Administrative costs at Illinois universities have spun out of control. The latest example comes as the Northern Illinois University Board of Trustees voted to approve a $600,000 golden parachute for President Doug Baker.

Universities are supposed to be safe havens for controversial ideas, but at least 10 Illinois universities have one or more policies that clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech.

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...

the overall trend indicates that The Illinois public university system is getting worse in complying with state and federal laws, leaving the system vulnerable to future cases of public corruption.

With the downturn in the economy, you’ll occasionally hear stories about thieves who steal public property – such as manhole covers – and sell the materials to scrap yards.

by Brian Costin At the Village of Willowbrook board meeting on April 11th, the Illinois Policy Institute awarded a Certificate of Achievement to the Village Board for their participation and success in the Institute’s Local Transparency Project. “As of an audit on April 8, 2011, the Village of Willowbrook’s transparency score is an 86.8 out of 100. This...