Gov. Bruce Rauner faces an immediate test of his ability to work through the challenges of running cash-strapped Illinois now that the state has run out of money for a popular subsidized day care program.

The Department of Human Services announced recently that it’s short nearly $300 million needed to pay for the day care program through June — the end of the budget year — and payments will be late starting this month.

Funding hiccups are nothing new to providers, who have become skilled at raising alarms to try to force action in Springfield. But this time is different, some say, because of the uncertainty about the new governor — a Republican who has declared that solving the state’s money problems will require “sacrifice” from all Illinoisans.

Which would you prefer to have, a friend or a client? Or both?

Roch (pronounced “Rock”) Tranel thinks you can have both. In fact, he’s published a book — actually a transcript of a paid interview intended to provide content for publication — called “The Friend Economy.”

Tranel is CEO of The Tranel Financial Group, a Libertyville financial advisory business.

The mayor of the northern Indiana city of Elkhart wants to spend $349,000 to buy 80 body cameras for the city’s police force.

Mayor Dick Moore was scheduled to ask Elkhart’s city council on Monday to approve the request that’s part of $3.75 million in proposed capital spending for 2015 for the city.

The Elkhart Truth reports (http://bit.ly/16aKdpL ) Moore said in a recent letter that public safety “was uppermost” in his decision” to back the funding request for the body cameras.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley is aiming to cash in on a federal program that gives foreigners the chance to obtain permanent U.S. residency in exchange for investing in businesses that create jobs in the United States.

Tur Partners — which Daley formed with his son Patrick Daley after leaving office — has permission from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to solicit money from foreign investors who would bankroll construction projects or other businesses in the Chicago area in exchange for green cards allowing them to live here forever.

The Obama administration granted Daley’s company authority to pool money from foreign investors to help finance a “hypothetical” skyscraper that Magellan Development has talked about building at 195 N. Columbus Dr. in its 28-acre Lakeshore East development that Daley approved while mayor, according to hundreds of pages of heavily redacted documents the Homeland Security Department released to the Chicago Sun-Times under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

When three Chicago financial trading firms traveled to Washington, D.C., for a crucial meeting with federal regulators, they didn’t go alone. They brought a man schooled in the ways of the capital who had recently received $182,000 in political contributions from them: Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

At stake was a proposal that would have cut into the firms’ bottom lines by making them hold large cash reserves to protect against volatility in the fledgling, high-frequency trading market they had helped pioneer.

Public officials of Emanuel’s stature rarely show up at the arcane rule-making meetings of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. But the newly elected mayor delivered a message in the windowless conference room that day, about the important role the trading firms and others like them play in Chicago’s economy.

The year ahead could bring about some significant changes to Mount Prospect’s economic landscape, especially in the community’s downtown and at its primary economic engine, Randhurst Village, according to the village’s development director.

In a nearly hourlong presentation to the village board, Mount Prospect Community Development Director Bill Cooney last week outlined what officials and residents can expect in 2015, from the demolition of a downtown eyesore and new ownership at Randhurst, to the renewal of two sites hit by catastrophe in the previous 16 months.

Cooney said the sale of Randhurst Village is imminent. That would require some modification of the development agreement reached between the village and Casto Lifestyle Properties in 2008, which ushered in the shopping center’s $200 million makeover.

Congress has officially sunk to a new low.

While the approval rating of those on Capitol Hill has been hovering at historically low levels, a new poll shows half of Pennsylvania believes Punxsutawney Phil would be a perfectly suitable — and capable — member of Congress.

Some key findings from Public Policy Polling: