the state itself, well….
Immigrant rights groups and the mayor have been unsuccessful in getting the conference, which starts Tuesday at the Marriott, canceled or moved out of the city.
A gender studies major says she can’t work at Golman Sachs, so she wants her employer forced to pay more.
“If neither the legislature nor the courts will enforce Illinois’s current anti-subsidy clause as written, taxpayers should demand that the state amend it, as Bolick’s book chapter recommends, to be more specific and harder to evade.”
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
“In conducting this fight teachers must turn out to the working class more broadly, including teachers in neighboring suburban districts, city workers, autoworkers and other sections of workers coming into struggle…. The resources needed to fund education exist in abundance, but this fight requires a frontal assault on the privately accumulated wealth of billionaires and re-ordering society’s priorities in the interest of human need, not profit.”
Raise property taxes for affordable housing. The madness never ends.
In a Morning Consult poll on popularity of governors, Pritzker finished 42nd on the list with a 44% approval rating and a 33% disapproval rating. Another 21% were undecided. At the bottom of the list was Ned Lamont, a Democrat from Connecticut, with a 32% favorable rating. Curiously, eight of the bottom 10 governors are Democrats. The only two Republicans in the bottom 10 are Jim Justice of West Virginia and Matt Bevin of Kentucky. Contrast that with the top 10, who all happen to be Republicans.
I can no longer defend my home state to others who are constantly asking me about Illinois’ financial ills. Pritzker, Madigan, et al have reversed my decision and I will spend the remainder of my career living in Colorado.
An endorsement of Illinois’ progressive tax proposal.
We’re only third-worst (though not by much).
At least 14 pension systems outside of Illinois have put money into a publicly traded investment firm, San Diego-based Innovative Industrial Properties, that’s aiming to profit when recreational marijuana in Illinois becomes legal Jan. 1. No Illinois government agencies or public employee pension funds have invested, records show.
Members of the Illinois International Port District board unanimously voted down a proposal to negotiate a master lease with Savage Services, a transportation and logistics company based in Midvale, Utah. It amounted to an about-face for an agency that in March selected Savage as its preferred bidder for the job of revitalizing operations.
Board Chairman Michael Forde said the mayor’s office voiced its objection and members agreed as a courtesy. “The mayor’s office was of the opinion that this was not in the long-term interests of the port,” Forde said.
A construction company whose records have been subpoenaed as part of an investigation that also includes Ald. Carrie Austin and a Chicago building inspector has gotten no-bid increases worth $2 million on two city deals to put in noise insulation for homes near O’Hare Airport.
Oakk Construction Co. offered City Hall the lowest price to win two city contracts in 2012 to soundproof 350 homes, according to city records that show the deals were supposed to cost the city a total of about $3.8 million.
Oakk has made millions of dollars under a city program to repair
There’s some reason to believe Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi is reversing favoritism shown to well-lawyered business folks by predecessor Joe Berrios. Check out the handwritten evidence.
If a casino is to serve its function—namely, drawing lots of dollars out of the wallets of out-of-towners rather than locals—then it must be located in places where visitors want to be. That means picking a location close to downtown. By those lights, the best location of the lot now being studied by the Lightfoot administration is the Michael Reese site, within a dice toss of McCormick Place. There could be even better options closer in, but none of those possibilities seem to be on the table at the moment.
Facilities that serve low-income patients say they won’t survive under the proposed work-scheduling ordinance unless they get additional funding.
The man who runs a multi-billion dollar construction program for Peoples Gas said the work is desperately needed to reduce leaks and improve safety. He strongly disputed an estimate by the Illinois Attorney General’s office that massive projects will eventually raise consumers’ bills by $750 a year.
Comment: The result would be that everybody else’s property taxes would go up to cover the break.
An ordinance scheduled for the full City Council next week will present Mayor Lori Lightfoot with an opportunity to prove she takes seriously Chicago’s business community. The council is poised to vote on an ordinance that would create new, sweeping regulations for employers by controlling how they schedule their employees’ hours. Restaurants, hotels, hospitals, manufacturers, retail stores — industries with hours that can be less predictable than those for office jobs — would be required starting in April 2020 to adhere to strict scheduling rules.
Yes, billion — enough for nearly 180 pills for every single person in the state.
Madigan, like Tito, is an expert in holding rival constituencies in competition against each other. When he’s gone, whenever that might be, Illinois Democrats will become like their national counterparts, with a hard-left center and a far, far left fringe.
Sen. David McSweeney.
Told ya.
“Losing Billions on Virtue Signaling.”
Cook County forest preserve police Chief Kelvin Pope resigned Tuesday, quick on the heels of a scathing inspector general report that said an official helped a county commissioner quash a $250 parking ticket for a political associate.
A republication of our Wirepoints article.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-chicago-casino-alermen-react-20190717-6loq765ssbhavm35sec53enh5u-story.html
Even after years of high-profile office moves from the suburbs to downtown Chicago, Lake County’s current predicament stands out. The far north suburban county is bracing for the loss of about 2,700 office jobs by early next year, from prominent companies Walgreens Boots Alliance, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. and Mondelez International.
Warnings about the weak health and liquidity risks of Chicago’s pension system abound in the funds’ 2018 financial reports.
The net pension liabilities of the four city pension funds grew to a collective $30.1 billion in 2018 from $28 billion in 2017. The funds all recorded negative investment earnings after double-digit returns in 2017.
Starting next year, customers returning to the vehicle market in Illinois will find the advantage of a vehicle trade-in diminished.
By the acting director of the IL lottery.
City officials stressed that the casino won’t necessarily wind up at one of the five spots, which they characterized as test sites. The five are the “Harborside” location at 111th Street and the Bishop Ford Freeway, near the Pullman neighborhood; the former Michael Reese Hospital site at 31st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue; a site at Pershing Road and State Street, which is near Guaranteed Rate Field; the former U.S. Steel parcel, known as South Works, which is between 79th and 91st streets along South Lake Shore Drive; and the lone
One problem: There’s no money in it.
Beyond ridiculous.
New research by Pew Charitable Trusts shows that the disparity between well-funded public pension systems and those that are fiscally strained has never been greater.
“If this works — if Promesa works and the restructuring works — it may make bankruptcy for states seem like something that lawmakers should be considering a little more seriously,” said David A. Skeel Jr., a University of Pennsylvania law professor who is on the oversight board and has written on the possibility of states using bankruptcy. “But if it doesn’t work, it would have the opposite effect.”
A recent raid at ex-Ald. Michael Zalewski’s home reportedly is tied to his desire for work from ComEd. The feds also subpoenaed the utility about its lobbying. All that will undoubtedly complicate life for the woman who runs ComEd’s regulator, Carrie Zalewski
The driving force behind the suburban-to-urban migration—access to city-dwelling talent—is evolving as more millennials with young families embrace the suburbs, said JLL Director of Research Hailey Harrington. That gradual shift has pushed some companies to split their operations between downtown and the suburbs, she said.
Beneficiaries of Emanuel’s generosity — through donations made by the former mayor’s political fund — included five of Emanuel’s favorite causes.
The ordinance is called Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance it prescribes how and when employers of companies of over 100 employees should inform employees of their work schedule.
We’ve seen no analysis yet on possible impact on Chicago.
Comment: Meanwhile, blacks are overwhelmingly the ones doing what’s rational. They are leaving for places that are safer, have better schools and offer more opportunity.
About 60% of Chicago’s youngest children lived in community areas where 91% of homicides took place, according to the analysis.
Of the state’s 102 counties, 67 are on a watch list — or more serious warning list — created by the research arm of the Heartland Alliance, which works on social issues in areas that include poverty. That’s up from 52 last year.
Hating Illinois is a sickness, according to this author, and you should just leave.
On the central issue important to Illinoisans – what the constitutional limits on state borrowing really are – bring it on. Let’s hear it.
“They haven’t had to figure it out because you voters haven’t figured it out. Wake up. Tell Pritzker and Lightfoot that pretty much every financial reform you’ve heard about must be effectuated immediately.”
Some of the arrows flying out of the massive federal corruption investigation centered in Chicago are now pointed in a new direction.
“Illinois has reached the point where the fiscal focus should shift from spending cuts, to generating the tax revenue needed to fund an adequate level of public services — a reality the Pritzker Administration is showing the rare political will to recognize.”
Talk about irony.
Village debt as of Dec. 31, 2018 had risen to $321 million, according to its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report filed July 5. That’s up from $245 million in 2014.
Both numbers, for a town of just 16,335, are unprecedented.
Car buyers are on the hook for an estimated $40 million extra in sales taxes thanks to an Illinois law starting next year that will cap trade-in tax credits for most motor vehicles at $10,000.
Currently, car buyers pay sales tax on the difference between the value of a new car and the value of the car they’re trading in. But starting Jan. 1, car buyers will receive sales tax credit on only up to $10,000 of the value of their trade-in.
Charlie Kirk: “I leave while carrying a sense of survivor’s guilt. There are many people I know here who would like to leave but are trapped by individual circumstance. For them and for the state I love, I will continue to speak out on the excesses of government, but I will do so from a distance. You will still hear from me, I’m just sad we just won’t be seeing each other as often.”
“God bless the black-hearted members of the Illinois House and Senate — they stand to get a windfall pay raise that will place them among the top-five highest-paid state legislatures in the country.”
Erin Guthrie, the new head of the DCEO, may not be the state’s top salesperson to businesses in search of places to expand—Gov. J.B. Pritzker is—but she’s the one who hones and follows up on the pitch.
A recent ruling upholds the ICC’s early 2018 decision that it lacked authority to slow Peoples’ spending on pipe replacement, which is driving up Chicagoans’ heating costs.
A federal grand jury looking into Ald. Carrie Austin’s purchase of a new home has also subpoenaed records regarding businesses connected to a family of suburban entrepreneurs whose companies have been paid more than $100 million on City Hall deals in the past 17 years.
All but one of the companies are owned by Lemont businessman Boris Nitchoff, his sons Alex Nitchoff and Constantino Nitchoff and his granddaughter Lauren Nitchoff. The other company is owned by Antonia Tienda, who city records show formerly worked as a project manager for one of the Nitchoff companies.
The disparity between well-funded public pension systems and those that are fiscally strained has never been greater.
For example, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin had, on average, 97 percent of the assets needed to fully fund their pension liabilities in 2007 and remained at 95 percent funded or higher in 2017. Conversely, the three states with the lowest funded ratios—Illinois, Kentucky, and New Jersey—saw a drop from 69 percent funded, on average, in 2007, to 36 percent funded in 2017.
See our Quicktake linked here on why this should have Madigan & Friends sweating.
To fund reparations, sources discussed include real estate transfer tax and water bills.
While it’s not known why Zalewski is under investigation, public records show he has had recent tax troubles with the Internal Revenue Service.
While a member of the City Council, Zalewski moonlighted on the side as a lobbyist, listing himself as president of Z Consulting Group.In 2019 Zalewski was registered to lobby on behalf of the Village of Schiller Park, Wight & Co., Animal Welfare Institute, Comcast Cable Communications Management, Home Run Inn, PACE and the Village of Bridgeview.
Although I loved my work, I had a longing to live elsewhere. I grew up in Lockport, a small suburb near Joliet. After having my own children, I longed for a similar atmosphere, but one simple rule kept me from moving away — Chicago and the Board of Education’s residency rule that requires teachers to live in Chicago. Every other large school district in America has ended its residency requirement due to teacher shortages; every single one, except Chicago.
Nice summary of the major items if you haven’t been keeping up.
Activists are suing the city to stop developer Sterling Bay from proceeding with its Lincoln Yards development, one of the largest urban mixed-use projects in the country. They argue the city improperly handed out $1.3 billion in tax incentives as part of the deal.
CNBC puts Illinois at No. 30.
Comment: We who oppose the progressive income tax “aren’t genuine in now suddenly caring about the best interests of our working families,” writes Quentin Fulks, who runs the pro-tax operation.
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