-- 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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Are (County) Chief Assessors responding with appropriate outrage to the pending legislation which usurps local assessment authority at the whim of Springfield legislators who may be motivated by less noble and Statutorily obligatory personal benefits than “uniformity”?
Letting ‘them’ freeze a perfectly proper triennial assessment increase because it will benefit ‘them’ creates a precedent, while there are other remedies available under current law (TIF, ‘special’ exemptions).
If Chief Assessors let them just dictate an assessment freeze without going through TIF hearings (as law requires), then Assessor authority is destroyed.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-bears-arlington-heights-state-legislation-20230512-uf34n43vnzf3zbutuva2jkgdue-story.html
If non-political elite weren’t scared before, we should be terrified at this. It grants State the right to assess property values, stripping all power from local authorities.