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Bloomington Pantagraph: Observers: No budget could be catastrophic
The inability of the Rauner administration and General Assembly to produce a long-term budget has had a significant impact on the state and its residents. If a spending plan isn’t approved until the 2018 general election, as some have speculated, the effects could be catastrophic, say political observers.
The unfunded liability in Illinois’ pension funds hit $119 billion in fiscal year 2015, according to an April report from Pew Charitable Trusts. That means just 40 percent of the state’s pension system is funded. Only New Jersey is in worse shape.
WBEZ: Illinois’ Medicaid Problems Could Jeopardize Money For Schools, State Workers, Attorneys say
Attorneys for the Illinois state government say payments to schools, services for foster children and even state employees could be in jeopardy if the state is forced to speed up payments to Medicaid service providers, who have threatened to stop seeing low income patients.
Earlier this month, 25 doctors, health care providers and insurance companies (also known as managed care organizations, or MCOs) around Illinois told U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow that the state was six months late in paying its Medicaid reimbursements, and if that continues, then Medicaid patients could see interruptions in their care.
Associated Press: State’s utility bills piling up again
The state is again racking up unpaid utility bills for its Springfield offices as Illinois nears two years without a full budget.
Illinois owes about $3.5 million in past-due payments to City Water, Light and Power, City Water, Light and Power spokeswoman Amber Sabin told the Springfield State Journal-Register.
State Journal-Register: Have we hit bottom yet?
Maybe the optimistic way of looking at last week in the Senate is that things have gotten so bad, the only way to go now is up.
It started with Senate President JOHN CULLERTON’s decision to vote on the “grand bargain” bills no matter what. Republicans said the vote was premature because negotiations were getting ever-closer to producing an agreement and more time was needed. Cullerton countered that it was the same refrain that’s been heard for months with no results and time is running out. The votes were taken and provided more fodder for finger-pointing.
News-Gazette: Let's look under the rock
A bad state lease deal raises disturbing questions.
Illinois taxpayers recently took another unnecessary financial beating in a questionable leasing deal for which they paid far too much in exchange for far too little.
The questions surrounding the deal are these:
— Is this government corruption as usual?
— Or is it government incompetence as usual?
Northwest Herald: Lake in the Hills Sanitary District lowers its portion of property tax bills
The Lake in the Hills Sanitary District recently approved an annual budget that shows more than a 10 percent reduction in its portion of residents’ property tax bills, district manager Rick Forner said.
The district is levying for about $675,000 this year, compared with about $751,000 last year, Forner said.
Northwest Herald: How to read your McHenry County property tax bill
The property tax bill you received in the mail contains three parts – a detailed description of the taxes you owe and how they are calculated, and the two tear-off stubs to be mailed with both installments. For our purposes, we will refer to the description section as your bill.
Rockford Register-Star: Most Rockford tax bills went down this year
Beleaguered taxpayers — who last year paid the highest tax rate in the city’s history — got a little relief for their pocketbooks this year.
Across the city of Rockford, 87 percent of tax bills were lower than they were a year ago, according to a calculation by Tom Walsh, Winnebago County’s supervisor of assessments. For most — 81 percent — the bill dropped between 1 and 2 percent.
Belleville News-Democrat: 43 year-old felony could cause one township clerk to lose his job
It was a hot morning in April 1974 at the B&B Lounge on North 33rd St. Outside on the street, a woman that police later identified only as “Shirley” happened to be sitting behind the wheel of a yellow Oldsmobile.
It was 11 a.m. and Harry Hollingsworth, then 28, was inside the bar and about to get jumped by a male acquaintance and two of his lady friends. Hollingsworth pulled a pistol and chased the man out of the bar, firing as he ran. Hit in the neck, the man stumbled, but managed to climb into the Olds and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he recovered.
The Southern: 'Nearly bankrupt': A multi-part review of how the ACHA ended up broke: Executive director pay
Where did the money go? — that’s a question Cairo citizens have asked on countless occasions concerning the housing crisis playing out in their community.
Records show the former director of the Alexander County Housing Authority walked off with a healthy chunk of it — taking tens of thousands of dollars as payment for questionable contracts and a settlement agreement to pad his already generous retirement pay owed to him from two pension accounts the housing authority paid into.