As part of his 2018 budget proposal, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will propose major changes in the city amusement tax that will newly exempt midsize entertainment venues such as Thalia Hall and Metro from the levy while raising the bills of big commercial presenters like Broadway in Chicago and thus, indirectly at least, add to the cost of tickets to high-grossing shows like “Hamilton.”

Currently, a 5 percent tax is applied to any live cultural performance in any for-profit venue with a capacity greater than 750 seats. (Nonprofit institutions such as the Goodman Theatre or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are exempt, and will remain so, even if they are partnering with for-profit producing entities.)

Cook County commissioners are back to the drawing board as they try to figure out how to fill a 2018 budget gap of more than $200 million after the sweetened beverage tax was repealed on Wednesday.

Commissioners and Board President President Toni Preckwinkle have until Nov. 30 to piece together budget cuts or find new revenue to bridge the massive shortfall, with the county’s new fiscal year starting Dec. 1 — the same day the beverage tax goes out of effect.

How much is too much?

It’s not always obvious when our elected officials cross the line that separates public dismay from public outrage.

It seems to be clear only in the aftermath, like the passage of the infamous 1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks that members of the Cook County Board approved earlier this year. It added nearly $3 to the price of a 24-can case of 12-ounce Cokes.

A day after the Cook County Board voted to repeal its controversial penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened drinks, a lawsuit against 7-Eleven for allegedly misapplying the charge has been settled, a court record shows.

Chicago resident Kelly Tarrant sued 7-Eleven in August in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging that the convenience store chain charged her a 28-cent tax on a 99-cent unsweetened coffee in a Super Big Gulp cup.

If Mayor Rahm Emanuel can offer a lucrative incentive package to lure Amazon’s second North American headquarters, he can afford to do far more for the financially strapped Chicago Public Schools, parents and community groups said Thursday.

The Chicago Teachers Union has repeatedly demanded that Emanuel dig even deeper into the city’s tax-increment-financing funds — even after using a record $87.5 million TIF surplus to stave off another teachers strike.

Well-run organizations keep track of their work. If a project runs late by weeks or months, managers ask questions, problem-solve and demand results. Suppose that assignment involves a new state law with potentially life-or-death consequences for babies. How long before officials get impatient with delays and sound the alarm? Six days? Six weeks? Six long months?

At the Illinois Department of Public Health, the confounding answer is seven years. The agency is seven years late creating a mandated program to test newborns for Krabbe disease (pronounced crab-AY), a rare genetic condition that is fatal if not detected and treated early in life. Krabbe is a diabolical affliction that doesn’t present itself at birth. The baby, apparently healthy, starts to deteriorate months later, by which time treatment no longer works. That’s why testing newborns is crucial.

Former Legislative Inspector General Faisal Khan is once again stirring up trouble for a City Council that tied his hands and forced him out — this time by shining more light on new zoning rules imposed on the owner of a building that once housed the now-shuttered Double Door music venue in Wicker Park.

The City Council voted Wednesday to down-zone the property at 1572 N. Milwaukee — in a way not nearly as drastic as an earlier proposal — at the behest of local Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1st).

Although McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks has touted majority support of his resolution to kill pensions for all countywide elected officials, some board members shared disapproval of the movement at a meeting Thursday.

McHenry County Board member Donna Kurtz called Franks’ resolution to kill pensions nothing more than “politicizing.”

The executive director of the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund is questioning the legality of a McHenry County proposal to eliminate pension eligibility for countywide elected officials.

Introduced last month by County Board Chairman Jack Franks, the measure would attempt to remove eight elected positions from the state pension program, effective at the end of their current terms. It would not affect any IMRF credit already accrued by officeholders.

A judge has ordered Algonquin Township Highway Commissioner Andrew Gasser to rehire three employees he fired on his first day on the job with back pay and interest.

Administrative law judge Deena Sanceda ordered the employees be rehired because Gasser and his $375-a-hour attorney – who billed the township more than $100,000 between May and September – never responded to the labor complaint.