Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Bloomberg: Chicago’s High Property Taxes Pay for Squeezed Retiree Benefits
Chicago may finally be on a path to adequately funding its four city employee pensions — but getting there is likely to come at the expense of homeowners who already pay some of the highest property tax rates in the nation.
That’s because city leaders will decide in the next few months whether to enact a 2.5% hike, effective Jan. 1, 2023, with the entire $42.7 million increased levy going to the third-largest US city’s woefully underfunded pensions. The decision would come at a time when most Chicagoans’ wallets are being stretched thin by soaring inflation.
Chicago Tribune: State Sen. Emil Jones III charged with bribery in latest expansion of red-light camera case
Jones, the son of former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr., is the latest politician to be charged in the sweeping federal investigation centered on red-light cameras installed by SafeSpeed LLC, a once clout-heavy camera company that secured contracts to run red-light cameras in nearly two dozen Chicago suburbs that generated millions of dollars in fines from motorists annually.
Targeting illicit efforts to grease the way for the cameras, the probe broke wide open in 2019 when agents raided the offices of then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval, who at the time was the head of the state Senate’s powerful Transportation Committee.
FOX 32 Chicago: Illinois cashes in on student debt forgiveness
Vice President Kamala Harris urged students Tuesday to take advantage of a new program that wipes out up to $20,000 in college loan debt.
WBBM: Report: Corrections official caught trying to hire relative for phantom post
A report Tuesday by a state inspector general found that an Illinois prison system administrator improperly ordered the hiring of a family member for a Department of Corrections position that was never authorized.
Larry Sims, the agency’s southern region investigations commander, received a 30-day suspension after the Office of the Executive Inspector General for the Agencies of the Illinois Governor. It found he had designated a relative to be hired as an intelligence officer even though that person hadn’t applied and someone else had already been chosen.