Get the latest news headlines from around Illinois.
Chicago Tribune: U.S. employers add 255,000 jobs in July, much higher than expected
Employers added a healthy 255,000 jobs last month, a sign of confidence amid sluggish growth that points to a resilient U.S. economy.
The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate remained a low 4.9 percent in July. More Americans launched job searches, and nearly all were hired. But the influx of job seekers meant that the number of unemployed fell only slightly.
The figures suggest that U.S. employers shook off concerns about Britain’s late-June vote to quit the European Union. Nor were they apparently discouraged by tepid growth in the first half of the year of just 1 percent at an annual rate.
Reuters: Group sues Illinois over polling-place voter registration law
A group aligned with a conservative Illinois think tank sued the state in federal court on Thursday, challenging a recent law allowing Election Day voter registration at polling places in the state’s most populous counties.
The statute in question, passed in late 2014 by the Democratic-led legislature and enacted in early 2015 by former Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, for the first time allowed Election Day voter registration, including at polling places.
But the section of the law pertaining to polling place registration applied only to counties with populations of 100,000 or more.
Tax Foundation: The Real Value of $100 in Each State
This map shows the real value of $100 in each state. Prices for the same goods are often much cheaper in states like Missouri or Ohio than they are in states like New York or California. As a result, the same amount of cash can buy you comparatively more in a low-price state than in a high-price state.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has been measuring this phenomenon for two years now; it recently published its data for prices in 2014. Using this data, we have adjusted the value of $100 to show how much it buys you in each state.
Sun-Times: Emanuel rules out compromise on water and sewer tax
With an assist from labor, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday began the formidable task of selling his new utility tax to save the city’s largest pension fund by ruling out compromise and blaming that intransigence on Wall Street rating agencies.
Emanuel said the rating agencies are demanding a single, reliable source of revenue to raise the $250 million needed to put the Municipal Employees pension fund on solid footing and it has to be a tax the City Council can enact without having to rely on the Illinois General Assembly.
WQAD: Rauner’s education commission wants a revamped formula by February
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s education commission has seven months to come up with a way to fix the state’s funding formula.
The bi-partisan panel of lawmakers and policy advisers met for the first time Wednesday, Aug. 3. The 25 member panel was appointed after the spring legislative session ended.
Critics of the current funding formula say it shortchanges districts with higher populations of poor children. And it doesn’t do enough to compensate the districts that can’t rely on property taxes.
The commission says it wants to have a revamped formula in place by February 1, 2017.
Sun-Times: Kane County state’s attorney named as prosecutor in Van Dyke case
Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph McMahon was named Thursday as the special prosecutor assigned to handle Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke’s murder case, much to the chagrin of a coalition of lawyers and activists who said they would have preferred someone with an “understanding of Chicago and its most affected communities.”
Just last week, civil rights attorneys Locke Bowman and G. Flint Taylor expressed elation over the selection of former Cook County Judge Patricia Brown Holmes as the special prosecutor to look into whether Chicago Police officers covered up the circumstances that led to the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
Bloomberg: Chicago Bonds Gain as City Plans Tax Hike to Fix Biggest Pension
Chicago debt rallied after Mayor Rahm Emanuel released his plan to increase water and sewer levies to shore up the retirement plan for municipal workers, a move to avert insolvency for the city’s largest pension fund.
Without the fix, the fund that serves more than 70,000 workers and retirees is on track to run out of money within a decade. Less than a day after Emanuel laid out the plan at Chicago’s investor conference, the municipal market applauded the proposal. The city’s most-actively traded debt traded at 87.98 cents on the dollar Thursday, the highest average price since April 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The taxable debt that matures in 2042 yields 6.4 percent.
Sun-Times: SEIU accused of ‘hostile takeover’ of local with ties to Emanuel
The Service Employees International Union was accused Thursday of racial discrimination and of ordering a “hostile takeover” of a Chicago local with ties to Mayor Rahm Emanuel to mask erratic behavior by the president of SEIU Local 73.
Matt Brandon, who was ousted as secretary-treasurer of Local 73 along with Union President Christine Boardman, threatened to file a federal discrimination lawsuit to reverse the international’s installation of emergency trustees and a Circuit Court lawsuit to enforce a membership vote to install Brandon in Boardman’s place.
BGA: Chicago Payroll Packed With Six-Figure Salaries
The number of people making $100,000 or more from the city of Chicago almost doubled since 2013 with 4,813 employees collecting six-figure paychecks as of last March, a review of payroll data show.
The total is a 13 percent increase from last year when 4,262 workers made at least $100,000 a year and a 92 percent increase from 2013 when 2,502 people reached that threshold, according to a Better Government Association analysis of city records.
The data represents base salary rates and does not include overtime or other forms of pay. The number of city workers taking home at least $100,000 in total compensation is even higher.
Sun-Times: Pension fix: 28 percent water/sewer tax, phased in over 4 years
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday put in place the final piece of the pension puzzle he was elected to solve but in a way that will impose another heavy burden on Chicago homeowners reeling from rising property taxes compounded by reassessments.
To generate the $239 million over five years needed to save Chicago’s largest city employee pension fund, Emanuel wants to slap a new and quickly escalating “utility tax” on water and sewer bills over the next four years.
Forbes: Moral Bankruptcy Of Chicago's Elites
There is real pain in Chicago. In the last four years, 10,000 shootings have left the city scarred. Nearly 21,000 students are trapped in failing schools. Homeowners face rising property taxes – monthly property tax payments now rival mortgage payments. One million residents have fled the city since 1950 for prosperity elsewhere.
Rumors of financial insolvency are not exaggerated. There is a staggering $19,000 public pension liability per each city resident.
As a mayoral candidate in 2010-11, Rahm Emanuel gave regular people hope with his repeated assertion that he would “stop pay-to-play in City Hall” and “end the historical culture of corruption.” Emanuel was right. Public sector corruption was forestalling private sector production. Ending “pay to play” seemed like the only way back for the city.