Tag: Illinois

PENSIONS SET TO CONSUME 29% OF ILLINOIS’ BUDGET AMID $7 BILLION DEBT INCREASE

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/pensions-set-to-consume-29-of-illinois-budget-amid-7-billion-debt-increase/

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Pension debt increased $7.1 billion to $144.4 billion in fiscal year 2020, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, or COGFA, the fiscal analysis unit for the General Assembly. The total cost of that debt burden to taxpayers in fiscal year 2022 will be nearly $11.6 billion, including:

$9.4 billion in direct contributions from general revenue sources

$1.1 billion in “other state funds”

$797.9 million in debt service costs on previously issued pension obligation bonds

$264.8 million towards the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund, or CTPF

Pensions will consume 28.5% of the budget. That is based on $38.5 billion in expected general revenue for fiscal year 2022, adding in that $1.1 billion from “other state funds” – which would go to critical programs were it not being used for pension debt.

Author(s): Adam Schuster

Publication Date: 17 December 2020

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute

Springfield will make extra payment to police, fire pension funds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://newschannel20.com/news/local/springfield-will-make-extra-payment-to-police-fire-pension-funds

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The City of Springfield is going to make an extra payment to their growing fire and police pension funds, but this is only going to make a small dent in the overall pension costs.

During the Springfield City Council meeting on Tuesday. Feb. 16, the aldermen voted in favor of making a $589,323 payment to the police and fire pension funds.

The reason they can make this move is because their corporate fund balance was over 20% after closing the books on Fiscal Year 2020 last August, but Springfield Mayor Jim Langfelder said this is small.

Author(s): Tessa Bentulan

Publication Date: 16 February 2021

Publication Site: News Channel ABC 20

The states’ 2020 financials are in: Biden’s billions in new federal aid aren’t needed – Wirepoints Special Report

Mary Pat Campbell
The states’ 2020 financials are in: Biden’s billions in new federal aid aren’t needed – Wirepoints Special Report

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States like Illinois, New York and California have long histories of financial negligence. California ran a budget deficit during seven of the last 16 years, according to a Wirepoints analysis of Pew Charitable Trust data. Connecticut has 10 years of deficits to its name. New York has 11. And Illinois and New Jersey have run budget deficits every year since at least 2004.

And then there’s the problem of pensions. States like Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey all have amassed hundreds of billions in pension debt – all self-inflicted by state lawmakers.

The pandemic had nothing to do with those past deficits and debts, but that’s exactly what more federal aid would end up paying for.

Author(s): Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Publication Date: 16 February 2021

Publication Site: Wirepoints

Editorial: Get tough, Gov. Pritzker, on AFSCME

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-fixing-illinois-chicago-budget-afscme-furlough-20210215-b6odtzttd5cjfkwu6vrde3e3be-story.html#new_tab

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Gov. J.B. Pritzker is scheduled to outline his budget plan on Wednesday for the fiscal year that starts July 1. It should include sacrifice from the nearly 40,000 state workers whose jobs have not been at risk like millions in the private sector and who got generous pay raises, funded by taxpayers, during the pandemic when Illinois’ unemployment soared to 16%. It is high time the state’s unionized workforce be part of the “shared sacrifice” our politicians so often expect of the private sector workforce.

….

While sectors of the state workforce have been extra busy due to COVID-19’s strain on unemployment benefits and health care systems, many state offices and agencies have been closed, services backlogged and workers learning to perform their jobs from home. Taking unpaid furlough days should not be a big “ask” compared with what the private sector has endured under Pritzker’s shutdown orders — restaurants, hotels, convention business, sports and marketing jobs — entire industries sidelined and in some cases, wiped out.

Other blue state governors confronted their unionized workforces months ago and showed leadership in doing so. Democratic governors in Wisconsin, California and New York cut public sector pay, instituted across-the-board spending cuts throughout state government, froze hiring and scheduled raises, and prepared for what would become a nearly yearslong economic slump due to COVID-19. They did it to protect all taxpayers.

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: Chicago Tribune

Chicago thinks Zocdoc can help solve its vaccine chaos

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/12/1018092/vaccine-signup-chicago-zocdoc-frustrating-as-tech-companies-step-in-deeper-inequalities-harder-to-fix/

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In early February, the Department of Public Health announced a plan to help ease some of those technical problems: a partnership with Zocdoc, the popular online health-care scheduling company. Zocdoc is acting as a unified portal for multiple providers, so that people can sign up with a single, more user-friendly tool rather than wrestle with several different systems at once. While Chicago is the first city to make this specific agreement with Zocdoc, other health agencies are launching similar partnerships with private startups.

Before the pandemic, Zocdoc acted as a one-stop shop where patients could check out different doctors, compare medical providers, and make appointments. The company’s CEO, Oliver Kharraz, says the years spent bridging a fragmented health-care system unknowingly prepared it for taking on covid-19 vaccination appointments. After the idea was tested with the Mount Sinai Health System in New York, Zocdoc says, Chicago reached out about a partnership—and the system was up and running within a few weeks. Zocdoc connects with 1,400 different scheduling systems: doctors’ workflows remain unchanged, but patients all see the same simple interface no matter which provider they’re using.

Author(s): Mia Sato

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: MIT Technology Review

Pritzker said the failure of his graduated-rate income tax would leave Illinois with two options. He’s eliminated both of them.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-jb-pritzker-illinois-budget-proposal-20210214-bjbay24vpvggfpg2urhbn4ojsy-story.html#new_tab

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Gov. J.B. Pritzker long warned that without his graduated-rate income tax, which voters rejected in November, Illinois would be left with only two options to address its chronic budget problems: raising income taxes or double digit across-the-board spending cuts.

But ahead of his budget address to lawmakers Wednesday, Pritzker outlined a state spending plan that would neither raise the income tax or alter the total budget outlay.

He did call for closing $900 million in unspecified “corporate tax loopholes,” which opponents are already labeling a tax hike on businesses in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

What remains to be seen is whether the governor will look to other avenues to increase revenue, although his options appear limited. He has opposed two of the leading options favored by some budget watchers: instituting a tax on retirement income and applying the sales tax to some services.

Author(s): DAN PETRELLA

Publication Date: 14 February 2021

Publication Site: Chicago Tribune

Illinois’ budget problems won’t be fixed without change in revenue structure

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.dailyherald.com/discuss/20210212/illinois-budget-problems-wont-be-fixed-without-change-in-revenue-structure#new_tab

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For starters, it left Illinois stuck with its long-standing, flat rate income tax. This outcome was something other than desirable, given the central role this flat rate income tax has played in driving Illinois’ incessant, and substantial, General Fund deficits.

How substantial? Current estimates are the General Fund deficit will reach $13 billion by the end of FY 2022 — which means Illinois won’t have the revenue needed to cover almost half of anticipated FY 2022 expenditures on services. That’s a real cause for concern, given over 95 percent of all General Fund spending on services goes to the four, core areas of education, health care, human services, and public safety.

Sure, a portion of this deficit will resolve itself once the revenue shortfalls caused by the pandemic end. That said, the crux of Illinois’ fiscal problems have nothing to do with COVID-19, and everything to do with structural flaws in the state’s tax policy — the flat rate income tax being key among them.

Author(s): Ralph Martire

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: Daily Herald

More people died on Illinois roads last year than since 2007. Is the pandemic to blame?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-illinois-more-traffic-deaths-pandemic-20210212-4ybopm6pvbelpeorspd3cxm7gy-htmlstory.html#new_tab

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Nearly 160 more people died on Illinois roads last year than in 2019, making 2020 the deadliest year for Illinois drivers in 13 years, a surge officials say may have been fed by drivers speeding on roads left open by motorists who stayed home because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

About 1,166 people died in motor vehicle crashes in Illinois in 2020, a nearly 16% increase over 2019, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. That’s a provisional number, said IDOT spokesperson Guy Tridgell, since it takes the state agency 12-18 months to finalize annual data.

Illinois traffic fatalities haven’t been that high since 2007, when 1,248 people died, according to recent and historic state data. Deaths include drivers, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.

Author(s): LESLIE BONILLA

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO HAD $41,100 IN DEBT PER TAXPAYER BEFORE COVID-19, SECOND TO NEW YORK

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-had-41100-in-debt-per-taxpayer-before-covid-19-second-to-new-york/

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A new report from government finance watchdog Truth in Accounting gave the Windy City an “F” for financial health. Chicago’s massive $36 billion net debt stems primarily from pensions.

Chicago city taxpayers were just hit with $94 million in property tax increases and $38 million in higher fines and fees, including a policy for speed cameras to ticket drivers for going just 6 mph over the speed limit, to help close the city’s budget deficit. City leaders placed much of the blame on COVID-19’s impact on government revenues, but a recent report from fiscal watchdog Truth in Accounting shows Chicago’s problems existed long before the pandemic.

Author(s): Justin Carlson

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute

Commentary: America’s Public Pension System Remains Mired in Crisis

Mary Pat Campbell
Commentary: America’s Public Pension System Remains Mired in Crisis

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The public pension system lost $1 trillion, a 21 percent loss for the fiscal year, following the COVID-19 lockdowns in March. In turn, these losses have added an overwhelming amount of stress on our public pension systems, as state and local pensions were already facing a $4.1 trillion shortfall. Public pension liabilities are on track to increase to $1.62 trillion this year, up from $1.35 trillion in 2019. These numbers are alarming as many governments now have less capacity to defer cost hikes or take mitigating actions because their non-asset cash flow has greatly declined.

Two of America’s most dire pension plan systems are in California and Illinois, two of the country’s largest states with large numbers of workers in defined contribution plans. In California, the economic effects of the virus are evident on the already strained public pension system. At the end of the first quarter, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, reported that their asset value had dropped 10.5 percent since June 2019 — a loss of $35 billion. Matters have only gotten worse in Illinois and could soon hit a level of catastrophe if aid does not come forth. Moody’s estimates that Illinois’ pension liability will rise from $230 billion in 2019 to $261 billion in 2020.

Author(s): Kevin O’Connor

Publication Date: 28 January 2021

Publication Site: Institute for Pension Fund Integrity

State Rep. Elik Keeps Promise By Rejecting The Lawmaker Pension

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.riverbender.com/articles/details/state-rep-elik-keeps-promise-by-rejecting-the-lawmaker-pension-47705.cfm

Excerpt:

State Representative Amy Elik (R-Fosterburg) kept her promise to Metro East taxpayers by rejecting the lawmaker pension. The pension benefit is available to all lawmakers serving in the part-time legislature.

“I refused the taxpayer-funded pension because the state can’t afford to offer this lavish benefit to lawmakers anymore,” said Rep. Elik. “The pension offered to lawmakers is swimming in debt with over $314 million in unfunded liabilities. By rejecting the pension, I am reducing the debt forced onto Illinois taxpayers.”

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: Riverbender

FIX OR SELL? ILLINOIS’ HIGH PROPERTY TAXES MAKE EITHER TOUGH

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/fix-or-sell-illinois-high-property-taxes-make-either-tough/

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Illinois has 859 school districts and 25% of them serve just one school. Florida, which serves over 700,000 more students than Illinois, has 75 districts. Florida averages 38,000 students per district.

In addition to Illinois being home to the second-highest property taxes in the country, one of the most painful facts about owning a home here is that tax dollars don’t go to the services people expect and value.

Author(s): Hilary Gowins

Publication Date: 11 February 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute