Public education in Illinois faces an array of long-entrenched challenges. Over the past year, some Democratic legislators have taken aim at one of those challenges, how state tax revenue is allocated to schools. That’s a fine first step. With help from an education-minded Republican governor, it’s a first step that — unlike many first steps in Springfield — could lead to a cluster of solutions.

We’re talking about a big, bold bargain — disruptive, yes, but also transformative and, most important, a great bargain for the schoolchildren of Illinois.

The Democrats think they have a good argument about the unfairness of school funding. They also think they have leverage over a rookie chief executive. Maybe so. That’s reason for Gov. Bruce Rauner to move first — to give the Democrats something they want in return for compromises on other education issues.

Tumbling energy prices are the first lucky break for U.S. consumers in years, but Washington is feeling left out. So the gougers of both parties are joining to steal some of the proceeds with the first gasoline tax hike in more than two decades.

The federal gas tax is now 18.4 cents a gallon and the logic seems to be that motorists won’t notice an extra dime or more since gas prices are down 40% on average from the 2014 peak. Congress can then “invest” the windfall in roads, bridges and other projects. A convenient pretext for a tax increase arrives in May with the expiration of a temporary highway funding bill, and many otherwise intelligent Republicans are open to the idea, perhaps as a tax swap.

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Now here is a formula for popularity that only a lobbyist or liberal could love: As one of its first major acts, the new GOP majority would make the commodity that most Americans must buy every week more expensive, offsetting the discretionary-income gains from cheaper gas. Republicans should be talking about downsizing the federal gas tax instead, with a target of zero.

Our neighbors in Indiana and Wisconsin love to entice Illinois companies with the promise of lower taxes.

Too bad for them: Their sales pitch lost most of its punch on Jan 1. That’s when a 2011 Illinois income tax increase began rolling back. As a result, income tax differentials with neighboring states are shrinking dramatically, even flipping in Illinois’ favor in some cases.

Illinois’ personal income tax rate has dropped to 3.75 percent from 5 percent, and the corporate rate to 7.75 percent from 9.5 percent. The cuts of that size change the calculus for any company mulling a run for the border.

University of Illinois trustees Thursday approved a nearly $100,000 bonus for outgoing UIC Chancellor Paula Allen-Meares, who earlier this week completed her sometimes rocky tenure as the campus’ top official.

The bonus payment, which is in addition to her $437,244 annual salary as chancellor, has rankled some faculty members as the public university faces possible budget cuts this year.

Allen-Meares was appointed in 2009 and given an initial five-year contract. Board members decided in 2013 to extend her contract an additional year, to this month, but not retain her as chancellor beyond then. At that time, they also decided she would be eligible for bonus pay at the end of her term.

Though taxes are the most common and recognizable source of state government revenues, it’s important to remember that they’re not the only source. In fact, state governments received 31.5 percent of their total general revenues from transfers from the federal government in the 2012 fiscal year.

That number varies pretty widely for specific states, however. For example, Mississippi obtains 45.3 percent of its total state general revenues from the federal government (the largest share in the country). Also on the high end are Louisiana (44.0 percent), Tennessee (41.0 percent), South Dakota (40.8 percent), and Missouri (39.4 percent).

On the other end of the spectrum are those states who receive a much smaller share of general revenues from the federal government. The lowest federal share occurs in Alaska at 20.0 percent, followed by North Dakota (20.5 percent), Virginia (23.5 percent), Hawaii (23.5 percent), and Connecticut (23.6 percent).

Many states have been underfunding the annual requirement for pensions in order to allegedly “balance” the state budgets over the past few years.

Those budget gimmicks are a cause for concern, according to a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. The GAO makes it clear that without hefty cuts to government spending and serious reforms to government employee pension plans, states will face decades-long fiscal crises.

The recent GAO report stated that tax revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product will not return to the historical high reached in 2007 until 2058. Such a drastic gap indicates that states will not be able to tax their way out of the problem.

The fate of a proposal to use more than $5 billion in new federal funds to overhaul the State of Illinois’ Medicaid program remains unclear as a new gubernatorial administration takes office in Springfield.

As previously discussed on this blog, the five-year proposal focuses on developing more community-based alternatives to institutional care for individuals with disabilities, including supportive housing for people with mental health and substance abuse problems. The plan also seeks new federal money to accelerate the State’s movement toward managed care.

Illinois submitted its Section 1115 waiver proposal to the federal government in June 2014 and subsequently began negotiations with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) about the terms of the plan. State officials said it could take six months to a year to reach a final agreement with CMS.

Marilyn B. Tavenner, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who helped preside over the rollout of sweeping changes in the nation’s health care system, said Friday that she was resigning.

“February will be my last month serving as the administrator for C.M.S.,” Ms. Tavenner said in an email to agency employees.

Ms. Tavenner, who was at the center of the disastrous debut of the federal insurance marketplace in October 2013, had given no public indications that she would be stepping down. She joined the administration in February 2010, a few weeks before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges.

Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.

Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.