The Civic Federation and IIFS blogs have written extensively about reductions to assumed rates of return on investment by State and some local public pension plans over the last several years. These changes are part of a nationwide trend,…
The Cook County Clerk’s Office annually releases a tax rate report that provides the tax rates for various taxing agencies within Cook County. It is important for property taxpayers to have an accurate picture of which governments receive…
Chicago-area public employee pension funding levels continued to decline in FY2012, with total unfunded liabilities for the ten funds analyzed rising to $37.2 billion from $32.0 billion in FY2011. On average, the ten funds analyzed had an…
The most basic question about a pension fund is whether its assets are sufficient to cover total liabilities incurred. In this blog post, we examine the aggregate pension liabilities and Other Post…
CPS is balancing its budget in FY2015 in large part by shifting the time period used to report revenues from 30 to 60 days. This will allow the District to access $648.0 million in revenues that it would not otherwise have been able to use…
The Civic Federation does not support Chicago Public Schools proposed $6.8 billion budget for FY2015. The short-sighted budget does nothing to address the District’s grave fiscal crisis and is balanced only by an accounting maneuver that…
This week, Chicago Public Schools released its FY2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. In it, the District reports a year-end FY2013 deficit of $119 million that was closed using fund balance. This…
The following posts were among the most highly read on the Civic Federation blog in 2013 and represent some of the most closely followed local government issues this year:…
Last week marked the end of the FY2014 budget season for the eight local governments monitored…
