Incoming Chicago Treasurer Kurt Summers is pledging to improve investment returns for the city’s pension funds and reduce investment-management fees. Both are worthy goals, but he’s the first to admit that they “aren’t going to change the kinds of holes we have.”

As treasurer, Summers will sit on the boards of all four Chicago pension funds, which are a mess. Combined, they have less than 33 percent of the funds needed to meet pension obligations. Two of them — the police and fire systems — are less than 30 percent funded.

In fiscal 2013, Chicago contributed $476 million toward its pension obligations while it paid out $1.8 billion in benefits. The city’s $23.1 billion in total unfunded liability is nearly three times its $7.8 billion in 2013 revenue.

In less than three months, Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner has to present a budget that is balanced — and do so with $4 billion less available revenue than is in the present $35 billion general funds budget, because of the automatic Jan. 1 rollback of much of the 2011 income tax increases.
It will be a difficult task. Indeed, I think it will be nigh impossible. I wish it were otherwise, as a lower tax burden would make our state more competitive.

Some background: State government has already been trimming operating expenses. For example, state government employment fell from 87,000 in 2002 to about 64,000 this past year, more than a quarter of the workforce.

The private equity owners of Hostess Brands LLC are planning to put the maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs up for sale in early 2015, potentially valuing it at more than $1.7 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulos, which bought Hostess Brands out of bankruptcy for $410 million in 2013, have received inquiries from some potential buyers about selling the cake business, the people said.

Hostess Brands is also having conversations with investment banks Rothschild, Credit Suisse Group AG and Perella Weinberg Partners about advisory roles they are likely to have in a potential sale, the people added.

State officials have until Dec. 16 to turn over documents sought by attorneys representing Illinois Department of Transportation employees laid off by Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration in September.

Attorneys for the state agreed to the deadline in advance of a brief hearing Wednesday in Sangamon County Circuit Court.

Attorneys for 55 unionized IDOT workers had filed suit saying the state was withholding the information in violation of open-records laws. They said the information could be used to argue the workers were being unfairly terminated.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday urged Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner, his longtime friend, to back off on his campaign plan to phase out a 2011 increase in state income taxes and not to stand in the way of an increase in Illinois’ minimum wage.

Rauner campaigned on a plan to get rid of the income tax hike over four years — without spelling out in detail how state government could withstand the loss of $4 billion in annual revenue.

But Emanuel is hoping to persuade Rauner, a longtime advocate of education reform, to change his mind to avoid penalizing cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools that are finally turning the corner with rising attendance, test scores and graduation rates.

Chicago park advocates are taking the city to federal court in a bid to block the museum that movie mogul George Lucas hopes to build along Chicago’s iconic lakefront.

Friends of the Parks filed its lawsuit Thursday morning against the city and the Chicago Park District, records show. A spokeswoman for the Lucas Museum declined to comment.

Park advocates have long promised to sue to keep Lucas’ museum off the shore of Lake Michigan. Public opposition to the project has grown more fervent in the last week, ever since its Beijing-based principal designer, Ma Yansong, unveiled the first conceptual drawings of the museum.

In recent years Chicago Public Schools joined the rest of the country in getting scorched by the Great Recession. It looks like the district got outplayed by its bankers too. “Borrowing Trouble,” a three-part series by the Tribune’s Jason Grotto and Heather Gillers, explored how CPS, under chronic financial pressure, turned to new borrowing methods — and now is paying a tall price.

To review the bidding: In 2003-07, the district pursued what it thought was a cheaper, more creative way to finance debt than selling traditional, conservative, fixed-rate bonds. But then the markets turned violently against the school system’s investments. That leaves CPS’ decision to borrow $1 billion through complex mechanisms tied to floating interest rates look risky and foolish.

The Tribune’s analysis of the CPS deals concludes that when the books are finally closed on the transactions many years hence, the school system stands to pay an estimated $100 million more in today’s dollars than it would have paid on fixed-rate bonds. CPS and its main adviser dispute that finding. But their analysis in turn was criticized in the series by several outside experts who backed the Tribune’s more comprehensive projections. (Read the series at chicagotribune.com/cpsbonds)

City Hall has lost out on its bid to lure a major new corporate headquarters to downtown Chicago. But the Loop area will gain another, smaller headquarters when a staffing firm moves into town from Lombard in the spring, bringing 90 jobs and creating an additional 50.

The one that got away was Bridgestone Americas Inc., which announced this week that it has decided to consolidate its operations in a new headquarters building in Nashville, Tennessee, that will house more than 1,700 employees of the tire company.

State and local officials had put on a full campaign to win the headquarters for a new building in the West Loop being developed by Hines Interests LP.

The downtown apartment construction boom has fueled a new trend: the pied-a-terre rental.

These part-time city residences long have been a status symbol for suburbanites and others seeking a weekend getaway or weeknight respite from work downtown.

Historically, people with the financial means bought these residences, but the new wave of luxury towers with small apartments makes renting an increasingly attractive option, tenants and developers say. Part-time tenants interviewed for this story said the record rents landlords are charging for high-end apartments are still lower than buying a comparable condominium, renovating it and paying a mortgage, taxes, association dues and other homeowner expenses.

The nerve of some people! Imagine coming to a city and doing business without first asking permission from local officials!

That’s what Uber has done in cities all over the United States and Europe, and it’s created quite a storm among politicians and licensed taxi drivers, who have held up traffic in, among other places, Boston, London, and Paris just to stamp their feet at the high-tech competition.

What is Uber? It’s an innovator, and you know what means. It disturbs the regulatory landscape where protected firms have long settled in safely and comfortably. Suddenly, the advantage of being an “in” flies out the window. No wonder the regulation-spawned monopolies are upset.

Take a peek at these fascinating day jobs, from the heights of the city to the depths of a wild-reef tank.

By a vote of 6-1, the city council of Austin, Texas approved a new ordinance that legalizes Uber, Lyft and other rideshare services as “transportation network companies”. To operate legally, and to cover bodily injury and property damage, TNCs must have commercial automobile liability insurance coverage of at least $1 million. Moreover, drivers have to pass extensive criminal background checks going back seven years. Anyone who’s been convicted of fraud, reckless driving, or had any drug, sex or gun offenses cannot drive for a TNC.

Additionally, an amendment failed to pass that would have capped dynamic or “surge” pricing. As consumers demand more rides (like during peak hours or during storms), Uber and Lyft raise their prices accordingly to better accommodate demand. In a statement, Uber called the vote “a win for the people of Austin who have been asking for transportation freedom for months.”

Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton emerged from their first meeting with Republican Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner on Thursday to say they will put the negativity of the campaign behind them and work together on the state’s dire budget problems.

“I think we had a very productive meeting this morning,” Madigan said after a two-hour get-together at the private Chicago Club downtown. “I pledged to the governor that we’re going to work with him professionally.

“I think there’s a general agreement among the three of us that in light of the expiration of the tax increase in January, the biggest problem facing the state right now is the budget, and the budget deficit,” Madigan said. “And Gov. Rauner understands that and he’s working with his people to try and get a better understanding of precisely where the finances are on this current budget.”