City of Chicago

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Moody's Downgrade Reflects Chicago's Pension Crisis and Looming Budgetary Challenges

Four weeks ago, the Civic Federation blogged about the Chicago City Council granting the City authority to issue general…

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City of Chicago to get more Revenue from Amusement Tax in FY2014

As noted in many media reports and in the Civic Federation’s analysis of the City of Chicago’s FY2014 budget, the City balanced its budget in part with a number of targeted revenue enhancements. One of these revenue enhancements was a…

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Chicago City Council Authorizes New Borrowing While City's Debt Per Capita Steadily Increases

This week the Chicago City Council granted the City authority to issue $900.0 million in general obligation bonds and $1.0 billion in Midway Airport revenue bonds. At the Finance Committee meeting on February 3, 2014, the City’s Chief…

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Selected Consumer Taxes in the City of Chicago

This brief provides a compilation of selected consumer taxes, including rates and descriptions, in place in the City of Chicago as of January 10, 2014. It includes such taxes as the sales tax, gas tax, amusement tax, lease tax, hotel tax,…

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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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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…

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FY2014 Budget Season Summary

Last week marked the end of the FY2014 budget season for the eight local governments monitored…