This article about a report on the States in the worst fiscal condition by the Pew Center on the States quotes the Civic Federation in its profile of Illinois’ budget problems. The Federation noted that Illinois’ budget hole is too large to be filled with just a tax increase.
This news segment examines Governor Quinn’s deal with the Chicago Transit Authority that will avert a fare increase through increased borrowing. Civic Federation President Laurence Msall says the deal may be a bad one in the long run, increasing the possibility of greater fare increases and service cuts down the road.
This article describes the politics surrounding a vote by the Cook County Board of Commissioners to reduce the county sales tax by a half-cent. It cites the Civic Federation’s analysis of the County’s proposed FY2009 budget.
This article discusses the Civic Federation’s analysis of the City of Chicago’s FY2010 proposed budget. The Federation opposed the budget because off its reliance on reserve funds to make up a fiscal shortfall.
This article mentions a recent City budget hearing at which the Civic Federation presented its analysis of the City of Chicago FY2010 proposed budget.
In two previous blog posts [here and here] the Civic Federation discussed the City of Chicago’s use of asset lease proceeds from its 99 year leases of the Chicago Skyway and the City’s parking meters. In sum, the City has set aside $900.0 million in long-term reserve accounts using proceeds from both the Skyway and parking meter leases. The City set aside an additional $1,226.4 million of asset…
In FY2010 the City of Chicago proposes to close a majority of its FY2010 $520 million budget deficit with proceeds it received from the long-term leases of its parking meters and the Chicago Skyway. This begs the question: how has the City been using the rest of the proceeds from its long-term asset leases? The long-term lease of the Chicago Skyway yielded the city a lump sum payment of $1.83…
The Civic Federation opposes the proposed $6.14 billion FY2010 City of Chicago budget because it is unsustainable and relies predominantly on one-time reserve funds to close its $520 million deficit. The Federation’s full 69-page analysis of the budget is available on our website, www.civicfed.org. The FY2010 budget was crafted without adequate attention to future budgets. The City proposes to…
The Civic Federation opposes the FY2010 City of Chicago budget of $6.14 billion because it is unsustainable and relies too heavily on one-time reserve funds to close a $520.0 million budget deficit. The proposed drastic draw down of long-term reserves allows for increased spending in FY2010 but does not properly plan for the future. The City must consider FY2011 and FY2012 when crafting its…
The Civic Federation has enormous concerns about the fiscal risks associated with Governor Quinn’s “deal” to avoid CTA fare increases. Under the proposal, the Regional Transportation Authority will issue General Obligation bonds worth $83 million in both 2010 and 2011 and transfer the funds to the CTA for capital projects. The CTA will then shift a similar amount of its existing capital funds to…
