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Cook County

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Cook County Pension Fund Projects Insolvency by 2038 Despite Improved Investment Returns in 2013

New actuarial reports released by the Cook County Pension Fund this month show a slight improvement in the Fund’s…

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Illinois Medicaid Enrollment under Affordable Care Act Exceeds Projections

More Illinois residents than originally projected are signing up for Medicaid as a result of the federal Affordable Care Act, but the long-term impact on the State budget remains unclear. Illinois officials had initially projected that…

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Illinois Supreme Court Recommends Pretrial Services Reform in Cook County

A recent report by the Illinois Supreme Court raises significant concerns about Cook County’s pretrial services. The Cook County Pretrial Services Department (PSD) was established in 1990 to address a host of concerns, not the least of…

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Cook County Forest Preserve District’s New Conservation Plan Faces Challenges

In 2013 President Preckwinkle formed a blue-ribbon commission of local leaders to develop the Next Century Conservation Plan…

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Report Identifies Chicago as Pension Obligation Outlier Among Large U.S. Cities

Morningstar Municipal Credit Research released a report this month comparing aggregate per capita pension liabilities among the 25…

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Higher Tax Rates in Effect for Chicago Tobacco Consumers

Since the Civic Federation’s last blog on changes to taxes imposed on tobacco purchases, Chicago area local governments have increased tobacco…

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How Well Do Chicago Area Local Government Capital Improvement Plans Follow Best Practices?

As a follow-up to the Capital Planning Overview, this blog post summarizes information contained in the Civic Federation’s FY2014…

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Decline in Estimated Full Value of Property in Cook County Slowed in 2011

Last month the Civic Federation released its annual estimate of the full value of real estate in Chicago and the Cook County suburbs.…

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2013 Year in Review on Civic Federation Blog

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:…

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Civic Federation Budget Recommendations for Chicago-Area Local Governments

Last week the Civic Federation marked the end of the FY2014 budget season with a blog that summarized the proposed budgets for the eight local governments the Federation…