Over the next few weeks, many Chicago-area local governments will be releasing their proposed budgets for fiscal year 2014. In preparation for the upcoming budget releases, this blog will recap the Civic Federation’s significant observations from our analyses of local governments’ proposed FY2013 budgets. The governments studied by the Civic Federation include: the City Colleges of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) which have already released their FY2014 budgets, City of Chicago, Cook…
Failure to address pension crisis, plan for upcoming revenue loss threatens to erase progress on State’s backlog of unpaid bills (CHICAGO) – An analysis released today by the Institute for Illinois’ Fiscal Sustainability at the Civic Federation warned that the FY2014 budget may represent a high-water mark with future years bringing sharp reductions in revenues and further consequences of the unresolved pension crisis. The legislature’s failure to address these critical issues threatens to erase…
This analysis of the State of Illinois’ Fiscal Year 2014 Enacted Budget finds that the budget may represent a high-water mark, with future years bringing sharp reductions in revenues and further consequences of the unresolved pension crisis. Although the State reduced the backlog of unpaid bills to $5.8 billion, that progress is threatened by legislative failure to prepare for extreme financial challenges on the immediate horizon. Pension costs in FY2014 total $7.65 billion, including annual…
The State of Illinois does not currently have a comprehensive policy on economic development incentives. Instead, the State offers a wide variety of financial incentives that reduce specific State or local tax burdens for businesses. This creates an uncertain tax environment for Illinois companies and leaves the State vulnerable to pressure from businesses located here and to competition from other states trying to entice firms to leave Illinois. During the fall 2011 veto session, this…
An effort to clear Illinois’ Medicaid program of ineligible enrollees has led to the removal of 128,700 participants, but State savings are expected to be far lower than hoped by lawmakers, according to testimony at a legislative hearing on September 17, 2013. The State has moved to cancel 75,707 Medicaid cases as of September 9, officials of the State’s main Medicaid agency said at the joint hearing of the Illinois General Assembly’s House Human Services Appropriations and Senate…
Last week the Civic Federation blog featured an analysis of long-term obligations for six selected municipalities in Illinois and their overlapping governments using a per capita indicator based on unfunded pension liabilities. This week’s blog uses the same per capita indicator to examine bonded debt for the same six municipalities and their overlapping governments. The overlapping pensions per capita and debt per capita figures are indicators that the Civic Federation has long calculated for…
Several recently enacted laws are designed to increase public access to information about the State of Illinois’ budget and improve other aspects of the State’s budget process. The following table lists budget-related legislation signed by Governor Pat Quinn since the end of the General Assembly’s spring session on May 31, 2013. Public Act 98-0461, signed on August 16, requires the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) to post detailed information about the State budget on its…
The blogs for this week and next week will examine the long-term obligations of six selected municipalities in Illinois and their overlapping local governments using per capita indicators based on unfunded pension liabilities and bonded debt. The overlapping pensions per capita and the debt per capita figures are indicators that the Civic Federation has long calculated for Chicago residents. These two posts expand these important indicators for residents of other municipalities. This aggregate…
In this segment, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall discusses the findings of the Federation’s FY2014 Chicago Public Schools Budget Analysis. The Civic Federation said relying on reserve funds to balance the budget is an unsustainable practice the District won’t be able to repeat next year, when it will face a $1 billion budget deficit absent pension reform.
This editorial discusses the need for pension reform for Chicago Public Schools and District officials’ failure to detail a pension plan. The editorial cites the Civic Federation’s FY2014 Chicago Public Schools Budget Analysis, which found the District will face a deficit of nearly $1 billion in each of the next two years.
