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Belleville News-Democrat: Illinois Senate Democrats twerk taxpayers with latest budget attempt
The dance never changes: For three years the “Springfield Shag” has been all the rage, with the same steps leading dancers back to where they started.
Stagger unbalanced like a drunken sailor. Kick that can on down the road. Go low on the governor, then twerk the taxpayers. Duck for cover, do-si-do.
Crain's Chicago Business: Illinois is going to hell, and we don't even have a handbasket
Two budget-free years have done real and lasting damage to Illinois and the people who live, work and pay taxes here. The state’s backlog of unpaid bills has mounted to $14.4 billion, a tab that’s expected to rise to $16 billion by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. A bit of quick math: Today’s backlog comes to more than $1,000 for each and every one of us in Illinois, newborns included. Unfunded liabilities to the state’s public employee pensions, meantime, now total roughly $130 billion and counting. No wonder Wall Street continues to downgrade Illinois’ credit, which only drives our borrowing costs still higher.
The numbers involved are truly staggering—figures so big created by forces so monumental that we have almost become numbed to them. But here’s a figure that should still hit like a gut punch: By paying bills late, the state has incurred $800 million in penalties. That’s right. We’ve lit $800 million on fire, flushed it down the drain, shot it out like crap through the proverbial goose—choose your metaphor. At a time when Chicago and Springfield are sparring over some $467 million in overdue funds that the state says it can’t afford to pay to Chicago Public Schools, we’ve blown roughly twice that amount just by failing to do what responsible people are supposed to do: budget their money and meet their financial obligations.
Chicago Sun-Times: Chicago cops who left under a cloud land police jobs in the suburbs
While visiting Universal Studios with his wife and kids, Dewayne Smalarz, a veteran Chicago cop, walked out of a souvenir shop with a “SpongeBob SquarePants” book bag and other items without paying, records show.
Another Chicago police officer, Alicia Roman, was charged with shooting up her estranged husband’s bungalow while off-duty as he dove for cover.
WBEZ: 17-Month-Old Semaj Crosby’s Death Linked To Systemic, Family Failures
The Department of Children and Family Services issued a scathing review of the circumstances surrounding last month’s death of 17 month-old old Semaj Crosby.
She was found dead in her Joliet Township home a day after she was reported missing, and two days after caseworkers from DCFS visited the home.
State Journal-Register: $2.4M state warehouse lease renews procurement questions
Controversy surrounding a former furniture store in Springfield highlights the problems of a state lease procurement system dogged by bureaucracy, reliance on old-fashioned paper files and a state unable to pay its bills.
The former Barney’s Furniture store, 2410 South Grand Ave. E., was sold in January for $575,000 to Climate Controlled Holdings LLC of Chicago, according to records at the Sangamon County Assessor’s Office. At the time of the sale, the county put the fair market value of the 60,000-square-foot structure at just over $1.2 million. The furniture business relocated last year to a larger facility at Chatham Road and Wabash Avenue.
State Journal-Register: Digitizing state records may not be cheaper, expert says
The state of Illinois has always leased space to store documents, but recently lawmakers have been critical of the Rauner administration spending $2.4 million over five years on a Springfield warehouse.
Doing something different, like digitizing the documents, may not be that easy or inexpensive, experts say.
Northwest Herald: Turning Point of McHenry County urges Illinois to restore funding
Leaders from McHenry County’s only domestic violence agency are calling on Illinois lawmakers to fix the state’s budget as they struggle to stay afloat without state funding.
Turning Point of McHenry County has been without state funding since mid-October. It is one of many domestic violence agencies across the state that were forgotten in last summer’s stopgap budget, agency leaders said.
Rockford Register-Star: Rockford population continues downward trend
The city’s population continued its downward trend for the sixth consecutive year last year, according to data released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau.
City officials say they have plans to turn the trend around in the future by attracting residents and businesses to the region while retaining current ones.