Illinois

Tiny Taxing District Transparency

06/22/2011
by Mark Cavers On Monday, the Chicago Tribune ran a story on the thousands of taxing districts and government bodies that are scattered across Illinois: “Illinois has the most units of government in the nation, and the Tribune acquired and combed through a list of each one — nearly 8,500 by the state comptroller’s count, from well-known...

Budget FAIL: Plan Awaiting Gov. Quinn’s Signature Grows Spending, Debt

By Collin Hitt
06/21/2011
State spending will increase in 2012. That is, unless additional cuts and policy changes are added to the general fund budget currently awaiting Gov. Quinn’s signature. Following the close of the spring session, many news outlets reported that the House and Senate had passed a 2012 general fund budget of $33.2 billion that cut overall...

Illinois Gets a ‘C’ in Factory Ranking

06/21/2011
by Sameer Warraich Last week, Crain’s Chicago Business reported the results of recent research on the manufacturing performance of all 50 states. The study, by Ball State’s Center for Business and Economic Research, gave each state a grade based on criteria including manufacturing and logistics health, human capital, cost of benefits, global position and diversification of industries,...

Illinois Unemployment Rate Increases

06/17/2011
by Amanda Griffin-Johnson This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released May unemployment figures showing Illinois’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is up .1 percent to 8.9 percent in May as compared to 8.8 percent in April. The Chicago metropolitan area experienced a .4 percent increase in the same time frame to 8.9 percent in May, up from 8.5...

Graduate Early and Receive $4,000

06/17/2011
by Mark Cavers During their latest session Indiana’s legislature passed and Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a bill that will reward students who graduate from high school a year early. Under the program, Indiana high school students who graduate in three years will receive a $4,000 scholarship to attend any Indiana university or trade school. Providing a cash...

Riding Away on the Taxpayer Train

06/15/2011
by Katherine Casey Taxpayer-funded state lobbying is once again on the rise in Illinois. As the Illinois Policy Institute noted earlier this year in its 2011-2012 Illinois Legislators’ Guide to the Issues, a lack of transparency still plagues the topic of lobbying across the state. Unknown to many citizens, “state-level lobbying” has quickly seeped its way into towns and...

City of Evanston, Evanston District 65 Earn High Marks in Transparency Audit

By Brian Costin
06/15/2011
CHICAGO (June 15, 2011) — The city of Evanston scored the highest of five Evanston-area governments in the latest leg of the Illinois Policy Institute’s “Local Transparency Project,” which grades governments on the availability to the public of vital community information. The city earned a score of 91.7 out of 100 possible points for making...

Fishing for Budget Cuts – Urban Fishing Program

06/14/2011
by Kristina Rasmussen PETA sent Gov. Quinn a letter echoing our request that he veto funding for the state’s Urban Fishing Program: I am writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 2 million members and supporters, including thousands across Illinois, to respectfully urge you to end state funding for the Illinois...

Illinois Needs to Learn to Fix Its Schools

06/13/2011
by Aon Hussain Just last week, the Chicago Sun Times published an interesting article about the state of rising teacher salaries. In some parts of Illinois, it is not uncommon to see some teachers earning six figures. In addition to high teacher salaries, administrators of various school districts are making a lot of money even as school...

Short-cuts: It’s the Illinois Way

06/10/2011
by Drew McKinley Last week the Illinois House passed HB1698, which attempted to reform Illinois’s broken workers’ compensation system. In the bill, the key mechanism for reducing spending is to cut payments to physicians and specialists by 30%. However, studies have shown that cutting reimbursements to physicians actually increases the cost of care. For example,...
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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