-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
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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So just one class with 20 students would cost Illinois taxpayers $300,000. Are the desks made of gold?
The Patch article botched the first sentence.
“Illinois spends more on the typical student than the rest of the country, according to new figures released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.”
That’s not true, as reading the entire article reveals.
Rather, Illinois spends more than the AVERAGE for the entire country (all states plus Washington DC).
The highest is New York at at $23,901.
Illinois is 12th highest at $15,337.
The average of the United States is $12,201.
Utah is lowest at $7,179.
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/school-finances/tables/2017/secondary-education-finance/elsec17_sumtables.xls
The 8th tab in that spreadsheet is the source of the statistics found in the Across Illinois Patch article.
That’s the summary tables from the 2017 Public Elementary-Secondary Education Finance Data, which is part of the Annual Survey of School System finances.
That link temporarily stopped working.
Here is the link to the 2017 Public Elementary-Secondary Education Finance Data page:
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/econ/school-finances/secondary-education-finance.html
And here is the link to the Annual Survey of School System Finances page:
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/school-finances.html