State and local pension plans invest roughly twice as much in risky assets as would a prudent individual saving for retirement. Indeed, the Society of Actuaries, which represents the actuarial profession, recently pointed to public-pension investment practices “that go against basic risk management principles.” With $3.7 trillion on the line, risk-addicted pensions need an intervention. The question is who can do it.

Many individuals follow a rough “100 minus your age” rule to determine how much risk to take with their retirement savings. A 25-year-old might put 75% of his savings in stocks or other risky assets, the remaining 25% in bonds and other safer investments. A 45-year-old would hold 55% in stocks, and a 65-year-old 35%. Individuals take this risk knowing that the end balance of their IRA or 401(k) account will vary with market returns.

Now consider the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), the largest U.S. public plan and a trendsetter for others. The typical participant is around age 62, so a “100 minus age” rule would recommend that Calpers hold about 38% risky assets. In reality, Calpers holds about 75% of its portfolio in stocks and other risky assets, such as real estate, private equity and, until recently, hedge funds, despite offering benefits that, unlike IRAs or 401(k)s, it guarantees against market risk. Most other states are little different: Illinois holds 75% in risky assets; the Texas teachers’ plan holds 81%; the New York state and local plan 72%; Pennsylvania 82%; New Mexico 85%.

Mundelein is willing to offer up to $1.8 million as an incentive toward a building expansion to keep its largest employer in town.

Medline Industries Inc. employs about 1,600 people at its global headquarters campus on Route 60 in the village and 2,500 in Lake County, and it is considered an essential contributor to the local economy. The company has expanded three times — most recently in 2011 — since coming to Mundelein in the mid-1980s and is evaluating options for continued growth.

Where that will be is under consideration by Medline, the largest privately held hospital supply company in the world. The company is determining whether to relocate or expand its headquarters, which covers about 800,000 square feet on 57 acres.

A University of Illinois index that tracks the state’s economy indicates steady growth since early this year.

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the university said Monday that its Flash Index was at 106.6 in November. Any reading over 100 indicates economic growth and the index has been in the 106-107 range since February.

Institute economist Fred Giertz also pointed to strong improvement in the state’s unemployment rate as a sign the economy is growing. The jobless rate was 6.6 percent in October. That’s down from 9.1 percent a year earlier.

Lake Forest city leaders on Monday voted to stop requiring certain neighborhoods to pay hundreds of dollars more than other residents each year to help fund city schools.
Lake Forest City Council voted unanimously to dissolve the five special service areas that had some residents paying almost $800 more each year toward District 67 schools, according to calculations provided by the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors, which supported the council’s decision.

The vote came as city leaders quizzed school district officials on whether these neighborhoods received services above and beyond those provided to other city residents, which is a condition of an SSA. While school officials pointed to a new library and science lab within the district, residents and aldermen were not convinced the money benefited children in these five neighborhoods more than any other kids in town. A new school, for example, was never built specifically for these areas.

Obamacare has had a rough month: it’s being challenged in a Supreme Court case; House Republicans are trying to undermine it with a lawsuit; and its poll numbers are terrible. But on the ground the Affordable Care Act—which is starting its second open-enrollment period—looks robust. Most people in the program say they’re happy with their plans, and new insurers are entering the market. Prices are pretty good, too: estimates suggest that premiums for the second-cheapest of the “silver” plans, which is the benchmark used to set subsidies, have risen by an average of just two to five per cent. Still, one fundamental challenge remains: if Obamacare is to succeed in holding down premiums over the long run, it needs consumers to shop around.

People have no difficulty comparison-shopping and changing allegiance when it comes to, say, automobiles or consumer electronics. Companies in those markets face huge pressure to keep quality high and prices low. But there are also markets where consumers tend to stick with the same choice forever, even though switching could save them quite a bit of money. Energy bills are a classic example. We’ve long been told we can save money by leaving incumbent providers for newer upstarts, but the vast majority of us haven’t. Economists call it consumer inertia, and you can see it in many fields, including banking, credit cards, and health insurance. “History tells us that people are very sticky about health insurance,” Larry Levitt, a senior vice-president at the Kaiser Foundation, told me. “If you look at federal employees or at Medicare Part D, people generally don’t switch plans from year to year.”

Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy says the department hopes to have body cameras on officers within the next two months.

This comes as President Obama proposes funding to boost law enforcement training after the Ferguson Missouri police shooting of teenager Michael Brown.

Obama met with cabinet members and community leaders at the White House on Monday. Gary Indiana Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson was among those attending that meeting. The president has appointed a task force to look at ways to reduce crime, plus $75 million to purchase body cameras for police officers.

Four Illinois Department of Human Rights employees assigned to investigate allegations of discrimination forged signatures and falsified documents to cover for work they didn’t do, while supervisors failed to monitor them, a report issued Monday said.

The Office of the Executive Inspector General found that the four employees — who all resigned in late 2011 or 2012 amid the investigation — doctored documents to show they had been given more time to probe complaints, then did little work toward completing the reviews.

“The very persons DHR hired to investigate claims of unlawful discrimination themselves engaged in misconduct,” Executive Inspector General Ricardo Meza said in the report.

Former Chicago Comptroller Amer Ahmad received a 15-year federal prison sentence Monday for his role in a bribery and money laundering scheme from his time as Ohio’s deputy treasurer.

Ahmad, 40, pleaded guilty nearly a year ago to participating in the kickback scheme that pre-dated his time as a top financial adviser to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Ahmad fled to Pakistan and was arrested there in late April after officials said he tried to enter the country using a forged Mexican passport and a forged Pakistani visa.

Ahmad remains in Pakistani custody pending an extradition request from the U.S. government, federal officials said Monday. U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson ordered Ahmad to forfeit $3.2 million after earlier seizing $107,000 from Ahmad’s bank accounts.

The three sites the University of Chicago is proposing for the Obama Presidential Library include Chicago Park District land, and board President Bryan Traubert, the husband of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, is recusing himself from the process because of his personal, philanthropic and professional interests.

With Traubert out of the picture, the board’s vice president, Avis LaVelle will oversee any negotiations. In an interview on Monday, LaVelle told me she would seek public input over the matter of giving up Chicago park land, no matter how worthy the cause.

Some Illinois lawmakers are using the dark days of December to take a hit at the state’s sunshine laws in a quest to keep more things secret from all of us.

The latest effort to chip away at public access laws would affect citizens’ rights to information at every level of government, from suburban council chambers to the Capitol in Springfield.

It also would limit the ability to win legal fees from a government agency that illegally withholds information from public view, reducing accountability for those who flout the law.

Eight years ago, the City Council gave Wal-Mart and other “big box” stores four years to pay their employees $13 an hour in wages and benefits.

Then-Mayor Richard M. Daley killed the ordinance with his only veto and made it stick by winning three crossover votes. That prompted organized labor to spend millions to elect a more union-friendly Council.

On Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel led a stampede of aldermen in the opposite direction in a move that, if it sticks, could help Emanuel shed the “Mayor 1% label” and undercut the progressive base of his strongest challengers.