UPDATE: The Civic Federation commends Governor Pat Quinn for signing Senate Bill 3538, a bill reforming police and fire pensions in Illinois, on Thursday, December 30 as Public Act 096-1495. To read Governor Quinn’s press release, please click here. Click here to read an article from the Chicago Tribune about Governor Quinn’s signing of the bill. This editorial in the Sun-Times echoes the Civic Federation’s position that while the reforms in SB 3538 are a good first step, more must be done to…
The City of Chicago contributed $423.9 million to its Municipal, Laborers, Police, and Fire pension funds in fiscal year 2009, an amount equivalent to 13.4% of payroll. If it were following a fiscally reasonable pension funding policy it would have contributed at least 31.2% of payroll—an additional $566.5 million. Over the last ten years the cumulative difference between what was actually contributed and what should have been contributed to the four City pension funds is $2.4 billion. This…
The Civic Federation's legislative priorities for 2011 include public pension reform, requiring state government to develop and implement a capital improvement plan, the dissolving of the Illinois International Port District, creating a new governing board for the Cook County Forest Preserve District, reinstating means-tested transit discounts for seniors, requiring large counties to hold budget hearings and produce timely annual audits, enacting tax increment financing reporting reform,…
Last week the Civic Federation described the City of Chicago’s structural deficit in our budget analysis and a blog post. One of the primary sources of funding that has allowed the City to finance this deficit has been revenues from the long-term leases of the Skyway and the metered parking system to private operators. The Civic Federation generally opposes using the one-time funding received from these public-private partnerships for operating expenses. The City of Chicago now finds…
Today the Civic Federation released its analysis of the City of Chicago’s proposed FY2011 budget of nearly $6.2 billion. The Federation has a number of serious concerns about the City’s budget proposal, which forecasts a $654.8 million deficit. A detailed listing of those reservations can be found on page 7 of the analysis. Chief among those concerns is the City’s continued structural deficit, which is a condition characterized by annual expenditure increases that consistently outpace recurring…
The Civic Federation opposes the proposed FY2011 City of Chicago budget of nearly $6.2 billion because it does not effectively address the structural deficit and relies too heavily on asset lease reserve funds and debt restructuring to close the $654.8 million budget deficit. The proposed budget would defer costs and postpone changes needed to align current year expenditures with recurring revenues. Click here to read the press release for this analysis.
The Civic Federation often voices concerns when governments use one-time or nonrecurring revenue sources for ongoing expenses. There are a number of reasons this can be problematic. By definition such revenue sources will not be available in the future so if the government utilizes nonrecurring revenues for operations, they are ensuring future fiscal challenges. The practice allows governments to run structural deficits and postpone making inevitable difficult choices. There are…
This report compares effective property tax rates in selected communities around metropolitan Chicago and finds that while all communities’ effective tax rates increased in 2008, rates have mostly declined since 1999. The report also finds that Chicago’s effective tax rates are still regionally competitive and the lowest of any of the selected Cook County municipalities. Read the press release for this report here.
A tax increment financing (TIF) transparency bill (Public Act 096-1335) passed by the Illinois legislature in May and signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn on July 27 includes a number of long-standing Civic Federation recommendations detailed in the Federation’s 2007 TIF report: Each TIF will require a 10-year status report. The county or municipality that created the TIF would be required to publish a status report that includes detailed financial data. Public hearings on 10-year…
The sales tax rate on general merchandise in Cook County declines by 0.5 percentage point on July 1, 2010. This rolls back half of the 1.0 percentage point increase imposed by the Cook County Board of Commissioners effective July 1, 2008. For two years Chicago has had the highest sales tax of any major city in the United States. The partial roll back of the Cook County sales tax increase will bring Chicago back down from 10.25% to 9.75%, on par with Los Angeles. The Illinois…
