The city of Peoria is adding a new fee to residents’ property tax bills to help shore up the city’s public safety pensions.

The city of Springfield needs nearly $270 million more in revenue to meet the required contributions to its pension funds for retired police officers and firefighters.

Public pensions are already eating away Illinois government services, increasing by more than 500% during the past 20 years as spending on core services including child protection, state police and college money for poor students has dropped by nearly one-third since 2000. At the same time the clock is running out on the state’s public...

Illinois counties are hiring debt collectors to track down people who may owe money for older, unpaid traffic tickets. One woman accused of owing money would have been just 14 when the ticket was issued.