The Civic Federation opposes the Cook County FY2008 proposed budget. The $3.2 billion budget includes a 267% increase in the county sales tax, the addition of 1,130 new positions, and other tax hikes that could generate as much as $979.8 million when fully implemented in FY2009. The Federation’s analysis includes recommendations that would both contain costs and provide much-needed improvements to the county’s management of tax dollars.
This brief provides an updated compilation of selected consumer taxes, including rates and descriptions, that will be in effect in the City of Chicago on July 1, 2008. It includes such taxes as the sales tax, gas tax, amusement tax, lease tax, liquor tax, restaurant tax, soft drink tax, wheel tax, and parking tax.
This report provides estimates of the total market value of real property in Cook County from 1996-2005 and shows how property value is spread among the City of Chicago, the northern and the southern suburbs. From 1996-2005, the value of Cook County real estate more than doubled, from $261 billion to $584 billion.
This report compares property tax rates in selected communities around metropolitan Chicago, and finds that effective rates for commercial property in Chicago declined by nearly 50 percent between tax years 1999 and 2005.
This comprehensive property tax study examines the effects of the "7% cap" (expanded homeowner exemption) on property tax throughout Cook County from 2002-2005, and projected 2006-2008. The report breaks out more categories of property and more specific municipalities and Chicago neighborhoods than previous reports. It finds that eliminating the exemption would create a median property tax increase of 43.6% over the previous year for Chicago homeowners in tax year 2006, 25.8% for north…
This report provides a trend analysis of indicators that measure the financial health and performance of ten major local government pension funds from 1997 to 2005. It finds a combined 16.5 billion dollars in unfunded liabilities for the ten funds, and makes numerous recommendations on legislative actions that should be taken to slow the downward spiral of pension underfunding.
The Civic Federation's legislative priorities for 2007 include public pension reform, property tax exemptions and assessment reform, revision of the Regional Transportation Authority Act, tax increment financing disclosure, timely county audits, and other post employment benefit trust fund authorization.
The Civic Federation offers qualified support for Cook County’s FY2007 Budget based on the County’s plan to meet its 502 million dollar budget deficit with substantial spending cuts rather than tax increases. The Civic Federation opposes, however, the County’s plan to borrow 104 million dollars to make its FY2007 pension contribution, and calls upon the County to implement an effective performance measurement system in order to improve the County’s budgeting process.
Based on data from its new, comprehensive analysis of the "7 percent cap", the Civic Federation maintains its support for extending the property tax exemption through tax years 2006-2008 at its current maximum exemption level of twenty thousand dollars in taxable value. The Federation cautions, however, that it is a stop-gap measure and not a substitute for comprehensive property tax reform.
This report examines trends in expenditures, revenues, fund balance, personnel, and long-term debt for 1099 local governments in Cook, Lake, DuPage, Kane, McHenry, and Will counties. It includes aggregate data on counties, forest preserve districts, townships, municipalities, school districts, park districts, and special purpose districts. The study found that local government expenditures per capita grew at a rate almost double that of revenue from FY2000-FY2003.
