With governments in Illinois facing steep increases in yearly pension contributions, new plans are being floated to borrow billions of dollars to stabilize ailing pension funds and relieve budgetary pressures. The City of Chicago is considering issuing $10 billion in pension obligation bonds (POBs) to shore up its retirement systems. As part of a plan by the non-profit Center for Tax and Budget…
The City of Chicago released its 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) earlier this summer. This blog will examine the City’s Corporate Fund (i.e. General Fund) fund balance as a percent of general operating expenditures based on audited data from the City’s most recent CAFR. This ratio serves as a measure of whether a government is maintaining adequate levels of fund balance 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.…
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…
The Illinois Department of Revenue announced last week that the final equalization factor for the Cook County 2017 property assessment year (taxes payable in 2018) is 2.9627. The 2017 final equalization factor of 2.9627 is greater than the final 2016 equalization factor of 2.8032. This does not mean that individual property tax bills will go up or down. It means that, overall, the weighted…
Click here to read this issue brief. This annual brief provides a compilation of selected consumer taxes, including rates and descriptions, in place in the City of Chicago as of January 1, 2018. The taxes in this report are grouped under the following categories: sales taxes, tobacco-related taxes, beverage-related taxes, utility-related taxes, accommodations-related taxes,…
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner presented his annual budget address on February 14, 2018, outlining his budget proposal for the State fiscal year 2019. The 2019 fiscal year begins on July 1, 2018 and ends June 30, 2019. The Civic Federation will release a full analysis of the Governor’s proposal in the coming months. This blog will focus on two key elements of the Governor’s budget proposal that…
2018 Civic Federation Legislative Priorities The Civic Federation's legislative priorities for 2018 include public employee pension reforms, consolidation of local government units in Illinois, enacting policies to rationalize the property tax system, creation of a Local Government Protection Authority, requiring the State of Illinois to build a…
Click here to read the full report. The Civic Federation supports the proposed FY2018 City of Chicago budget of $8.6 billion because it continues to work toward stabilizing the City’s finances, puts its four pension funds on a path toward solvency and works to incorporate short-term capital expenses into the operating budget rather than funding them through borrowing. The budget also proposes…
After several iterations and much disagreement, the State of Illinois now has a new statewide school funding formula. The Illinois General Assembly approved the new formula as Senate Bill 1947, House Floor Amendment 5 on August 29, with the Illinois House passing the bill Monday, August 28 and the Senate concurring the next day. The Governor signed the bill into law as Public Act 100-0465 on…
