As much as $200,000 — equal to almost 80 percent of its income in 2013 — is missing from the Kendall County Food Pantry in Yorkville.

Its executive director resigned in June and died three weeks later from a mixture of prescription drugs. The investigation of her death, a coroner says, is hampered by the refusal of her husband to be interviewed.

The husband was the treasurer of the pantry. Serving with them on the board of directors? The Kendall County state’s attorney.

Illinois is billions in debt, has billions in overdue bills and can’t seem to remove itself from a budget morass, yet it’s the nation’s worst in reclaiming hundreds of millions of dollars in overpaid unemployment benefits, an Associated Press analysis of federal labor data found.

The abysmal performance – claiming only about $264 million of the $714 million in overpayments from 2012 to 2016 – is one reason the U.S. Labor Department said that it would step in to help Illinois meet standards for management, record-keeping and timeliness, according to an Aug. 31 letter obtained by the AP under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

Illinois’ 37 percent recovery rate is the worst among all U.S. states and territories, which average 66 percent, the AP found.

Even given Chicago Public Schools‘ well-known financial challenges, we are committed to paying teachers a competitive and generous salary.

A story in Sunday’s Tribune reported that CPS’ average teacher salary is $69,000, citing figures from the Illinois State Board of Education. But CPS figures show the average for teachers’ salaries is $73,853 and our median salary — half of teachers make more and half of teachers make less — is $77,885.

Has there ever been a state politician as powerful as Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan?

When you inherit a sinking ship in the middle of a hurricane, then find the sailors are dumping buckets of water into the vessel, you should expect to get wet. That’s the situation it seems Illinois Comptroller Leslie Geissler Munger is in as Illinois heads deeper underwater.

Munger controls the state’s checkbook. Back in April she described the problem as equivalent to a homeowner with $100 in a checking account and $7,000 in bills. The bills are now equivalent to $8,770 — Illinois owes $8.77 billion in overdue bills.

She has taken some tough stances and made the best of the state’s embarrassing inability to pay.

Chicago’s public schools and its teachers’ union make the final push to avert a looming strike on Tuesday with its success hanging on each side’s willingness to accept unappetizing concessions.

The teachers are asked to ramp up contributions to their pension fund, a demand the union has already once rejected. Unions want extra money for teachers from special economic development districts – a controversial proposal given their uneven, hard to predict revenue.

The need for hard-to-swallow tradeoffs stems from the dire state of the nation’s third largest school district and a broader fiscal distress confronting Illinois and Chicago.