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Chicago Tribune: The affordable shore: Why Indiana living appeals to Chicago commuters
When Beth Doherty found her future home in Indiana, it was by mistake.
Visiting property her sister-in-law purchased in 2002, she discovered Beverly Shores, Ind., where she and her husband moved in 2010 after living in Bucktown for two decades.
“You can see the skyline from the shore, and there’s all these really cool houses,” she said.
Doherty, a real estate broker, said many clients have no idea that such lakeside gems are available.
Chicago Tribune: CPS board votes today on $5.4 billion budget with property tax hikes
As the Chicago Board of Education prepares to vote Wednesday on a $5.4 billion budget laden with property tax increases, two advocacy groups criticized the spending plan for lack of detail.
The Civic Federation, a business-backed watchdog group, said it can’t support Chicago Public Schools’ new budget because it relies on money from the state that might not arrive and a large amount of borrowing. And Access Living, a disability rights group, said it’s concerned about the new way the district is doling out special education money.
While crediting CPS with making cuts that “will allow the district to make it through another year,” the Civic Federation report warned that “this does not mean that the district is now in good financial shape and its crisis is over. Far from it.”
Reuters: Illinois governor's office warns of crippling pension payment hike
Potential action this week by Illinois’ biggest public pension fund could put a big dent in the state’s already fragile finances, Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration warned.
A Monday memo from a top Rauner aide said the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) board could decide at its meeting this week to lower the assumed investment return rate, a move that would automatically boost Illinois’ annual pension payment.
“If the (TRS) board were to approve a lower assumed rate of return taxpayers will be automatically and immediately on the hook for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in higher taxes or reduced services,” Michael Mahoney, Rauner’s senior advisor for revenue and pensions, wrote to the governor’s chief of staff, Richard Goldberg.
Sun-Times: Handed same 14-year prison sentence, Blagojevich files new appeal
Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich vowed last year to “fight on.”
So it was no surprise when the disgraced politician triggered a new appeal Tuesday, two weeks after a federal judge reinstated his 14-year prison sentence and left Blagojevich’s two daughters sobbing in the front row of a courtroom.