The Final 2014 Cook County Equalization Factor is 2.7253
The Illinois Department of Revenue announced earlier this summer that the final equalization factor for the Cook County 2014 property assessment year (…
On July 15, 2015, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted 9-7 to once again increase the county sales tax by one percentage point, taking effect on January 1, 2016. Once in place for one full year, Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s…
The Civic Federation joined with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on April 2, 2015 to co-host a conference on the use, efficacy and future of sin taxes. Experts, practitioners and academics from around the country gathered to discuss…
What local government purposes, services, or expenditures does your property tax dollar fund? Governments traditionally use property tax revenues to pay for a wide variety of expenditures, including employee salaries and pensions, debt…
The Civic Federation has long supported sensible legislation aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government operations in Illinois. The purpose of this blog is to summarize briefly consolidation legislation and…
Short-term or current liabilities are financial obligations that must be satisfied within one year. They can include short-term debt, accounts payable, accrued payroll and other current liabilities. This blog post presents 12-year trends…
The Civic Federation’s previous blog examined the long-term debt of eight major local governments in northeastern Illinois.This…
The Civic Federation regularly analyzes and comments on the budgets and audited financial statements of eight major local governments in northeastern Illinois: 1.…
The Civic Federation’s recent report profiling six townships in Cook County with the…
The Civic Federation and IIFS blogs have written extensively about reductions to assumed rates of return on investment by State and some local public pension plans over the last several years. These changes are part of a nationwide…