In June this blog described the property tax exemptions available to seniors in Illinois and explored the trends in the amount of property value they exempted from taxes over the past decade. This week, we look at the same trends for other property tax exemptions available to other categories of homeowners. Article IX, Section 6 of the Illinois Constitution permits the General Assembly to grant…
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…
Since July 2013 each of the six local governments monitored by the Civic Federation with General Obligation bond debt has experienced downgrades to their bond ratings. These governments are the City of Chicago, Cook County, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the Chicago Park District and Chicago Public Schools. In the past three months…
Managed competition is a form of alternative service delivery or public-private partnership (P3) that requires in-house service units of a government to compete with external providers under a controlled or managed process. It involves comparing the costs and benefits of contracting out public services versus the costs and benefits of those same services being provided by public employees. This…
Managed competition is a form of alternative service delivery that requires in-house service units of a government to compete with external providers under a controlled or managed process. The purpose of this issue brief is to describe managed competition, provide a short history of its use and results, identify managed competition best practices and review the forms of managed competition being…
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.…
UPDATE: On August 23, 2013, the preliminary FY2014 budget of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System was unanimously approved by the Health System's Board of Directors. The Cook County Board is expected to vote on the plan in October. The Health System's preliminary budget will then be included in the County Board President's overall budget proposal for FY2014. Original blog published on…
On June 27, 2013, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle released a report on preliminary budget estimates for fiscal year 2014, which begins on December 1, 2013 and ends November 30, 2014. The report provides an overview of mid-year FY2013 revenues and expenditures, expected year-end estimates for FY2013 and projected revenues and expenditures for FY2014. The Civic Federation previously…
As explained in a previous Civic Federation blog, in Cook County’s FY2014 Preliminary Budget Estimates report, released on June 27, 2013, the County projects an initial budget deficit of $152.1 million for FY2014. The deficit primarily reflects increased personnel and employee health benefit costs, increased supply and vendor costs in the Cook County Health and Hospitals System, and reduced…
