All about risk
Excerpt:
The City of Springfield is looking to make a payment to the city’s growing fire and police pension funds.
An ordinance states the city can put $589,323 towards that pension fund.
During the Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 9, Springfield City Council members were in favor of doing this, including Ward 7 Alderman Joe McMenamin.
Author(s): Tessa Bentulan
Publication Date: 10 February 2021
Publication Site: News Channel ABC 20
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Excerpt:
Illinoisans who thought new House Speaker Chris Welch might change the direction Illinois is headed in just got a dose of reality. Welch recently said he wants Illinois to have a second go at a progressive tax scheme, this time committing the tax hike proceeds to pensions. Illinoisans rejected Gov. Pritzker’s first attempt, he said, because they didn’t know where the tax hike dollars would go. “…folks don’t trust us,” Welch said.
Welch is right about the trust factor, but he’s wrong to think Illinoisans will suddenly approve a tax hike just because the legislature promises to funnel the new revenues to pensions. They know it’s unlikely politicians will keep their promise. And Illinoisans know the state’s unreformed pensions are a corrupted mess – that they’d be throwing good money after bad.
Author(s): Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Publication Date: 2 March 2021
Publication Site: Wirepoints
Excerpt:
Look at Illinois, of all places. Next week, Gov. J.B. Pritzker plans to introduce his budget for the next fiscal year. While the details are sketchy, his office estimates the state will need to close a $3 billion deficit, less than the $5.5 billion his office originally estimated. A stronger than expected economy is partly due the credit. While closing a $3 billion hole is not great news, we’ll take what we can get around here.
Yet, rather than take into account rosier economic pictures states like Illinois are projecting, Democrats in Washington are pressing for another big spending bill, even as they juggle the other big news of the week, the start of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. They insist an undersized response during the Great Recession slowed that recovery. But keep in mind during that far worse slump, President Barack Obama’s stimulus program had a price tag around $800 billion. Since the pandemic hit, by contrast, Congress has responded with $4 trillion in new outlays.
Does that sound like “too little?” More than $1 trillion of that sum has not even been spent yet, according to the Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget.
Author(s): Editorial board
Publication Date: 10 February 2021
Publication Site: Chicago Tribune
Excerpt:
New Democratic House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch suggested Wednesday that the state should again ask voters to approve a graduated-rate income tax, but this time target the new money toward paying down Illinois’ massive pension debt.
The call for a do-over came after voters in November overwhelmingly rejected Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s graduated income tax proposal. Opponents, including Republicans and business leaders, used distrust of Springfield to argue for keeping the state constitution’s flat tax requirement.
Author(s): DAN PETRELLA
Publication Date: 24 February 2021
Publication Site: Chicago Tribune
Excerpt:
“Over 50% of the claims that we receive in our office are fraudulent claims,” Eckstein said. Before the pandemic he said it was “Less than 1%.”
The bogus claims Eckstein sees are just a fraction of the fraud. The Illinois Department of Employment Security reported, between March 2020 and January 2021, it had stopped close to one million fraudulent claims.
Author(s): Dorothy Tucker and Carol Thompson
Date Accessed: 2 March 2021
Publication Site: CBS Chicago
Excerpt:
Home ownership rates in Chicago’s Black and Latino communities have been falling, according to information presented by Anthony Simpkins, president and CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago.
Citing research by the DePaul Institute for Housing, Simpkins said not only are banks lending less in Black and Latino neighborhoods, they are also filing more foreclosures.
And he said borrowers of color who are able to get a loan are often charged a higher interest rate; in 2019 he said Woodstock Institute found nearly 35% of African American mortgage borrowers in Chicago paid higher rates, 17% of Latino borrowers.
Author(s): Linda Lutton
Publication Date: 27 February 2021
Publication Site: WBEZ
Excerpt:
Protection from COVID-19 related lawsuits may be on the way for Illinois businesses through House Bill 3003.
Known as the COVID-19 Liability Act, the legislation was filed in the House of Representatives on Feb. 18. If passed, the bill would offer protection to businesses from people claiming they were infected at a business and therefore the business is liable for medical costs, pain and suffering or more.
Clark Kaericher, vice president of Government Affairs at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, says so far, there have been two crises proceeding from the coronavirus: a public health crisis and an economic crisis.
Author(s): Elyse Kelly
Publication Date: 27 February 2021
Publication Site: The Center Square
Excerpt:
Last month, Pritzker announced he would delay the implementation of economic incentives outlined in the so-called Blue Collar Jobs Act passed in 2019, and this week he announced he’d be seeking the closure of “corporate tax loopholes” in order to shore up the state’s budget.
The program offers up to $20 million in tax credits to construction outfits working on projects related to high impact businesses, enterprise zones, or river edge redevelopment zones.
Rep. Keith Wheeler (R-Oswego) said delaying the agreed-upon tax credits in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession will end up hurting the state’s economy in the long-term.
Author(s): Derek Cantu
Publication Date: 12 February 2021
Publication Site: NPR Illinois
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Excerpt:
It’s possible some majority-white ZIP codes have higher rates of vaccination in part because they have higher concentrations of people in groups prioritized for the first round of vaccines.
Experts said the findings reflect festering systemic problems, including poor health care access and distrust of vaccines, colliding amid a chaotic rollout that failed to ensure equal access to communities of color.
Author(s): Nada Hassanein, Grace Hauck, Jayme Fraser, Aleszu Bajak, USA TODAY
Publication Date: 15 February 2021
Publication Site: USA Today
Excerpt:
Illinois taxpayers pay more than $2.1 million a month to retired part-time state legislators or their surviving spouses from a fund that’s only 16% funded. The individual monthly payouts are as high as $18,000 per month. Some pensioners aren’t actually retired but still getting paid.
There are 425 people drawing off the General Assembly Retirement System, ranging from $122 a month to $18,000.
At 16% funded, state Rep. Mark Batinick, R-Plainfield, said GARS is the worst of the state’s five public sector pension funds.
Author(s): Greg Bishop
Publication Date: 14 February 2021
Publication Site: The Center Square
Excerpt:
If Pritzker and Welch are serious about winning trust, they’ll allow Illinoisans to vote on a standalone constitutional amendment repealing the so-called “pension protection clause.” To build public support and treat retirees fairly, such an amendment could be narrowly drawn to permit only reductions in future pension increases under the COLA mechanism.
Sure, public employee unions are likely to fight any change in pensions. But it’s worth trying to win their support. It can be done; Arizona unions backed a narrow amendment to a pension protection clause in that state’s constitution. If unions won’t cooperate, Pritzker and Welch should forge ahead anyway, as Rhode Island officials—led by Democrat Gina Raimondo—did in tackling a similar pension crisis.
Only after passing such an amendment and reducing the overall pension obligation can state officials justifiably ask taxpayers for money to close the remaining gap. Would a graduated income tax be the right way to raise the necessary revenue? Maybe. I’m not opposed to it on principle. The vast majority of states with an income tax charge higher rates on higher incomes. And the necessity of a constitutional amendment would give voters the final say.
Author(s): Joe Cahill
Publication Date: 25 February 2021
Publication Site: Crain’s Chicago Business
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Excerpt:
Pension costs are already eating away at Illinois government services. The ballooning costs caused a nearly one-third cut since 2000 in core services such as child protection, state police, mental health and college money for low-income students.
Pension contributions accounted for less than 4% of Illinois’ general funds budget from 1990 through 1997 but have grown to consume 28.5% of the budget. Still, the pension debt has mushroomed to $144.4 billion by the state’s estimates, which more realistically was at an all-time high of $261 billion at the end of fiscal year 2020 according to Moody’s Investors Service calculations using more realistic assumptions. In any case, public pension debt is eating a larger chunk of Illinois’ gross domestic product than anywhere else.
Author(s): Adam Schuster
Publication Date: 25 February 2021
Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute