Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office today released the 2010 Cook County Tax Rates Report. The report lists property tax rates for all taxing districts in Cook County and provides sample composite rates for many municipalities. The composite rate is the total tax rate that appears on a tax bill. The composite tax rate on a typical City of Chicago tax bill will increase from 4.627% last year to 4…
Today the Civic Federation published an update to its primer The Cook County Property Tax Extension Process: A Primer on Levies, Tax Caps, Tax Bills and the Effects of Tax Increment Financing Districts. The update adds additional years of data when available and provides an enhanced explanation of the effect of tax increment financing (TIF) on local governments and taxpayers in Cook County. This…
Illinois’ Personal Property Replacement Tax (PPRT) is a revenue source for local governments that was created by the General Assembly in 1979 to replace a tax on the personal property of businesses that was abolished pursuant to the 1970 Illinois Constitution Article IX Section 5. Although its name refers to the tax it replaces, the PPRT is an income tax on the federal taxable income of…
The Civic Federation supports the City Colleges FY2012 tentative budget totaling $651.5 million, an increase of $69.6 million, or 12.0%, over the adopted FY2011 budget. Unrestricted operating funds, the portion of the budget over which the District exercises maximum control, will increase by 1.7%, or $5.3 million dollars over the previous year. The property tax levy will be frozen at the…
UPDATE: The proposal to allow the Blue Park Gun Club the use of Forest Preserve District property for its operations was withdrawn, after significant urging from the Friends of the Forest Preserve. Cook County Commissioner Joan Murphy, one of the sponsors of the resolution, withdrew the proposal when Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said she would not support the issue. Commissioner…
As explained previously in this blog a key indicator the Civic Federation uses to assess the financial health of local governments is the level of unreserved general fund balance maintained. Such reserves are essential in order for the governments to be able to withstand the inevitable “rainy days” that result from revenue fluctuations and unexpected expenditures. Without a fund balance in place…
An actuarial projection of the future solvency of the Chicago Park District’s pension fund has estimated that the fund will exhaust its assets in the year 2025.[1] The projection takes into account the reduced pensions for employees hired on or after January 1, 2011 pursuant to Public Act 96-0889. The Park District’s pension fund was relatively healthy just ten years ago. In FY2001 it had a…
The Civic Federation analyzes the budgets of nine Chicago area local governments. One important indicator that the Federation utilizes to assess the financial health of these municipalities is their fund balance level. In particular, we examine the balance within the general fund that does not have any external legal restriction, called the unrestricted fund balance. Fund balance differs from net…
The Civic Federation’s Cook County Modernization 100-Day Accountability Report continues the work of our Cook County Modernization Project. This report includes detailed information on the status of all 36 recommendations from the Civic Federation’s Cook County Modernization Report (published in October 2010), as well as a dashboard rating system for recommendations that were to be implemented…
Today marks the 100th day since Toni Preckwinkle took office as President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. During that time, the County has begun to implement a variety of reforms including many of the recommendations from the Civic Federation’s Cook County Modernization Report. The administration released a 100-day report card this morning, which highlights what the administration…
