On December 12, 2011, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the College to Careers initiative for the City Colleges of Chicago. The new initiative addresses the need to fill an estimated approximately 100,000 jobs that are expected to be available in Chicago between now and 2020.[1] College to Careers focuses on two job fields expected to grow significantly in the next ten years: 1) healthcare and 2) transportation, distribution and logistics. Courses in transportation, distribution and logistics will…
On April 24, 2012, the City Council passed an ordinance establishing an Infrastructure Trust for the City of Chicago. Introduced by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Trust is an alternative source of funding that will be used to attract private sector funds to rebuild the City’s aging infrastructure. At a time when capital funding from the federal government and State of Illinois is scarce and the City’s debt levels are high, the Trust aims to open investment opportunities from new sources that would…
Last week, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle announced two alternative service delivery initiatives: 1) managed competition for County custodial services; and 2) third-party administration of the County’s employee absence and leave management.[1] In its 2010 Cook County Modernization Report, the Civic Federation recommended that Cook County institute alternative service delivery, also known as outsourcing, for non-essential services. Historically, the County has not taken advantage…
This blog continues the Civic Federation’s examination of indicators that can be used to assess the financial health of local governments. The Federation is working on a project that compares the City of Chicago with a group of thirteen large U.S. cities that have also been the subject of analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia Research Initiative. Previous entries examined the City of Chicago’s fund balance ratio, continuing service ratio and operating deficit ratio. This blog…
On Wednesday, March 14, the Civic Federation co-hosted a conference on public-private partnerships (also known as “P3s”) with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Nearly 150 business, civic and government leaders convened to hear experts discuss their view of the future of government cooperation with the private sector to deliver government services and to develop major infrastructure projects. Such developments are common in other parts of the world, but have only recently become more…
This blog continues the Civic Federation’s examination of indicators that can be used to assess the financial health of local governments. The Federation is working on a project that compares the City of Chicago with a group of thirteen large U.S. cities that have also been the subject of analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia Research Initiative. Previous entries examined the City of Chicago’s fund balance ratio and continuing service ratio. This blog examines the operating…
This brief provides an updated compilation of selected consumer taxes, including rates and descriptions, in effect in the City of Chicago on February 2, 2012. It includes such taxes as the sales tax, gas tax, amusement tax, lease tax, hotel tax, liquor tax, restaurant tax, soft drink tax, wheel tax and parking tax.
The Civic Federation is working on a project to examine indicators that can be used to assess the financial health of local governments. Previously, this blog compared Chicago’s fund balance with a group of thirteen large U.S. cities that have also been the subject of analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia Research Initiative. This entry compares Chicago to the same group of cities for a different indicator: the continuing services ratio. While the fund balance ratio considers…
Data from the most recent audited financial statements of Illinois’ state and local government pension funds shows that the total unfunded liabilities for public employee pensions supported by the taxes of Chicago residents reached $14,896 per capita for fiscal year 2010. That is up from $10,037 per capita in FY2008. Property taxes paid by Chicago residents (both owners and renters) support the four pension funds for City of Chicago employees as well as the pension funds for employees of the…
Chicago residents will experience changes in a number of consumer taxes going into effect throughout 2012 as a result of policy changes at the City and County levels. The new consumer tax rates are presented in the exhibit below. Following the table are explanations for each of the consumer taxes and historical changes to their rates. Sales Taxes “Sales” taxes in Illinois are actually composed of two matching pairs of taxes: retailers’ occupation and use taxes and service occupation and…
