Chicago leads the way in numerous corruption headlines yet again.

May’s corruption headlines show the steep cost nontransparent government can have on taxpayers.

Illinoisans’ confidence in their state government is the lowest of residents of any state in the nation, and corruption stories from February 2016 don’t help.

In January several instances of corruption, influence peddling and mismanagement across Illinois were brought to light, from the College of DuPage’s expense-account mismanagement, to Chicago’s red-light-camera bribery case.

October saw a former Chicago Public Schools CEO plead guilty to wire fraud and several other instances of criminal charges and civil lawsuits against public officials, as well as crony deals between businesses and government.

April saw two major players in Illinois education ensnared in charges of cronyism, among more than 60 other corruption-related stories.

April showers bring May flowers, but all March gave us was 53 new corruption stories in Illinois.

The start of a new year always comes with resolutions for improvement, but only time will tell if they translate into effective action.

The residential-center horror stories demonstrate that corruption in government often hurts the most vulnerable among us. It also shows that exposing those injustices can lead to change.

In November, 13 of 53 Corruption Watch stories were related to policies and actions of criminal-justice authorities in Illinois.