Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Peoria Journal-Star: Lawmakers may be happy, but is anyone else?
Finally, there’s a group of people in Illinois happy about a development on the state’s budget front.
Of course, that would be state lawmakers who, thanks to a court ruling Thursday, are getting months of back pay and will continue to be paid on a timely basis going forward.
They may be happy, but it’s not going to enhance their standing with the public.
State Journal-Register: State lawmakers look again at pension buyouts
Illinois lawmakers are again considering proposals that would allow some participants in state government’s pension systems to take a lump-sum payout in lieu of regular annuity payments.
Buyout plans are part of pension discussions in both the House and Senate, all of which are in preliminary stages. But Rep. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, chairman of the House Personnel and Pensions Committee, thinks the ideas have merit.
Belleville News-Democrat: If Springfield can’t hear us, maybe Whitey Herzog can hook them up
Diiiiiiiinnnnggg. We are conducting a hearing test. It is a test to see if Illinois House and Senate members are as tone deaf as we suspect.
We’re assuming some aural disability because that is all that would explain them spending the people’s time declaring October as Zombie Preparedness Month. Their resolution states that “while a Zombie Apocalypse may never happen, the preparation for such an event is the same as for any natural disaster.”
NBC 5 Chicago: Vacant Illinois Agency Jobs Could Move to Springfield Area
Illinois agencies under Gov. Bruce Rauner have been told to decide whether vacant positions can be moved to the Springfield area as part of the process to fill the jobs.
The Department of Central Management Services issued a memo Wednesday outlining the procedures needed for agencies to transfer vacant or currently occupied jobs to the state capital in Springfield, the State Journal-Register reported.
Chicago Sun-Times: Emil Jones endorses Paul Vallas to become CSU president
Former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones offered a full-throated endorsement Saturday in favor of former CPS CEO Paul Vallas to become the next president of the financially struggling Chicago State University.
“I have known and worked with Paul off and on for 35 years,” Jones said in a statement. “He is a terrific public servant who earned the community’s trust during the six years he led the state’s largest public institution, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), with more than 400,000 students who were mostly minority and many who were living in poverty.”
Chicago Sun-Times: Old Wrigley factory in Bridgeport reveals how Chicago works
Eleven million dollars in tax breaks that push a bigger tax load onto ordinary taxpayers. Six hundred lost jobs in the city. An $8 million land purchase by ComEd that ratepayers must pay for. Property tax reductions totaling more than $525,000 that taxpayers must subsidize through higher taxes on their own properties.
All because of one chunk of land — the abandoned Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. gum factory in the Bridgeport neighborhood. What we have here is a classic Chicago lesson in bad or questionable de
Rockford Register-Star: Mayor Larry Morrissey: ‘Ghost of New Towne’ clouds downtown Rockford hotel decision
The politics of public housing has cast a shadow on Gary Gorman’s pitch for a downtown hotel and conference center, and the city’s most prominent developer is waging a thinly veiled campaign against the proposal, Mayor Larry Morrissey says.
The basis for Morrissey’s charge? Emails from Sunil Puri in which the Rockford developer blasts Gorman’s hotel project as “a disaster.”
News-Gazette: Public funding for private hotel
Developers have made Urbana an offer it should refuse.
The project sounds so good. How could anyone say “no”?
Convert today’s “beast” into a renewed “beauty,” reflective of her original charm and architectural integrity.
Belleville News-Democrat: Construction companies are top donors backing sales-tax increase for schools
Construction companies have contributed the bulk of money to political campaigns that are pushing for passage of sales tax referendums that would help local schools build facilities.
The 1 percent increases in the sales tax are on the April 4 ballot in St. Clair and Madison counties.