In April 2016, the Illinois Department of Revenue announced that it discovered a misallocation totaling an estimated $168 million in extra Personal Property Replacement Taxes (PPRT) distributed to 6,527 local government taxing entities throughout Illinois. This misallocation equals 6% of the total $2.8 billion PPRT payments made to local governments in tax years 2014 and 2015. Each local government that received wrongful PPRT funding will need to refund the State beginning in 2017. Overview of…
The Chicago Public Schools faces a potentially devastating financial crisis. The elements of this crisis include: An FY2016 budget that was not balanced as it depended on the vague hope that the State of Illinois will provide $480 million for pension relief, A forthcoming FY2017 budget that may have a gap of $1 billion or more, An ongoing structural deficit due to the District’s pension funding crisis, increases in long-term liabilities, decreases in general state aid, employee…
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 five-year trends for: 1) total short-term liabilities in the Governmental Funds, and 2) short-term liabilities as a percentage of operating revenues for the three largest local governments the Civic Federation regularly monitors and evaluates: the City of Chicago, Cook…
The following are the five most read posts presented by the Civic Federation blog in 2015. These posts examine a number of closely followed local government issues, ranging from City and County taxes to Chicago pension debt. Where Do Your Property Taxes Go? April 7, 2015 This blog post outlines how property taxes are distributed by describing how property tax dollars were proposed to be spent in FY2015 by the three largest governments in northeastern Illinois: the City of Chicago,…
FY2016 Budget Season Summary December 3, 2015 marked the end of the budget season for the eight local governments monitored by the Civic Federation. These governments include: the City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, City of Chicago, Cook County, Chicago Transit Authority, Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and Chicago Park District. Four of the seven governments that levy property taxes held their levies relatively…
The Civic Federation opposes the Chicago Public Schools proposed $5.7 billion FY2016 budget because it is not balanced and does not provide a sustainable path out of the District’s current fiscal crisis. It is yet another financially risky, short-sighted proposal that fails to provide any reassurance that Chicago Public Schools has a plan for emerging from its perpetual financial crisis. The Civic Federation believes CPS has reached a very precarious and potentially devastating short-term and…
Recently, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the City of Chicago, Chicago Park District and the Chicago Board of Education’s general obligation bond ratings below investment grade, with a negative outlook. Soon after, Fitch Ratings and Standard and Poor’s Ratings Services both followed suit by downgrading Chicago’s general obligation bond rating one notch to BBB+ from A- and to A- from A+, respectively, with negative outlook, but keeping Chicago’s rating at investment grade. These downgrades…
On May 1, 2015, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) released their proposed FY2016 capital budget and an updated Five-Year capital improvement plan for FY2016-FY2020. The exhibit below shows the amounts proposed by CPS for FY2016-FY2020 for capital spending. In those five years, a total of approximately $536.8 million has been forecast for projects. This is nearly a 57% decrease from the FY2015-FY2019 capital improvement plan forecast for projects that was expected to total nearly $1.2 billion in…
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 service and administrative costs. But, there are significant differences among local governments regarding the use of these revenues. This blog post describes how property tax dollars were proposed to be spent in FY2015 by the three largest governments in…
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 initiatives that have been proposed since our last update on this topic in September 2014. Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force One of Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s first actions upon taking office was Executive Order 15-15, which…
