The Illinois governor’s mansion has a roof that leaks, a basement that floods, an elevator that doesn’t move and a repair bill that may be too high.

But Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration is eyeing a way to reduce the cost of those repairs, as well as every other state and local government construction project.

Gov. Bruce Rauner is expected to further explain the revisions he wants to make in the state’s labor laws on Wednesday during his State of the State speech in Springfield.

Last week, Rauner took aim at unions by stating one of his top priorities is passing legislation to create “right-to-work zones.”

Rauner envisions these “zones” to be set up in economically depressed areas sanctioned by the state where local officials could decide whether union participation and fees would be voluntary for local workers.

In FY 2015, Illinois taxpayers will pay $3.4 billion of its $35 billion budget to the state’s Teachers Retirement System (TRS). Setting aside nearly ten percent of a state’s budget to pay into only one of several public employee pension funds minimizes discretionary funds available for other services, and is forcing a conversation about reform.

As part of that conversation, policy analysts like those at Illinois Policy Institute toss out ideas that are meant to stir debate. For instance, Ben VanMetre, the Institute’s Director of Pension Reform, suggests dramatic change in the way teachers’ pension are paid in Illinois.

He says local districts should not look to the state to pick up the tab for teachers’ pensions, but should take care of the payments from the local level. The state is paying for pensions they have no part in negotiating, and that’s created an unsustainable financial expectation for taxpayers.

The Chicago area’s vaunted manufacturing sector remains potent, promising and very well-paying but is not growing as fast as in many other U.S. cities or foreign countries.

That’s my take from a detailed study being released today by the Brookings Institution on the state of so-called “advanced industries,” the high-skilled, tech-oriented positions that in the Chicago area pay an average $97,420 a year. Nationwide, compensation for the sector has increased at five times the national rate for all jobs since 1975.

The good news for the Chicago metropolitan area, including counties in southern Wisconsin and northwestern Indiana, is that the region had 512,890 such jobs in 2013, trailing areas such as New York, Los Angeles and, believe it or not, Washington, D.C., which is home to many workers who serve industries even if they don’t work in a factory themselves.

On Monday, President Barack Obama sent Congress a record $4 trillion budget that would kick in on Oct. 4, featuring a 6.4 percent increase over estimated spending this year, but it also projects the deficit will drop by $474 billion.

The proposed budget features higher taxes on higher-income Americans and corporations and middle-class tax relief.

But how exactly does $4 trillion get spent?

With less than a month before the mayoral election, Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis made two things clear Monday: The new teachers contract being negotiated is going to cost money, and her 30,000 members who went on strike in 2012 for the first time in a generation are willing to walk the picket line with her again if they don’t get better working conditions.

“We don’t know if the mayor’s hand-picked Board of Education will make the same mistakes it made three years ago that sent 30,000 educators to the picket line,” Lewis told a crowded meeting of the City Club of Chicago. It was her first speech since she came back to work.

“If they do, I assure you, we will be prepared,” she said. “Ultimately, it is up to them. We met their threshold before — and we can meet it again,” she said, referring to 2012, when more than 90 percent of members voted to authorize a strike after a new state law required 75 percent.

Gov. Bruce Rauner said Monday that Illinois must curb government union powers and reduce spending on state employees’ salaries and benefits, stepping up what labor leaders said is an attempt to “vilify” workers ahead of the Republican’s first major policy speech.

Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news — currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling” unemployment.