The Southern: Can Illinois trim at the top? Some legislators say it’s far overdue
Can Springfield cut from the top when it comes time to reducing the size of state government?
Some legislators think so, or they’re at least willing to take another run at it.
Bills already in play this year include:
Washington Times: Illinois attorney general gives pay raises as state goes broke
Over the past four years, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a Democrat, has handed out roughly $1 million in pay raises to exempt, nonunion employees who don’t fall under state wage laws, as Illinois faces bankruptcy.
From 2011 to 2012, Ms. Madigan gave 57 exempt employees $460,000 in raises, and in 2013 and last year, 52 employees received wage hikes totaling $507,356 in extra payouts, according to data from American Transparency and the transparency website OpenTheBooks.com.
Ms. Madigan has boosted her friends’ salaries as her state teeters on bankruptcy. The state faces roughly $111 billion in pension debt and an additional $6 billion in unpaid bills, according to data from Illinois Policy, a nonprofit research group. Illinois bonds are rated worst in the nation, and if lawmakers don’t reform pensions soon, the state could spiral into default.
Chicago Tribune: Rauner presses for sales tax expansion in U. of I. speech
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner pressed a bit harder Thursday for an expansion of the Illinois sales tax as part of an agenda to right the state’s financial ship.
SJR: State's tax revenue from video gambling more than doubles
The state of Illinois and local governments saw tax revenue from video gambling more than double last year.
The Springfield bureau of Lee Enterprises newspapers reports the state made nearly $165 million in 2014 from video gambling, up from roughly $75 million in 2013. Municipalities got nearly $33 million, an increase from $15 million.
As of December, there were more than 19,000 video gambling machines across the state. The first machines went live in September 2012.
ABC 20: Illinois Dealing With Out-Migration Crisis
Illinois residents are leaving the state, according to a report released by the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. The report shows Illinois loses a resident every ten minutes.
Most Illinoisans head to either Texas or Florida because those states have no income tax. This out-migration crisis could have more of an impact on the state than you think.
A normal day on the job at Selvaggio Steel consists of welders hard at work creating a masterpiece.
Northwest Herald: Keeping public details secret height of arrogance
Sometimes, elected officials forget who’s the boss.
The reality is it’s the voters who put them in office and the taxpayers who pay the bills who are in charge. At least that is how things are supposed to work.
Chicago Tribune: College of DuPage trustees, it's time to go
Six members of the College of DuPage board of trustees have failed the students, parents and taxpayers who relied on them and their — is this word too generous? — judgment.
These trustees failed when they forked over more than $750,000 to shove President Robert Breuder out the door in a hush-hush deal that they refused to explain. They decided it was easier to soak taxpayers, who now will foot the bill for the trustees’ mismanagement, than to make their case openly for Breuder’s golden parachute. If, that is, they have a case.
These trustees failed when they censured board Vice Chairwoman Kathy Hamilton last summer because she “publicly embarrassed her fellow elected board members and the college administration.”
Chicago Tribune: Chicago school district sells nine pieces of property
Chicago Public Schools has agreed to sell nine properties for a total of slightly less than $2 million. The properties include several South Side parcels and a Printer’s Row parking lot, but none are the dozens of school buildings shuttered by the district in 2013.
The Chicago Board of Education approved the property sales this week. CPS said the board must seek final approval from either the City of Chicago or the Public Building Commission of Chicago since both entities hold titles and trusts for the affected parcels.
“With the difficult financial challenges the district is facing, it is critical for us to maximize our resources, which includes reducing the unused properties in our real estate portfolio and eliminating the maintenance costs,” district CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said in a statement Thursday.
Bloomberg: Rand Paul's Crazy Dream of a Libertarian-Democratic Alliance on Civil Rights Is Actually Happening
On the morning before attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch would face Congress, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul re-introduced a bill that would tie her hands. Paul and a crew of congressmen—Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison, Michigan Representative Tim Walberg—had resurrected the Fifth Amendment Integrity Act. If passed, it would restrict the government’s ability, from the Department of Justice on down to local cops, to seize property from criminal suspects.
“We’ve had protests across our country, and people think it’s about one or two instances,” Paul said from the rostrum. “No. It’s one thing after another. Let’s say you’ve got a poor family in a neighborhood in a big city, and grandmother owns the house. The 15-year old son is selling marijuana. They catch him. They take the house! The house was the only stabilizing thing in a family that was having trouble.”
Ellison, a black Democrat who was the first Muslim elected to Congress, stood by Paul as he summoned the ghosts of the Civil Rights movement.
WICS: Illinois Dealing With Out-Migration Crisis
Illinois residents are leaving the state, according to a report released by the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. The report shows Illinois loses a resident every ten minutes.
Most Illinoisans head to either Texas or Florida because those states have no income tax. This out-migration crisis could have more of an impact on the state than you think.
A normal day on the job at Selvaggio Steel consists of welders hard at work creating a masterpiece.