Get the latest news headlines from around Illinois.
Reuters: Chicago Public Schools prepare budget with eye on bond market return
Chicago’s cash-strapped public schools will be able to raise cash in the capital markets after the nation’s third-largest public school system unveils a balanced budget in August, the district’s top official said on Wednesday.
Forrest Claypool, Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public School (CPS) was short on details to achieving a balanced budget but said the full spending plan would be out next month.
CPS, which must erase a lingering $300 million deficit for the fiscal year that began July 1, also faces the possibility that a $215 million boost in Illinois funding for teacher pensions may not happen.
RRStar: Illinois reforms needed to restore Rockford's middle class
A month after the session was officially supposed to end, state lawmakers finally passed an 11th-hour stopgap budget. That keeps the lights on for now, but lawmakers failed to break the debilitating cycle of ever-escalating public-employee costs, or prevent the state from spending ever more tax dollars to cover them. The findings of a recent study by the nonprofit Pew Foundation — and a glance across the border to Wisconsin — suggest this failure may harm Rockford’s residents more than most.
It’s no surprise that Rockford’s middle class has been shrinking. But new data from the Pew Research Center show how stark the decline has been. Pew reviewed 229 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas for which U.S. Census Bureau data were available. It also used national median household income and local cost-of-living adjustments to classify, in each area, the percentage of households that are lower-, middle- and upper-income. Between 1999 and 2014, only eight of the 229 areas in the U.S. saw their economic status decline faster than Rockford’s.
By 2014, the Rockford area’s middle class had fallen from 60.5 to 53.7 percent of all local households, while its upper-income households had decreased from 19.6 to 18.2 percent. Lower-income households, in contrast, grew from 19.9 percent to 28.2 percent of all households — an increase of nearly 42 percent.
WCIA: Rauner wants lawmakers back before November
Governor Bruce Rauner is urging lawmakers to return to Springfield to talk about the budget before November. Rauner says the budget is not balanced and he, like others, would like to see a full budget bill as soon as possible.
He told reporters he didn’t want a stop-gap bill because, when the money runs out, the state could be in the same situation. The longer the state goes without a budget, the more it will pay in interest.
Rauner stressed it could have been fixed more than a year ago. Lawmakers are scheduled to return in November after the General Election. By that time, schools and human service programs would see their funding dwindle.
Daily Southtown: New Lenox has paid nearly $1 million in police misconduct cases since 2004
Driving back to her New Lenox home after dinner and drinks with a friend in July 2013, Laura Saari crashed her silver Nissan Versa and hit a road sign.
Saari, now 58, said in an interview that she swerved into the sign, about five blocks from her home, after being distracted by a driver who flipped her off.
“I should have stopped, but I didn’t,” she said. “I panicked, and I just wanted to get home.”
Once home, Saari parked her car, let the dog out and started changing into more comfortable clothes when she heard a knock at the door.
Eric Zorn: Honestly, now, Rauner and Madigan can bridge the gap
“The reality is we have a fundamental disagreement, an honest disagreement.”
— Gov. Bruce Rauner, when asked to characterize his relationship with House Speaker Michael Madigan in a July 5 interview with WHBF-TV in Rock Island.
Honest disagreement?
Are those words a ray of hope, or a slip of the tongue?
AP: Republicans file request for state auditor general’s removal
Republicans pushing Auditor General Frank Mautino to step aside over probes into his campaign spending as a former lawmaker have filed a resolution aimed at removing him from office.
The investigations cover the Spring Valley Democrat’s time as a legislator, including over $200,000 spent at an alderman-owned service station.
BND: In Madison County, special court helps veterans avoid jail — most of the time
The men wore T-shirts and jeans, work boots, running shoes; more than a few had tattoos encircling arms and legs. Almost all were in their 20s and 30s. Silently they filed into the third-floor courtroom.
Nick Thompson, 27, a stocky Army Ranger School graduate with two tours of Iraq under his belt, slid into a pew toward the back of the room. Next to him sat his mother.
Left leg pistoning up and down, like the arm of a sewing machine, Thompson waited for the Madison County Veterans Treatment Court to get underway.
Beacon News: Aurora officials say national magazine misleads on taxes
An article posted online on Forbes Magazine’s website was misleading in sayingAurora has the third highest property tax rates in the country, Aurora officials said Friday.
Mayor Tom Weisner said he was frustrated “with the whole thing” because of the implication that Aurora’s tax rates are high.
“In reality, they only looked at 53 cities out of almost 20,000 municipalities across the country,” he said. “There are hundreds of Illinois communities alone that have higher property tax rates than Aurora does.”
Lake County News: Emergency school rescue was worth millions in Lake County
Local school districts in Illinois almost never know exactly how much the state will send to educate local kids until the cash shows up.
That mystery formula and how it inequitably distributes state cash for schools endures as one of the two giant roadblocks in Illinois government. The other is a perpetually unresolved public employee pension.
The only sure part of the school question is that money — some portion of it anyway — eventually does come. But reliability was tested to its outer limits this summer.
Chicago Tribune: Delay in Thompson Center battle could save it from becoming teardown
There is a pause, it turns out, in the fight over the future of Helmut Jahn’s functionally challenged, postmodern glitter palace, the James R. Thompson Center. Whatever the outcome of this battle, it comes at an opportune moment for reflection: the 40th anniversary of the “Chicago Seven” rebellion against the strictures and structures of steel-and-glass modernism.
In case you’re unfamiliar with them, the Chicago Seven architects took their name from seven anti-Vietnam War activists who were charged with inciting a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Their buildings, which often thumb their noses at the cool abstraction of International Style modernism, range in scale from the monumental Thompson Center to Stanley Tigerman’s diminutive self-park garage at 60 E. Lake St., with its cheeky facade that resembles a Rolls-Royce grille.
WREX: Gov. Rauner signs legislation to expand driver's license designation for veterans
Illinois National Guard members and reservists can now obtain a veteran identifier on their Illinois driver’s license.
Governor Bruce Rauner signed Senate Bill 2173 which expanded a previous designation which went to active duty veterans, as a recognition for their service to the country.
The veteran designation is free for first-time driver’s license applicants and driver’s license renewals. Adding the designation before the renewal date costs $5 for an update license and $10 for an updated ID card.
Veterans over the age of 65 can obtain an updated state ID card at no cost.