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WTTW Chicago Tonight: 100 Days In, Gov. Pritkzer's Biggest Challenges Are Just Ahead
One hundred days into holding his first-ever elected office, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s press team has a three-page list of accomplishments to show as proof that he’s off to a strong start. But it will be the next 40 days that define whether his first year – perhaps his entire term – are a success, as the Legislature decides not just the fate of Pritzker’s first budget proposal but also his attempt to overhaul how Illinois taxes its residents.
And it doesn’t appear as if there’s a “plan B” if he fails.
State Journal-Register: At 100 days, Pritzker excited, hopeful on agenda
With today marking the 100th day of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s first term, the governor says he’s had some “pretty big wins” like an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, and he expects other of his priorities to be realized by the end of May.
“When I came into office, there really had been very little done over the four years prior,” Democrat Pritzker, who defeated one-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in November, told The State Journal-Register in an interview Monday. “So I’m excited about the fact that we have so much energy and enthusiasm for accomplishing a lot in this first legislative session.”
Champaign News-Gazette: Administrative bloat
Smaller school districts in Illinois should work together to reduce costs.
A 2017 study by the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council came to a shocking conclusion that appeared to require immediate action to address.
The study showed that Illinois school districts spent $1 billion on district-level administration in the 2014 fiscal year.
Northwest Herald: Should McHenry County be testing ground for eliminating townships?
McHenry County, like most of Illinois, has a system of government comprised of overlapping layers of townships and districts, each of which can levy taxes. They are responsible for everything from the daily operations of towns, to plowing roads in the winter or killing mosquitoes in the summer.
McHenry County is the sole subject of legislation giving its voters an option to dissolve township government. It is an effort by a state lawmaker to cut residents’ property taxes by eliminating what he calls “unnecessary” levels of government.
Chicago Tribune: The 'Ed Burke Effect' washes over the water district: Cue Cook County's inspector general
For many years the majority of commissioners at a low-profile, Chicago-based government avoid calls to have an inspector general keep tabs on their $1 billion-a-year operation. Then in 2019, the Edward Burke scandal rivets the metropolitan area. Furious voters demand reforms at City Hall. En route to being elected mayor, a former federal prosecutor predicts that her ex-colleagues at the U.S. Department of Justice soon will drop more criminal charges on Chicago politicians. And, last Thursday, the nine commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District unanimously agree to hire Cook County’s inspector general to perform that anti-corruption function for the MWRD too.
Maybe this timing is a coincidence. But the 9-0 vote suggests that with metro Chicagoans increasingly intolerant of public servants who serve themselves first, even the commissioners who want to keep the MWRD a bastion of crony politics also want to be on the right side of history.
Chicago Tribune: Illinois State Police seeks to rebuild dwindling force after 'years and years of neglect'
The number of state troopers in Illinois has fallen by nearly 20 percent over the past two decades, leaving fewer officers to patrol the roadways, investigate shootings on highways and oversee the concealed carry program.
The decline has been long and steady, with spending cuts, a wave of retirements, new policing responsibilities and the recent state budget impasse all contributing. But the death of three troopers this year when other motorists crashed into them has raised the question: Are there enough officers out there to discourage reckless driving and keep the roads safe?
Chicago Sun-Times: Blackhawks owner unloads on Rahm Emanuel in transition memo to Lightfoot
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has basked in the glow of a parade of corporate relocations to downtown Chicago and a tourism industry that attracted a record 57.7 million visitors last year.
Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz tells a dramatically different story in his transition memo to Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot.
Chicago Tribune: University of Illinois at Chicago avoids 2nd strike this spring as faculty reach tentative contract deal
University of Illinois at Chicago narrowly avoided a second workers’ strike in one month after administration and faculty members settled on new contract terms the day before professors planned to walk off the job.
School leaders announced a tentative contract agreement Monday afternoon with UIC United Faculty, the union representing about 1,200 teachers at the Near West Side campus.
Peoria Journal-Star: East Peoria prepares for new recycling mandate
Summer is coming.
And shortly after it officially arrives, East Peoria residents interested in recycling will need to ditch the red 18-gallon bin they’ve been using for years and discard their recyclables in a city-approved, hinge-lidded, two-wheeled, toter-style waste container that can be purchased from the city for $60. Although it expands the program by collecting glass for the first time, not everyone supports the change.
Peoria Journal-Star: Pekin City Council postpones vote on new taxes
The City Council voted Monday to postpone action on proposed ordinances that would impose new taxes and raise the existing Local Motor Fuel Tax.
Councilman Mark Luft made a motion to table discussion on a proposal to introduce taxes on the use, consumption and delivery of gas and electricity in Pekin, as well as a proposal to raise the motor fuel tax from 4 cents a gallon to 8 cents a gallon. Councilman Michael Garrison seconded Luft’s motion.
Bloomington Pantagraph: City, union agree to negotiated pension spikes after May 2020
City Manager Tim Gleason says he has negotiated a labor contract “that will effectively end” some sick leave-buyback accelerated pension payments after May 1, 2020.
Members of American Federation of State, County Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 699 — about 100 people who work for the city’s Miller Park Zoo and public works and parks, recreation and cultural arts departments — on Wednesday ratified the proposed three-year contract that runs through April 2022.
Bloomington Pantagraph: Council OKs deal to limit Grossinger Motors Arena losses to $350K annually
The city will cap its subsidies for losses at Grossinger Motors Arena at $350,000 a year for the remainder of its management contract with VenuWorks.
The City Council voted 8-1 Monday to amend its management agreement with the Ames, Iowa-based company for the city-owned venue, which ended fiscal 2018 on April 30, 2018, $665,099 in the red. The contract runs through 2021.