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State Journal-Register: Pritzker to outline budget amid state’s ongoing problems
Gov. J.B. Pritzker delivers his first budget proposal Wednesday to a state that may be unprepared for what the new governor will have to say.
For the past two years, a state budget has been in place, which has muted the incessant drumbeat of news stories about businesses, organizations and government institutions facing imminent financial crises because of the state’s failure to put in place a spending plan.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago Teachers Union suspends city's second charter school strike after winning pay increases
The city’s second-ever charter school strike ended early Monday morning.
Some 200 unionized educators at four Chicago International Charter School campuses and management announced a tentative deal after a two week work stoppage halted classes for 2,000 students.
Crain's Chicago Business: Ad hoc zoning, Chicago-style: How aldermen can rewrite the rules
Under the unwritten rules of aldermanic privilege, aldermen wield extraordinary powers to loosen zoning on properties in their wards so developers can build swanky high-rises that they couldn’t before. Chicago aldermen also have the power to do the opposite: to “downzone,” slashing the zoning on a property to stop a proposed development in its tracks.
Rockford Register-Star: Illinois college enrollment declines show little sign of subsiding
Historically low unemployment rates, a shrinking population, funding instability and increased competition from other states have resulted in widespread enrollment declines at most Illinois colleges.
Few schools have welcomed more students than previous years while many saw their fall enrollments go down from year to year, some dramatically, forcing institutions of higher learning across the state to slash faculty and programs as they struggle to adopt new business models in hopes of rebuilding student bodies.
The Southern: Will 'Opportunity Zones' pump new private investment into Southern Illinois? Officials say it's too soon to tell.
Whether a federal program designed to pump private investment into distressed parts of the country could uplift Southern Illinois is a question local officials aren’t sure how to answer yet.
They aren’t alone. Rural communities and small cities across the country are trying to figure out how and whether they can benefit from the “Opportunity Zones” program. Included in the Tax Cut and Jobs Act that President Donald Trump signed into law in December 2017, federal policymakers have hyped the creation of tax-incentive districts as one of the most important economic development tools geared toward distressed areas in years.