Illinois

School district salaries left out of Illinois school report cards

By Brian Costin
11/04/2013
The Illinois General Assembly may consider much needed pension reform during the second week of fall veto session, which lasts Nov. 5 until Nov. 7. But they will have to do so without the latest teacher and administrator salary information affecting the state’s largest pension system, the Teachers’ Retirement System, or TRS. Last week the...

TAGS: Illinois State School Report Cards, ISBE: Illinois State Board of Education, TRS: Teachers’ Retirement System

Naperville considers pension double-dipping transparency reform

By Brian Costin
11/04/2013
Most public employees in Illinois receive a single pension upon retirement. But some workers don’t just get one pension – they get two or three. This is made possible by either working multiple government jobs at the same time, or retiring from one public job and beginning a second within a different pension system. Both...

TAGS: IMRF: Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, Naperville, pensions, Social Security, transparency, TRS: Teachers’ Retirement System

Decline in food stamp benefits no excuse for losing focus on job creation

By John Klingner
11/04/2013
This month, the more than 2 million Illinoisans currently enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, will see a cut to their monthly food stamp benefits. An Illinois family of three will see their benefits decrease about $29. Currently, the average Illinois household receives $285 a month in benefits. The cut in benefits is due...

TAGS: SNAP

More than 200K Illinois Medicaid enrollees found ineligible for the program

By Jonathan Ingram
11/04/2013
In January, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, or HFS, began a new project verifying eligibility for Illinois’ 2.7 million Medicaid enrollees. For years, state workers had failed to take adequate steps to ensure the people receiving Medicaid benefits were actually eligible for the program. As an Auditor General report noted, state workers failed to...

TAGS: AFSCME: American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, HFS: Healthcare and Family Services, Medicaid

Unionization more prevalent in government than private sector

By Paul Kersey
11/01/2013
One of the biggest changes in the union movement has happened mostly under the radar, but it has big consequences for union officials, workers and the public at large. Unions used to be powerful in the private sector. But now, most union workers nationwide are government employees. It has been this way since 2009. Since...

Illinois pensions need to become more transparent

By Paul Kersey
11/01/2013
The history of state government pensions in Illinois is fairly simple. Politicians discover that pension funds are running a deficit. Those same politicians develop a plan to eliminate the deficit, which typically involves Illinois taxpayers putting in more money. Taxpayers pony up the funds. The deficit, somehow, gets worse. In 1994, the five state-run pension...

Pensions: contributions out of sync with payouts

By Ted Dabrowski
10/31/2013
Members of Illinois’ state-run pension systems claim they’ve paid their fair share into the pension funds. To be sure, these workers have paid in what’s been required legally under mutually agreed upon contracts. But the benefits politicians and union bosses have negotiated for retirees are pushing the state’s pension systems to the brink of insolvency....

TAGS: pensions, TRS: Teachers’ Retirement System

UPDATE—ObamaCare in the Courts: King vs. Sebelius

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
10/31/2013
This week, the media and public have been sharply focused on congressional hearings on the calamitous ObamaCare rollout and glitch-ridden health exchange websites. But there may be a far more important ObamaCare venue this week: Richmond, Va. On Oct. 31, a federal judge will hear oral arguments in King vs. Sebelius, a case in which...

TAGS: ACA: Affordable Care Act, Halbig v. Sebelius, king v. sebelius, King vs. Sebelius

Illinois’ pension crisis keeps getting worse

By Ted Dabrowski
10/29/2013
Even if Illinois pension funds see investment returns that exceed expectations, that still won’t be enough to plug the largest fund’s hole. The Teachers’ Retirement System reported its pension underfunding grew to $55.73 billion as of June 30, 2013 — an increase of more than $3.5 billion since the end of the previous fiscal year...

TAGS: 401(k), COGFA: Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, Dick Ingram, SURS: State Universities Retirement System, TRS: Teachers’ Retirement System

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FAQ: How the federal scholarship program would help Illinois students

Illinois students could soon benefit from scholarship money to help them find a tutor, attend ACT or SAT prep sessions, pay tuition, get special education services or assist with other academic needs. That will happen in Illinois only if Gov. J.B. Pritzker lets the state’s schoolchildren benefit from the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, established...

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Diana Graham

Process for unionizing non-state workers raises red flags

By Paul Kersey
06/19/2014

CBS Chicago: Illinois’ highest-paid superintendent receives $400K per year to oversee 1,200 students

By Ted Dabrowski
05/02/2016