Recently, Judge Jon Belz declared that the pension reform bill (SB1), signed into law in December 2013, was unconstitutional. If the Illinois Supreme Court upholds this decision, it will intensify the state’s rising fiscal pressure.

The judge ruled that the non-impairment clause of the constitution, which states that “membership in any pension or retirement system of the state… shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired,” is “plain” and “unambiguous” and thus cannot be violated.

State officials have argued the modifications are necessary to prevent financial disaster, but Belz said no circumstance, no matter how dire, justifies any modification – even of future benefits.

The Illinois Medical District Commission spent $8.8 million to buy back a property abandoned decades earlier by a medical school dragged into a scandal that helped bring down Gov. Rod Blagojevich, even though the obscure state agency had plenty of chances to reacquire the land for free, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.

There was also another problem with the buyback plan: The commission didn’t have the money to pay for the property at 2020 W. Ogden St.

So it borrowed the money by selling bonds.

After a quarter of a century in which employment downtown hovered around the half-million mark, it finally has broken that ceiling in a convincing way. In fact, to an apparent record high.

Nearly 542,000 people held private-sector positions downtown as of March, according to figures that came out a few days ago from the Illinois Department of Employment Security, which tracks private-sector jobs covered by unemployment insurance. That’s up almost 63,000, better than 13 percent, since the local economy bottomed in 2010. And it’s the highest since at least 1991, when the department started keeping records in the current format.

The figures won’t win the approval of everyone. Some folks view Loop-area employment as a zero-sum game in which anything that goes downtown is sort of “stolen” from the neighborhoods.

The Illinois legislature is once again poised to hack away at people’s access to taxpayer-funded government documents and information.

Two troubling efforts pending in the General Assembly could weaken the state’s sunshine laws — one by further constricting the definition of what is considered public information, the other by enabling government to charge higher fees for public information.

Either could see action this week when the legislature returns to Springfield for the final days of the fall veto session.

Since video gambling began in Illinois two years ago, the slot-like terminals have been showing up in places lawmakers never imagined — floral shops, laundromats, liquor stores and gas stations. They’re also now the main attraction at dozens of storefront bistros and cafes geared toward women.

Video gambling has become big business for the state, but it’s also raised some second thoughts in the process.

Since the first terminal was turned on in 2012, it has generated $210.8 million in tax revenue for the cash-strapped state government and $42.2 million for local governments on more than $3 billion in wagered cash, according to the Illinois Gaming Board.

It’s been nearly a year since lawyers for imprisoned former Governor Rod Blagojevich made their arguments before the Federal Appeals Court in Chicago.

Have the judges made their decision, and if so, when will it be revealed?

The answer to both is known only to the three judge panel that will rule, and they are not ruled by any calendar obligation. But in two weeks’ time, it will have been a year since oral arguments in the case.

The decisive victory by Bruce Rauner over Pat Quinn in the battle for Illinois governor was influenced by the superior financial health of Indiana, which no one has missed in the struggling Land of Lincoln.

The folks in Illinois are amazed and jealous that a major recent issue in Indiana was how much to reduce the state income tax.

The leadership of Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels during the past decade has made Indiana a role model for America, and has been particularly instructive and influential next door in Illinois.

On-demand ride company Uber has hired Goldman Sachs GS -0.56% to raise money from the bank’s high-net-worth clients, Fortune has learned.

Goldman’s global wealth management team was informed of the deal this morning, and began sending out packets of information to their clients. All we know right now is that the offered securities are structured as convertible debt, and could raise hundreds of millions of dollars to support Uber’s balance sheet and international expansion efforts.

This offering is completely separate from a previously-reported fundraise targeted at institutional investors, which could raise more than $1 billion at around a $40 billion valuation. Given that Goldman clients would have fewer downside protections and information rights than would the institutional backers, this deal likely comes with a significantly lower valuation.

Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Monday that the department would begin testing body cameras on officers within about 60 days as part of a pilot project.

McCarthy offered few specifics at a news conference called to highlight crime statistics, but he made it clear he backs the test.

“We have a number of officers who have volunteered because that’s how we’re going to handle it initially,” McCarthy said. “I endorse the program. I would say within 60 days we’ll be up and running.”

More than 200 drivers got a rude awakening on Monday when they discovered their cars were towed.

The city counted 239 cars towed on the first day of the annual—and seasonal—overnight parking ban, according to Molly Poppe, spokeswoman for the city’s Streets and Sanitation Department.

The winter overnight parking ban went into effect at 3 a.m. on Dec. 1. Regardless of snow, parking is banned from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. through March 31 on 107 miles of main streets where permanent no-parking signs are posted.

Gas prices have hit their lowest mark in four years and likely will drop another 10 cents to 20 cents a gallon over the next two weeks, according to industry analysts, giving suburban drivers a holiday bonus of sorts.

At the BP station at Algonquin and Arlington Heights roads in Arlington Heights, regular unleaded gas cost $2.89 gallon on Monday — $2.69 if you also bought a car wash.

Customer Nico Zlotek was happy to hear prices could drop even lower.

Transparency advocates have started fighting a new plan they say would make it harder and possibly more expensive to get government records.

A Democratic lawmaker Monday declined to call for a vote on a proposal that would make it harder for people who win battles over the Freedom of Information Act to recover attorney fees. Also, more documents related to decisions government officials make would be declared off-limits under the law.

It could come up in the future, perhaps in a different form.