Governor Rauner's FY2019 General Fund Budget Proposal Is a Major Setback For Public Education
Release: February 15, 2018
Governor Bruce Rauner introduced his proposed fiscal year 2019 budget on February 14. But despite promising to help close the shortfall from adequate resources identified by the new Evidence-Based Model for school funding, the governor's budget actually cuts available resources for K-12 classrooms by an inflation-adjusted $547 million. This cut frustrates the core purpose of the Evidence-Based Model, which he signed into law just last year: To increase the resources available to Illinois public schools to the levels that evidence shows they need in order to succeed.
Cook County's Budget: Long-Term Imbalance Leads to New Pain for Vulnerable Residents
Release: November 14, 2017
On October 11, 2017, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to repeal a penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages. The FY2018 budget presented by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle had relied on the sweetened beverage tax to cover just over $200 million of the county's projected expenditures on services.
How Much Are State Pension Payments Worth to Illinois School Districts?
Release: June 23, 2017
Every school district in Illinois except for the Chicago Public Schools has its teacher pension payments made by the state as a consolidated payment to the Teachers Retirement System. Because of this, it is difficult to determine how much money these pension payments are worth to individual districts. CTBA has created per-district estimates for both normal cost (the payment that covers benefits being earned by current employees) and legacy cost (the debt service payment to make up for previous years' underfunding).
The Cost of a Two-Year Property Tax Freeze For Illinois Schools: Up to $830 Million
Release: June 23, 2017
Governor Bruce Rauner has made a property tax freeze a centerpiece of his demands for a full state budget, and the Illinois Senate passed a bill (SB484) that would enact a two-year freeze in May. But such a freeze, without provision for replacement revenue from the state, would effectively be a massive funding cut for K-12 education in Illinois.
Seeing Improvements, Questioning Priorities: Updating "A Fiscal Review of the Chicago Housing Authority"
Release: January 13, 2017
In 2014, CTBA released a report showing that the Chicago Housing Authority had accumulated over $400 million in reserves, in part by issuing an average of 13,000 fewer housing vouchers per year than the Authority was funded by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to do.