Among the many challenges facing City of Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel when he takes office May 16 is the precarious state of the City’s finances. The City has a large and increasing direct debt load that could be a major indicator of financial risk. Long-term debt consists of tax-supported debt issues such as general obligation bonds and notes as well as bond premium and issuance costs. Long-…
In this news segment about the City of Chicago's budget troubles, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall explains that the City must make tough choices to create a sustainable budget. Mr. Msall was a guest on WBBM's "At Issue" weekend news program.
The Pew Center on the States recently released its report card on the health of state pension systems. Just as they were last year, the funding status of Illinois’ pension systems is the worst in the nation, with the State only funding 51% of its liabilities through FY2009. States in marginally better shape include West Virginia with 56% funding and Oklahoma at 57%. Illinois has its work cut out…
Governor Pat Quinn’s recommended FY2012 budget for the State of Illinois proposes that General Funds appropriations for the State Employees’ Group Insurance Program more than double to $1.4 billion from $695.8 million in FY2011.[1] This proposal, which reflects significant underfunding of the program in FY2011, has drawn more attention to how much the State pays for employee and retiree…
This article is about the City of Chicago's plan to replenish $50 million into its reserve fund due to slightly better-than-projected tax receipts. The Civic Federation says that despite the modestly good news, the City must still fill a $500 million budget gap for next year and cope with its pension shortfalls.
Although the State of Illinois' FY2011 tax amnesty program brought in more than $700 million of delinquent tax payments owed by taxpayers and business, only $12 million of that revenue can be considered new funds. As previously discussed on this blog, the tax amnesty program approved by the Governor and General Assembly allowed payment of personal income tax, corporate income tax and sales tax…
The three largest municipal governments analyzed by the Civic Federation are the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the City of Chicago and Cook County. All three began their FY2011 budget processes projecting large budget shortfalls: CPS projected a gap of $370 million, the City of Chicago projected a gap of $655 million and Cook County projected a gap of $487 million.[1] These budget…
General Funds represent the largest component of the State of Illinois budget and are mainly used to support the regular operating and administrative expenses of state agencies through annual appropriations by the General Assembly.[1] General Funds are also diverted to Other State Funds to make debt service payments on bonds and for a wide range of other legislatively required transfers—from…
The Civic Federation analyzes the budgets of nine Chicago area local governments. One important indicator that the Federation utilizes to assess the financial health of these municipalities is their fund balance level. In particular, we examine the balance within the general fund that does not have any external legal restriction, called the unrestricted fund balance. Fund balance differs from net…
In this interview, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall and Chicago 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack discuss Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s proposal to reduce the size of the Chicago City Council. Mr. Msall says that the City’s enormous fiscal troubles require drastic moves to improve delivery of City services.
