Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Belleville News-Democrat: Rauner, Madigan, think tank agree: This will hurt you more than it hurts me
So here comes the Illinois Policy Institute with their proposal to live within our means. No tax increase. Balanced budget by cutting $7.1 billion. Easy peasy.
Here’s how they say it could be done.
Rockford Register-Star: Commission's report provides hope for school funding reform
People love their schools. They’d love them a little more if there were more teachers, aides, computer equipment and other tools available, but all that takes money.
That’s not a problem in Illinois’ more affluent school districts. Well-off local property tax payers pay a bunch of money for world-class schools. Some districts in Illinois spend more than $20,000 per pupil on operational costs and others spend less than $7,000. The state average is $12,821.
News-Gazette: Another glimpse of the obvious
Talk precedes action. But action doesn’t necessary follow talk, at least not in Illinois.
Another report on K-12 school-funding reform — one urging more money be allocated to the states’s poorest school districts — has been published.
A 25-member commission appointed by Gov. Bruce Rauner and the state’s four Democratic and Republican legislative leaders concluded its work with an exhortation to do better by our state’s children but offered few details.
Decatur Herald & Review: Shutdown is what the state needs
Genuine urgency: There’s been a dearth of it in Springfield over the past 19 months.
A real, unmitigated shutdown is precisely what Illinois needs.
State Journal-Register: Lisa Madigan: Consequences of budget inaction have already been catastrophic
Everyone knows the state of Illinois is in a terrible crisis. As we enter the 19th month without a fully funded budget in place, the impact of the egregious inaction by the governor and the legislature is felt by people across Illinois.
Universities, nonprofit organizations, businesses, grantees and vendors that receive state funding have been harmed during this unprecedented impasse. Some universities have sustained program cuts, layoffs and significant enrollment declines; they are again not receiving any funding from the state. Grants for low-income students to attend universities are also not being funded.
The Southern: Senate bill seeks cooling-off period for transition from legislator to lobbyist
Former State Rep. John Bradley seeks to return to Springfield as a lobbyist to convince his former colleagues to continue the Illinois Live Theater Production Tax Credit program he played a hand in crafting as chairman of the House Revenue and Finance Committee.
The day after the swearing in of the 100th General Assembly, Bradley, who was defeated in his re-election bid this past November, registered as a lobbyist, according to state records.
Peoria Journal-Star: As Caterpillar cuddles up to Chicago, Decatur feels Peoria's pain
The storyline is familiar:
A blue-collar central Illinois town gets a stunning slap to the face as a venerable Fortune 100 company announces surprise plans to relocate its headquarters to Chicago.
Chicago Tribune: Miffed by Chicago's 7-cent grocery bag tax? Here's a solution.
A funny thing happened when the Chicago City Council tried to keep plastic grocery bags out of landfills by banning them. The bags didn’t go away — they just got thicker.
Retailers skirted the rule change by packing merchandise in thicker-gauge plastic bags that were exempt from the ban because they’re supposedly reusable. Those sturdier bags are still ending up in our landfills. Most of them are not biodegradable.
Crain's Chicago Business: Chicagoans should not throw away O'Hare's shot
The news that Caterpillar is transplanting its C-suite execs to Chicago from Peoria underscores the primacy of an asset many Chicagoans take for granted: O’Hare International Airport.
O’Hare offers Chicago-based companies easy connections to cities all around the globe, and that convenience was a major factor in the relocation decision for Caterpillar—as well as for ADM, ConAgra, GE Healthcare and Boeing before it.
Crain's Chicago Business: Why Cat won't be the last Chicago-bound HQ
Caterpillar is only the latest corporation to trade a small Midwestern city for the transportation and recruiting advantages of Chicago. Others will follow. The only question is: Which ones?
Caterpillar’s Jan. 31 decision to move its headquarters from Peoria to the Chicago area follows on the heels of similar moves by ADM and ConAgra—and ramps up recruiting pressure on downstate’s other big corporate fish, Deere and State Farm, as well as out-of-state companies like Kellogg and SC Johnson, which remains headquartered in its historic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed campus in Racine, Wis., despite announcing plans in November 2015 to move approximately 175 white-collar workers to Chicago. SC Johnson’s move came just days after Kraft Heinz confirmed it would transplant the headquarters of its Oscar Mayer unit from Madison, Wis. to Chicago’s Aon Center.
Peoria Journal-Star: Jim Ardis suggests City Council interest has grown in exploring water buyout
Peoria City Council members might be warming to the idea of starting the formal due diligence process to explore buying back the city’s waterworks.
At a mayoral candidate forum Saturday morning, Mayor Jim Ardis told a standing-room-only crowd that “I believe the majority of the council will support taking that look this time around.”
State Journal-Register: Should Springfield pursue a casino? Proponents say 'why not?'
When state senators put together a framework to end Illinois’ two-year budget stalemate, they turned to a familiar strategy to generate more income — gambling.
The “grand bargain” Illinois Senate leaders promise a vote on this week includes six new casino licenses, slot machines for horse-racing tracks and more gaming positions at existing casinos.