The Cook County Clerk’s Office annually releases a tax rate report that provides the tax rates for various taxing agencies within Cook County. It is important for property taxpayers to have an accurate picture of which governments receive their property tax dollars and for what purpose so that taxpayers may hold public officials accountable for the level of taxation imposed. The largest portion of a Chicago property owner’s tax bill goes to the Chicago Public Schools, which accounts for 53.74…
For the third year in a row, the budget proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel for the City of Chicago relies on the use of refunding bonds to pay for principal owed in the coming year rather than making payments from operating resources. Although the details of the refunding bonds are not included in the Mayor’s proposed FY2015 budget, the City’s operating costs for the coming year are reduced by $120.8 million in principal debt payments that were refunded in March 2014 and will not be repaid until…
The Civic Federation supports the City of Chicago's proposed $7.3 billion budget because it reflects both reasonable structural changes and significant actions toward long-term stability, including the 2014 pension reform law for the City's Municipal and Laborers' pension funds and the continued phase out of the City's retiree health care subsidy. The Federation remains deeply concerned about how the City will manage rising debt service payments and pension costs in future years. For the last…
Since the release of our 2012 Effective Tax Rates report on September 29th the Civic Federation has fielded many inquiries about how to calculate the rates for municipalities outside the study. In response, this blog will go through the steps to calculate an effective tax rate for tax year 2012 (taxes payable in 2013) and provide links taxpayers can follow to gather the data they need to estimate effective rates in their own communities. An effective tax rate estimates what percent, on average…
An analysis this week released by the Civic Federation uses 13 indicators of financial condition to provide a snapshot of the fiscal health of four Chicago charter schools or networks between fiscal years 2007 and 2011. The analysis indicated strong fiscal health for the Lawndale Regional and Educational Network (LEARN) and Namaste Charter School. Results for the North Lawndale and UNO charter schools were mixed, with several negative trends that could impair long-term fiscal viability. Click…
This report is a quantitative analysis of the finances of four Chicago charter schools. The report uses 13 indicators of financial condition to provide a snapshot of fiscal health for the five-year period between fiscal years 2007 and 2011. Each section of the quantitative analysis is intended as a stand-alone report on the fiscal health of the selected Chicago charter school or network between FY2007 and FY2011. The analysis indicated good fiscal health for the Lawndale Regional and…
Chicago-area public employee pension funding levels continued to decline in FY2012, with total unfunded liabilities for the ten funds analyzed rising to $37.2 billion from $32.0 billion in FY2011. On average, the ten funds analyzed had an actuarial funding level of 45.5% in FY2012, down from 74.5% in FY2003. For all pension funds supported by the taxes of Chicago residents, including statewide finds, the total unfunded liabilities reached $19,579 per Chicago resident in FY2012. The…
The declining health of public employee pension funds throughout the State of Illinois is primarily due to two causes: inadequate employer contributions over a sustained period and recent investment losses. This blog will discuss the role of investment rate of return in public employee pension funding and provide an update on the investment returns of Chicago-area pension funds in FY2012, the most recent year for which data are available. A pension fund invests the contributions of employers…
This annual report compares effective property tax rates in the six-county region of northeastern Illinois between 2003 and 2012. Effective tax rates for nearly all selected communities rose between 2011 and 2012, the most recent year for which data are available. Among the 12 selected Cook County communities, the Civic Federation found Harvey had the highest effective tax rate for residential properties at 8.87% in tax year 2012, while Chicago had the lowest residential rate at 1.84%.…
The most basic question about a pension fund is whether its assets are sufficient to cover total liabilities incurred. In this blog post, we examine the aggregate pension liabilities and Other Post Employment Benefit (OPEB) liabilities of ten large local government pension funds in the Chicago area and their collective assets.[1] Liabilities are calculated using actuarial assumptions about the value of all future pension payments for both current and retired employees, as well as any…
