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…
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.…
Last week the City of Chicago released its Annual Financial Analysis for 2013. According to an executive order issued by Mayor Emanuel on May 20, 2011, the Office of Budget and Management is mandated to produce a financial analysis of the City budget by July 31st of each year. The report includes year-end estimates for the current fiscal year (which ends on December 31) and revenue and…
The following opinion piece by Civic Federation President Laurence Msall was published by Crain's Chicago Business on July 23, 2013. Long-term financial pressures on the state of Illinois and our local governments are continuing to grow at an unsustainable rate as lawmakers struggle to reach consensus on pension reform. So far this struggle has resulted in little more than public sparring among…
As described last week in the Civic Federation’s blog, the Chicago City Council recently approved an ordinance changing the City’s tiered parking tax rates to percentage-based rates of 18% on weekends and 20% on weekdays effective July 1, 2013. Yesterday, the Cook County Board of Commissioners approved similar changes to their parking tax ordinance. Effective September 1, 2013, the County’s…
On March 8, 2013, Governor Quinn signed HB5547, which gave home-rule municipalities and counties with populations over 2,000,000 (essentially Chicago and Cook County) the ability to tax parking garages by percentage rather than by a flat tax. Soon after, Chicago’s City Council approved changes to the City’s parking garage tax system accordingly. Cook County is in the process of making…
As noted in last week’s blog post, two City of Chicago tax increment financing (TIF) districts will be extended for another 12 years if Governor Quinn signs Senate Bill 20, a large economic development bill, into law. The two TIF districts, the Michigan/Cermak TIF and the Midwest TIF, are located on the near south side and west side of Chicago. This blog will focus on the two districts. For more…
In the latest session of the General Assembly, the Illinois legislature approved extensions of two Chicago-area tax increment financing (TIF) districts. This blog explains what happens when TIF districts are set to expire and what local governments gain and lose from expirations and extensions. Next week, the Civic Federation blog will explore the specifics of the approved legislation. TIF…
The following opinion piece by Civic Federation President Laurence Msall was published by Crain's Chicago Business on May 30, 2013. Wrapped around the recent Memorial Day weekend were some of the most important meetings of Chicago's City Council Finance Committee in recent years. For two days, committee members heard from Mayor Rahm Emanuel's financial team on their efforts to sweeten the bitter…
This week the Civic Federation released its annual Status of Local Pension Funding report. The purpose of this report is to compile and analyze basic financial data of the retirement funds for the City of Chicago (four separate funds – Municipal, Laborers’, Police and Fire), Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Schools (Teachers’ Fund), Cook County, Forest Preserve District of Cook County,…
