Illinois lost 3,000 jobs on net in 2015, while other neighboring and Great Lakes manufacturing states all gained tens of thousands of jobs on net for the year.
From 2009 to 2014, the state added $8.9 billion in new tax dollars to the education budget, over and above the base amount of $6.8 billion it spent in 2009. Of those new dollars spent, 89 percent went to retirement costs and just 11 percent made it to classrooms.
Wheatland Township’s “transparency portal” provides residents access to important government information.
The state must get its financial affairs in order by allowing municipal bankruptcy and enacting real pension reforms.
Since 2009, 89 cents of every new dollar for education goes to teacher pensions
West Virginia’s Senate has passed legislation to protect a worker’s right to choose to join a union, or to opt out entirely.
The Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology will tackle one of the state’s most important management problems – an outdated IT system that wastes taxpayer money.
Illinois businesses gave notice of impending layoffs in December as the state ended 2015 with fewer jobs than it had at the start of the year.
The state unemployment rate jumped to 5.9 percent from 5.7 percent, driven by an increase of 18,300 Illinoisans who are unemployed. Illinois also has 178,000 fewer people working compared to before the Great Recession.
CTU President Karen Lewis has acknowledged that CPS is in dire straits – and that her union may have to make concessions in contract negotiations, including ending the practice of the school district – meaning taxpayers – picking up the majority of teacher contributions toward pensions, which has cost $1.3 billion since 2006.
I have a loyalty to my company and my people because they’ve been loyal to me and the company for many, many years.
Gov. Bruce Rauner highlights the continued need for criminal-justice reform to save taxpayer dollars and restore opportunity. To get there, Illinois must embrace reforms that enable ex-offenders to provide for themselves and their families once they’ve served their sentences.
Illinois paid $53 million more to borrow money through its Jan. 14 bond sale than it would have paid had politicians not let the state’s debt and government-worker pension obligations spiral out of control, while driving out taxpaying residents and businesses through tax hikes and costly regulations.