New York Times: A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois
The richest man in Illinois does not often give speeches. But on a warm spring day two years ago, Kenneth C. Griffin, the billionaire founder of one of the world’s largest hedge funds, rose before a black-tie dinner of the Economic Club of Chicago to deliver an urgent plea to the city’s elite.
Cook County Record: Cook County hires vendor for $30 million upgrade of online property tax systems
Cook County’s online property tax information system is getting a $30 million upgrade.
Plano, Texas-based Tyler Technologies, the company awarded the contract, will create a system to replace the 40-year-old technology currently in place.
“The old property tax system, supported by 1970’s-era mainframe applications, has performed reliably and remarkably well for 40 years, but it has reached the end of its usable service life. It’s high time we bring this technology into the 21st century,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said in a press release issued by Tyler Technologies.
QC Times: Lawmakers skeptical Rauner, leaders will find success in next meeting
For the first time in seven months, the small group of people who could bring an end to the state’s epic budget impasse are finally going to meet.
But, rank-and-file lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say Tuesday’s pow-wow with Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Legislature’s four leaders may be more of a public spectacle than a productive meeting.
“So there’s a meeting in Springfield. Great,” said state Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton. “What I want to see is a common-sense plan from the governor to lead us out of this impasse that he created.”
Journal Standard: Property tax levy poses hard choices
This coming Monday, the City Council will discuss what the city’s property tax levy should be for 2015/2016. It is fair to say that the outcome of that discussion will affect the city’s future for years to come.
The property tax levy (the total amount to be collected) must be set this December, but the budget of which it is a part will not be approved until next spring for property taxes payable in the fall of 2106. Logical? Maybe not, but that is the way state law works.
There is an irony to this issue. The city’s property tax levy is less than 10 percent of the entire property tax bill you pay. So while the city is determining its levy, the School District, Highland College, Stephenson County, the Park District, Freeport Township and the library are independently setting tax levies, too. Those levies make up the other 90 percent of the tax bill.
Columbia Journalism Review: How a little-known, Uber-driving freelancer brought the lawsuit that forced Chicago to release a police shooting video
IT WAS THE MOMENT BRANDON SMITH and legions of media had been waiting for: the city of Chicago’s release of a damning video that showed a white police officer shooting a black teen 16 times as the young man walked away.
By any account, Smith, a 29-year-old, little-known independent journalist, deserved a front row seat to the city’s hastily called press conference Tuesday. In a place where police shootings are frequent and discipline for officers rare, activists and others had seized on the release of dashcam video showing the October 2014 fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, 17, as a potential watershed moment. It was Smith—who left journalism school to pursue the real thing and scrapes by with part-time marketing and restaurant jobs and work as an Uber and Lyft driver to feed his investigation addiction—who had successfully sued the city to set in motion the day’s unprecedented events.
In the days since a court ordered the video released, anticipation had built to a fever pitch. Hours earlier, Jason Van Dyke, the officer who fired on McDonald, had been indicted on first-degree murder charges. But now, as reporters crowded inside police headquarters to hear Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city leadership answer for the video, Smith was left out in the cold: He didn’t have a press credential.
Chicago Sun Times: Chicago Teachers Union plans strike vote on Dec. 9: report
NBC 5 news reported Sunday night that the Chicago Teachers Union has set a strike vote for Dec. 9.
CTU officials did not respond to calls and emails from the Chicago Sun-Times seeking comment on the strike vote. No one from the CTU would confirm that date, and it has not communicated any strike vote date to teachers.
NBC Chicago: Task Force Looks to Shrink Illinois Government
On the campaign trail and in his first weeks in office, Gov. Bruce Rauner pledged to save taxpayers money by eliminating some of Illinois’ nearly 7,000 units of government — a piece of his legislative agenda with rare bipartisan support.
Now a task force the Republican governor named to put that idea in motion is preparing to present its final recommendations. Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti, the commission’s chairwoman, says its suggestions could make government more efficient and effective if the Legislature and Rauner choose to implement them.”
At the end of the day the savings are going to be huge,” she said.
DNA Info: Chicago Police Expand Body Camera Usage to 7 Districts
Chicago Police are ready to expand their nascent campaign to equip officers with body cameras, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced in a statement Sunday.
The pilot program will reach officers in seven of the city’s 22 police districts by mid-2016, the statement said. Currently, body cameras are only being used by 30 officers in Chicago’s Shakespeare District, which includes Logan Square, Bucktown and Wicker Park.
So far, the statement said, the results of the 745 hours video recorded by Shakespeare District police this year are “promising, as the devices are helping officers in their daily work and being used to aid in criminal investigations.”
Herald and Review: Middle class wages suffer under Democratic policies
Low-income and blue collar workers in Illinois are the worst paid in the Midwest, even though the state boasts the second-highest average wage in the Midwest.
That data, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, counters claims by House Speaker Michael Madigan and other Democrats that Gov. Bruce Rauner’s economic reforms would harm the middle class. The fact is that the state’s current anti-worker laws are causing middle-class, manufacturing jobs to disappear in Illinois. Many of those jobs are going to surrounding states.
WirePoints: Nonpartisan Reality Shock: The Highest Property Tax Rates in Cook and Its Collar Counties
Nobody of any political stripe or party can defend property taxes in many communities surrounding Chicago. Aside from rank unfairness, some towns are on a clear road towards self-destruction. The resulting loss in home values is a personal tragedy for those who can least afford it, making this is an issue on which progressives and conservatives must agree. The crisis will worsen because stunningly large, further bills have just been stuck in the drawer, not yet sent — unfunded municipal pension liabilities.
This article collects data on the towns and villages surrounding Chicago with the highest “effective property tax rates.” That’s simply the percentage that annual taxes represent compared to true market value of property. It’s the real rate. It avoids the obfuscation of nominal rates, equalization factors and other adjustments that plague property tax analyses throughout Illinois, which few understand.
Last week, we wrote about this topic for south suburban Cook County, where exceptionally high rates predominate, dooming the area. This article is about other communities in Cook County and its five surrounding counties — McHenry, Will, DuPage, Lake and Kane.