By Brian Costin
09/12/2014
School districts in 14 Illinois counties are pushing for countywide increases in sales tax rates. These counties are utilizing the 2007 Illinois County School Facility Tax Act, or ICSFTA, which allows school boards representing 51 percent of a county’s population to put a referendum on the ballot for a countywide sales tax increase to fund...
TAGS: education, sales tax
By Brian Costin
08/09/2014
The bad news keeps piling up for Illinoisans. Illinois Policy’s “corruption watch” blog series hit a new high in the month of July with nearly 100 corruption-related stories. Chicago and Springfield are the two cities most synonymous with the state’s corruption woes. Unsurprisingly, both cities dominated headlines with the top two corruption stories of the...
Unfortunately for taxpayers, June was a groundbreaking month for corruption in Illinois. In June alone, there were reports of 85 corruption-related stories in the state. Some of the record-breaking highlights include the following: For the first time in 33 years, the Illinois Legislative Audit Commission exercised its subpoena powers in the issuance of a subpoena...
By Jackson Adams
10/28/2013
A California group with a history of making political contributions to Illinois politicians and connections to the Obama administration was awarded a federal “navigator” grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, to help Illinoisans enroll in the Obamacare health insurance exchange. The East Los Angeles Community Union, or TELACU, was awarded...
TAGS: ACA: Affordable Care Act
The Problem Taxpayers deserve to know information about the governments they fund. Illinois has thousands of units of local government, but key information about most of them is not readily available to average citizens. Technology has created an unprecedented opportunity for governments of all sizes to make information publicly available at no incremental cost. While...
Taxpayers deserve to know information about the governments they fund. Illinois has thousands of units of local government, but key information about most of them is not readily available to average citizens.
By Chris Andriesen
10/18/2010
The Problem Blago, Ryan, Walker—Illinois has a sorry history of crooked governors. Currently, the Illinois General Assembly has a monopoly on the gubernatorial removal process by way of impeachment proceedings. Citizen-initiated recall is one way to vest citizens with the ability to remove corrupt or poorly performing elected officials from office. Unfortunately, the Governor Recall...
by Kristina Rasmussen The Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) is challenging Illinois’s new campaign finance laws. From CFIF’s press release: Center for Individual Freedom Files Federal Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of Illinois’ Campaign Finance Law Vagueness of Illinois law and its discriminatory exemption for labor unions violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments ALEXANDRIA, VA — The Center for...
by Mark Cavers In 2008, the Illinois State Board of Elections paid its 189 employees $4,157,435 in combined total wages. The highest paid employee was the Executive Director, who made $120,825 followed by a Division Coordinator and the General Council, who made $94,673.50 and $90,621.50 respectively. The State Board of Elections employs six division coordinators who made...
