Pension payouts collected by the Belleville area’s top-earning school retirees underscore the need to reform Illinois’ unaffordable pension system.
These Illinois Halloween laws might scare you
Scraping through a few hundred municipal codes in Illinois didn’t turn up any trick-or-treat ordinances allowing for jail time. But fines associated with age limits, curfews, masks and more were aplenty.
St. Clair County property taxes nearly doubled over last 20 years
Property taxpayers in St. Clair County have seen home values swamped by property taxes over the past 20 years.
Belleville spent more than $2.5M on workers’ comp settlements in less than 5 years
While a few payouts were the result of severe injuries, local taxpayers were also on the hook for settlements with workers who returned to work the very next day.
Belleville has seen sharpest population decline among top Illinois cities since 2010
As Illinois struggles to address its people problem, population loss has plagued communities across the Land of Lincoln. But the shrinkage in some areas has been more severe than others.
Belleville school districts are ripe for consolidation
Illinois has more units of local government than any other state in the country, many of which are duplicative and overlapping. In Belleville, where the majority of the city’s school districts cover fewer students than the state average, consolidation efforts could boost efficiency while saving taxpayer dollars.
More than 230 Belleville school district employees earn more than $100K
Many school district employees’ earnings are more than double that of the typical Belleville household.
In a shrinking state, Census sheds light on struggling cities
When people can’t find good job opportunities in Illinois, they are too often forced to leave. And to take their place, too few have enough confidence in the state to move in from elsewhere and build a future.
Chicago was the only major U.S. city to lose population from 2016 to 2017
In a shrinking state, half of Illinois’ largest cities have shed population since 2010.
Metro East property tax bills making their way to mailboxes
Residents of St. Clair and Madison Counties will soon see some of the nation’s most punishing property tax bills.