Get the latest news from around Illinois.
State Journal-Register: Illinois pension cost savings plans get started
Illinois’ latest efforts to cut pension costs are getting underway, but it will be some time before the success of the effort can be measured.
The gist of the effort is to entice people to either withdraw from the pension systems entirely or to accept a lesser benefit in exchange for a cash payout.
Champaign News-Gazette: Pension bonanza
Huge pensions make life after politics lush.
Former Democratic state Rep. Daniel Burke was unceremoniously tossed out of office last year by the residents of his increasingly Hispanic Chicago district.
But not to worry; Burke, like many politicians in Illinois, is enjoying a soft landing on a big pile of cash — courtesy of Chicago and Illinois taxpayers.
Champaign News-Gazette: Irrational exuberance in a post-Rauner Illinois
Happy days are here again. With the passing of the governorship from Bruce Rauner to J.B. Pritzker, the nightmare in Illinois is finally over. And so is the acrimony and dysfunction. Politics can now return to the era of “compromise” former Gov. Jim Edgar likes to talk about so much. Back to when Illinois government “worked.”
Wishful thinking.
State Journal-Register: Fair maps process back at legislature
Every single House Republican has signed on to a proposed constitutional amendment to change the way legislative maps are drawn in Illinois.
It sets up a process to remove politics as much as possible from drawing new maps, a process that Illinois will undertake after the 2020 census. It’s an important deal because when it comes time to approve the new map, there will be a Democratic governor and a Democratic-controlled legislature, barring some completely unforeseen development.
Crain's Chicago Business: How did home prices do last year where you live?
The median price of a home sold in the nine-county metro area was unchanged during the year, according to data released Jan. 22 by Illinois Realtors.
Peoria Journal-Star: Educators interpret state Report Card their own way
Last October, Keith Brown, the principal of Illini Bluffs High School in Glasford, routinely checked the Illinois State Board of Education website in anticipation of the release of the annual Interactive School Report Card. The day it posted and the results were revealed, Brown was:
Happy that his school district had done so well.
Chicago Sun-Times: 1st black woman president for 130-year-old Metropolitan Water Reclamation Board
The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) quietly made history this month by electing its first African-American woman president in its 130-year history.
Kari Steele, 43, an environmentalist elected in November to her second six-year term on the $1.1 billion agency’s nine-member board, was unanimously elected president on Jan. 10.
Daily Herald: Naperville representative's 'white supremacist' comments sparking conversation
Freshman State Rep. Anne Stava-Murray, a Naperville Democrat, is standing by her comments about “white supremacist policies” in her hometown, saying she’s unfazed by criticism and encouraged her words are starting conversations about historical and ongoing racism in the region.
The 81st District representative, who also has launched a campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Dick Durbin, says what she sees in Naperville — and the Chicago area as a whole — is “white supremacy in an unclad kind of way, without its hood on.”
Northwest Herald: Andrew Gasser on the stand: ‘I don’t remember’
Algonquin Township Highway Commissioner Andrew Gasser took the stand earlier this month to face a contempt charge, and his memory failed him.
In more than 10 instances during that Jan. 10 hearing at the Lake County Courthouse, the road commissioner fielded questions of the labor lawyer cross-examining him with responses like this:
“I don’t remember.”