Report applauds level of public input in planning, warns of declining pension health In a report released today, the Civic Federation supports the $187.4 million budget proposed by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. The balanced budget holds the property tax levy relatively flat and minimizes the use of one-time resources. The Federation also commends the District for increasing the…
Some recent progress has been made when it comes to reducing the number of local governments in Illinois. The State of Illinois has 6,963 local governments. To provide context to this issue, the table below displays the type and number of local governments in Illinois compared to other select midwestern states. Of the 6,963 local governments in Illinois, county governments make up 102, or 1.5% of…
Unincorporated areas lie outside municipal boundaries. The residents and businesses located in these areas are usually provided municipal services such as police protection and building code enforcement by county government or special districts. Because unincorporated areas may be scattered throughout a county’s territory, the provision of these services by counties has been inefficient and…
This article details a decade of leases, deals and debts related to Millennium Park—a park originally envisioned as a $150 million open green space that would be no cost to taxpayers. The Civic Federation said the lack of financial oversight and responsible budgeting during development cost the City of Chicago much more than projected, and likely more than was necessary to build the park.
Cook County is a home rule government with three primary responsibilities: collecting tax and fee revenue, protecting public health through the administration of a public health and hospital system and ensuring public safety and justice through the operation of a jail and court system. The main divisions of the public safety system in Cook County include the Chief Judge, Clerk of the…
The consolidation and dissolution of local units of government has been the subject of much discussion recently in Illinois. The purpose of this blog post is to briefly summarize a recent report released by the Illinois Local Government Consolidation Commission and other relevant legislation aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government operations by streamlining the…
The Civic Federation joined with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on April 23, 2014 to co-host a conference on ways that municipalities in Illinois can avoid or resolve fiscal stress. Experts, practitioners and academics from around the country gathered to discuss Chicago’s fiscal future and how different state intervention and revenue policies around the country have impacted local…
A recent report by the Illinois Supreme Court raises significant concerns about Cook County’s pretrial services. The Cook County Pretrial Services Department (PSD) was established in 1990 to address a host of concerns, not the least of which was overcrowding. While inmate crowding at the Cook County Jail first garnered major media and legislative attention in the 1960s and 1970s and culminated…
In 2013 President Preckwinkle formed a blue-ribbon commission of local leaders to develop the Next Century Conservation Plan to help provide vision and guidance to the Forest Preserve District of Cook County (FPDCC) for the next 25 years. In January 2014, the commission presented the plan to President Preckwinkle and shortly after it was accepted by the Cook County Forest Preserve District…
Last week the Civic Federation marked the end of the FY2014 budget season with a blog that summarized the proposed budgets for the eight local governments the Federation monitors. These governments include the City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the City of Chicago, Cook County, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the…
