Decatur Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe said layoffs and furloughs are the last thing she wants to consider, but may have to. Her central Illinois city is facing a $5.5 million revenue shortfall. “If we don’t get help in a major way, I don’t know how we recover. I can’t tax my citizens more. There’s just no more money to come back to us.”
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.