Recent credit upgrades are from tax and fee hikes, not growth.

The CPS budget proposal relies on hundreds of millions in fund sweeps to “balance.” Despite layoffs, CPS payrolls grew compared with last year and remain 8,250 higher than 2020 levels despite fewer students.

Lawmakers demand honest pricing from businesses but fail to acknowledge poor budgeting practices on their end.

Lawmakers plan to stop the automatic gas tax increase for six months but plan to use an unexpected $150 million in sales tax from high gas prices to balance the budget rather than benefit taxpayers.

They are signaling a willingness to raise taxes as the May 31 deadline quickly approaches.

Going into this budget cycle, there should be an added urgency for the City Council to build its capacity to play a co-equal role in the budget process and push to adopt more reforms and efficiencies to control spending.

Increases funded by federal COVID aid have been made permanent, causing a fiscal problem.