This article discusses recommendations from the Civic Federation’s analysis of City Colleges of Chicago’s FY2018 budget proposal. As mentioned in the analysis, the Federation supports the FY2018 budget proposal and City Colleges’ plans to rebuild reserves but advocates for the District to explore indexing its tuition and fees and possibly tying them to an annual escalator. Click here for additional coverage of this topic on WTTW.
After two years with no complete budget except for public school funding, Illinois now faces the prospect of beginning the 2017-18 school year with a budget for everything except schools. On August 1 Governor Rauner issued an amendatory veto of the school funding bill, SB1, passed by the General Assembly on May 31. Because the appropriations bill enacted in July over the Governor’s veto required that primary and secondary education funding be allocated with an evidence-based formula, the…
Proposal aims to reverse damage done by two-year state budget impasse (CHICAGO) In an analysis released today, the Civic Federation announced its support of the City Colleges of Chicago’s proposed FY2018 operating budget. The $442.6-million budget is a prudent plan to begin to stabilize the District’s finances following an unprecedented two-year State of Illinois budget impasse that severely impacted institutions of higher learning. The District does not plan to increase tuition rates…
Click here to read the full report. The Civic Federation supports the City Colleges of Chicago’s proposed FY2018 operating budget. The $442.6 million budget is a prudent plan to begin to stabilize the District’s finances following an unprecedented two-year State of Illinois budget impasse that severely impacted institutions of higher learning. As mentioned in the full report, the District is not planning to increase tuition rates or its property tax levy in FY2018 to address the costs of…
This article examines the $850 million in interest costs that the Chicago Public Schools will have to pay on a recent $500 million loan. Civic Federation President Laurence Msall explains that the plan is an expensive way of operating and notes that the District desperately needs a long-term financial strategy in order to establish options other than such expensive borrowing.
In this segment, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall discusses key aspects of the State of Illinois’ FY2018 budget and the challenges the State still faces. He says the most important aspect of Illinois having a budget is that it puts parameters on the obligations the State will in incur in the coming fiscal year.
Higher education was one of the areas hit hardest by the State of Illinois’ two-year budget impasse. This blog post examines how higher education fares under the budget enacted earlier this month by the General Assembly’s override of Governor Bruce Rauner’s vetoes. The new budget has appropriations for fiscal year 2018, which began on July 1, and additional appropriations for the previous fiscal year. With the new spending authority, the State’s average annual funding for higher education from…
On July 1, 2017, both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly voted to override the Governor’s veto of House Bill 1811, which included a measure authorizing the City of Chicago to increase its emergency communications surcharge to $5.00 per month for phone service contracts. The current surcharge is $3.90 per month per phone service contract. If the City Council approves the emergency communications surcharge increase, Mayor Rahm Emanuel reportedly would use the revenue to fund improvements…
The State of Illinois ended its two-year budget impasse on July 6, 2017, enacting a $36.1 billion spending plan with about $5 billion in tax increases. To break the logjam, the General Assembly narrowly overrode Governor Bruce Rauner’s…
In the following news pieces, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall discusses details of the State of Illinois’ FY2018 budget plan and the impact the budget will have on the State’s finances. He says that the enactment of the State’s FY2018 budget is a great step in the right direction but will not fully end Illinois’ long-term financial crisis. ----- The Wall Street Journal: Illinois Budget Deal Would Leave Many Problems Unaddressed Bloomberg: Illinois House Overrides Rauner’s Veto to…
