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Chicago Tribune: Emanuel's property tax rebates? Costly gimmick. Thanks, but no thanks.
In search of political cover (and not finding a lot of it these days), Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago City Council are patching together a plan to cushion the blow of a massive property tax increase.
Chicagoans are confronting their second-installment property tax bills. Prepare for sticker shock. Maybe each envelope should include a shot of bourbon.
The average homeowner’s property tax bill is jumping by roughly 13 percent, though there can be wide swings in either direction. A homeowner whose property has a market value of $225,000 will see his or her bill increase by more than $400. Ouch. In areas of the city where property values have climbed steeply — Gold Coast, South Loop, Streeterville — some property owners could get socked with an additional $5,000 in taxes. Ouch and ouch.
Chicago Tribune: Business owners cope as Chicago's minimum wage creeps higher
Aly Udartseva braced for the worst when Chicago announced in 2014 that it would gradually raise its minimum wage to $13 an hour.
She and a partner had recently opened Bru Chicago, a cafe in Wicker Park, and she worried that even the first phase of the increase would force them out of business, given their slim margins.
A year later, Bru remains, having survived the first jump to $10, from $8.25 last July.
But Udartseva’s anxiety about rising labor costs remains as well.
News-Gazette: The budget that isn't
When pigs fly, as the old saying goes, it’s unfair to grade them on the technical proficiency of their landings and takeoffs. If they can just get off the ground, it’s enough.
So perhaps it’s unfair to judge the temporary budget deal overseen last week by Gov. Bruce Rauner and members of the General Assembly by the traditional standards. The bipartisan agreement represents failure, to be sure. But since it’s not complete, total, irredeemable failure, it’s being touted as a victory, one Gov. Rauner touted as a “bridge to reform.”
If the temporary budget really represents a bridge, it’s a rickety monstrosity that couldn’t pass a safety inspection. But that’s where Illinois is these days, a borderline failed state whose leading officials can’t agree on what to do next except tout their credentials for re-election in November.
Pantagraph: Stopgap budget only half a solution
The good news, if that’s want you want to call it, is Illinois has a state budget through December and spending on education is set for the fiscal year that began Friday.
That means schools will open in the fall and the state will continue operating through the calendar year.
However, that’s putting the best possible spin on a bad situation.
The two sides did reach a compromise on education funding. Schools will get an additional $250 million based on their number of low-income students, with a good chunk of that money going to the Chicago Public schools.
Fox Illinois: Local Group Wants Large Fireworks To Be Legal In Illinois
Most fireworks are illegal in the state of Illinois which causes several residents will drive across the state border to pay for the illegal goods.
Now one group is saying the firework ban is costing the state money.
The Illinois Policy Institute says they’re discouraged because so many Illinois residents are taking their money to surrounding states to buy fireworks.
They say the state of Indiana is gaining $2.5 million in taxes every year after lifting their firework ban and putting a 5-percent tax on sales in 2006.
Sun-Times: Tab for Chicago police reform: $1.4 million and counting
A federal civil rights probe of the Chicago Police Department has already cost the city $1.4 million, city law department records indicate.
The seven-figure tally covers just the first four months of a “pattern-and-practice” investigation of the CPD launched by the U.S. Department of Justice in December, and it’s likely just a taste of the high price of reforming a police department plagued by problems decades in the making.
The Southern: Sales tax and the courage of their convictions
Downtown Carbondale has a shiny new master plan — a blueprint forged through dozens of meetings with input from stakeholders throughout the area.
Taking that plan from the drawing board, through various stages of implementation, and turning it into a reality is going to cost money. The City Council realizes this, and desperately wanting a revitalized downtown, they’ve decided that a 4 percent food and beverage tax is the best way to put their money where their mouths are — literally.
Whether or not the tax will raise more money is not in question; it cannot fail. And although there is an inherent public relations issue involved with leading the nation in overall sales tax on food and beverages, the City of Carbondale coffers will prosper when the new tax takes effect in four weeks.
BND: Prisoner of an uncertain budget future
Each layer peeled away from this over-ripe, festering onion known as the Illinois budget crisis reveals more cascading consequences to be paid by more unintended victims.
Take, for example, the entire City of Chester (and every other Illinois town that is home to a state penitentiary).
Through May, the state was $1.36 million into arrears to the city on unpaid water and sewer bills at Menard Correctional Center. It left Mayor Tom Page and his constituents over a barrel and on the verge of some tough choices.
Certainly, the water department would be justified in shutting the utilities off, as it would any other customer who fell 12 months delinquent. But what does that solve if it means the prison has to close, thus putting 1,300 local Menard employees out of work and without a pay check to spend in Chester businesses?
AP: Edgar part of firm built to profit off budget stalemate
Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar has been critical of fellow Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner over the state’s ongoing budget stalemate. But Edgar is also a partner in a business that is trying to make money off the crisis.
Edgar is a partner and chairman of the board of Illinois Financing Partners. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the company advances money to vendors that aren’t being paid by the state. In exchange, it will keep late fees the state owes those vendors.
Edgar said the company and five others in the same business are performing a service made necessary by the crisis.
“Because we’re in the financial mess we’re in now, you need something like this to protect the vendors,” he said.