Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Chicago Tribune: Cook County assessor slow to adopt anti-patronage reforms – and taxpayers pay price
Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios has never made any secret of his affinity for old-school politics that put a premium on loyalty and favors.
That approach has served him well in the Cook County Democratic Party, where he’s risen to chairman, and at the ballot box, where he’s won two terms as assessor and next year will seek a third.
WBEZ: ‘Beginning Of An Epidemic’: Email Shows State Waited 6 Days To Publicize Legionnaires’ Outbreak
Illinois public health officials delayed informing the public for nearly a week about a deadly 2015 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at a state veterans’ home in Quincy despite knowing the facility was facing “the beginning of an epidemic,” according to internal emails from Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office obtained by WBEZ.
That delay was called “mind boggling” by one of the nation’s top infectious disease experts. And it comes at the same time WBEZ has learned the actual number of Legionnaires’ cases at the downstate Illinois Veterans Home during 2017 was double what state officials previously had reported as recently as two weeks ago.
Northwest Herald: Woodstock School District 200 moves forward with committee recommendations to cut costs
The Woodstock School District 200 Board won’t vote on potential school closures until next year, but it already has made strides in completing other committee recommendations to cut costs.
The board recently voted to end an annex lease and sell its administrative building, both on Judd Street, in accordance with committee recommendations. Both spaces were used as office space.
Northwest Herald: Lakewood trustees approve tax levy cut, abatement
Village officials fulfilled a campaign promise to bring property tax relief to Lakewood residents.
On Monday, the Village Board unanimously approved a reduction of 5 percent in the village’s property tax levy request compared with the previous year, as well as an abatement of 5 percent of village taxes.
Northwest Herald: McHenry County joining other officials to sue opioid drugmakers
McHenry County officials will join their counterparts from several other northern Illinois counties in a lawsuit against drugmakers that they claim have helped fuel an opioid epidemic.
The announcement of the lawsuits will come at a 10 a.m. news conference Thursday in the DuPage County Board room.
Daily Herald: Elgin approves 2018 budget with higher sales, hotel taxes
The Elgin City Council unanimously approved the city’s $259 million budget for 2018 and three-year financial plan, which calls for a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases aimed at both residents and nonresidents.
“There’s no new programs,” Councilman John Steffen said. “This is trying to maintain the quality that we have had so far, and people seem to like, in the city.”
Peoria Journal-Star: Pekin City Council corrects error, lowers levy
Correcting an oversight, Pekin’s City Council lowered the amount of property taxes it planned to collect next year in a special meeting Wednesday.
The change could produce a slight decrease in homeowners’ tax bills next year, City Manager Tony Carson said this week.
Bloomington Pantagraph: Council gets 'big picture' of deficit, capital projects
Raising sales, property, utility and fuel taxes and/or making targeted spending cuts to close next fiscal year’s $3 million deficit and selling bonds to pay for up to $74.5 million in capital projects over two years were among some ideas the City Council looked at Wednesday.
“You could offset that deficit by some other new sources of revenues if that is what you would like to do. Or you could remove some programs … to thus create some long-term gains,” interim City Manager Steve Rasmussen told the council during the special work session at which no decisions were made.
State Journal-Register: Developer asks for more TIF money to resume downtown building project
The future of a downtown Springfield historic restoration project already under construction for five years hinges on a nearly $11.3 million financing package narrowly approved Thursday by members of the city’s Economic Development Commission.
Approximately $3.8 million for resumption of major work on the Ferguson, Bateman-Kennedy and Booth buildings at Sixth and Monroe streets would come from a downtown tax increment financing district, including a little more than $1.9 million already committed, almost $1.1 million in new funding and an $800,000 loan from the TIF district. Bank loans would cover much of the remainder.