Nearly a third of property tax revenue in Chicago is diverted into 143 TIF districts controlled by the mayor, nearly half of which are located in affluent neighborhoods.
Vague, arbitrary and overly protective rules, like we see often in Illinois, don’t do anyone any favors.
Seven former local officials across Rock Island County are taking home pensions in excess of $100,000 a year. And nearly a dozen have already collected $1 million over the course of their retirements.
That’s why they call them taxes. If they were easy, they’d call them something else.
“Our property taxes went from $12,500 to $19,200 over the course of six years on this Norwood Park commercial property. And we’ve been losing money every year charging lower rent to accommodate for the property taxes. “We fight it every year, but $19,000 is the best we’ll get here. Can’t do it anymore, it’s not...
Southern Illinois University President Randy Dunn will receive a $215,000 severance package before taking a lucrative job at the university’s Edwardsville campus.
Avenues for state oversight for cities with financial difficulties have limited utility in the face of massive pension debt and have almost never been invoked since Springfield passed them into law in 1990.
In the midst of Chicago’s $36 billion pension crisis, former city officials are seeing big payouts.
Illinois added 18,100 new jobs in June, the highest monthly increase since summer 2017, but the Prairie State still lags behind the rest of the nation for the post-recession period.
Illinois should take steps toward more accurate and frequent property assessments to ensure the tax burden is distributed as fairly as possible.
At least 730 Cook County and 646 Chicago employees have been freed from paying forced union fees following the Janus v. AFSCME decision.
The 2017 permanent income tax hike took $732 from the median Illinois household, roughly the same as the $737 that will be returned to state workers who were previously forced to pay “fair share” fees to government unions.
Months after an investigation found Lake Forest’s city manager to have squandered $200,000 on unauthorized lobbying payments, the north suburban official announced plans to retire next year.
Duplicative school districts and an excess of publicly funded six-figure salaries have educated Norridge-Harwood Heights taxpayers on the benefits of consolidation.