The Civic Federation conducts an analysis of the Chicago Transit Authority’s annual proposed budget each year. This analysis includes two measures used to assess CTA’s productivity over time: labor cost per actual unlinked passenger trip and operating expense per passenger mile.[1] The data used to calculate the productivity measures are obtained from the annual budget documents. As discussed in previous years, the labor cost per unlinked passenger trip is a metric in which a lower dollar…
(CHICAGO) In a report released today, the Civic Federation announced support for Cook County’s proposed FY2019 budget. The $5.9 billion budget proposal is structurally balanced without raising new taxes and continues the practice of making supplemental pension payments. The full report is available here. “Overall, this budget is a prudent plan for the coming year—but it fails to set its sights much further,” said Civic Federation President Laurence Msall. “While there are many positive aspects…
Click here to read the full report. The Civic Federation supports Cook County’s proposed FY2019 budget of $5.9 billion because it is structurally balanced without raising new taxes and continues the practice of making supplemental pension payments. The Federation is encouraged by the County’s strong level of fund balance reserves and its commitment to performance-based budgeting and mid-year preliminary forecast hearings. The Federation further applauds the County’s continued…
The Illinois Estate tax is levied on net assets over $4 million of the estates of the deceased. Illinois does not have an inheritance tax, which is levied on assets received by the inheritors of an estate. Estate tax revenue is forecast to be $293 million in FY2019, of which 6% will go to the Estate Tax Refund Fund for overpayments. The remaining $275 million will go to General Funds, and represent about 0.7% of total General Funds Revenues. The following chart shows the history of estate tax…
Consumers of liquid nicotine in the City of Chicago will now pay more for liquid nicotine following the passage of Ordinance 2018-7371. Liquid nicotine products are used in e-cigarettes, also referred to as vaping. On September 20, 2018 Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced Ordinance 2018-7371 to the City Council Finance Committee where it was passed by the Committee and within hours sent to and approved by the City Council. The ordinance increases the City of Chicago tax on liquid nicotine to…
The Chicago City Council on July 25, 2018 approved a 2.0% surcharge on shared housing and vacation rentals in the City of Chicago. The 2.0% surcharge is in addition to an existing 4.0% surcharge on vacation rentals or shared housing units, bringing the total taxes specific to home sharing to 6.0%. The home sharing rates are applied on top of the City of Chicago’s composite hotel tax, which is 17.4%. This means that home sharing will now be charged a total tax rate of approximately 23.4%. The…
Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office released the 2017 Cook County Tax Rates report on June 20, 2018 and shortly after, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas mailed the second installment of the 2017 tax bills. The calculation of the tax rates for the 1,400 taxing agencies in Cook County is the final step before property tax bills can be issued. The second installment of the 2017 property tax bills are due August 1, 2018. How are tax rates calculated? According to the Cook County Clerk’s…
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner presented his FY2019 State budget proposal in February for the State fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2018. As discussed in an earlier blog post, the proposal included measures that would have affected local governments including municipalities, counties and transit agencies. The State of Illinois FY2019 enacted budget was passed by the Illinois General Assembly on May 31 and signed by Governor Rauner on June 4. This blog post provides an update on two of the…
This article discusses the findings of the Civic Federation’s Estimated Full Value of Real Property in Cook County: 2007-2016. In 2016, the last year for which data is available, the estimated full value of property in Cook County continued to increase, hitting $528.8 billion. However, that number is still below the pre-recession peak. Civic Federation President Laurence Msall said that though Cook County has not fully rebounded from the recession, it is making progress.
This article discusses Civic Federation recommendations from the FY2019 State of Illinois Budget Roadmap to expand the Illinois income tax to include federally-taxable retirement income and broaden the sales tax base to a number of services. The article points out that neighboring states also tax retirement income and services. Civic Federation President Laurence Msall said that tax increases should not be taken lightly and must come within the framework of a comprehensive budget with spending…
