The Civic Federation sent a letter today to the Board of Forest Preserve Commissioners, which is also the Cook County Board of Commissioners, urging them to reject a request by the Village of Hinsdale for 30 acres of Forest Preserve…
This report compares effective property tax rates in selected communities around metropolitan Chicago and finds that many communities experienced a slight increase in their property tax burden in 2007. However, Chicago continues to have…
August 14, 2009’s Civic Federation blog post, “Tweeting Towards Transparency (Part 1),” discussed how the Cook County Board’s Twitter account has…
In order to make its capital selection process more transparent in FY2009, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has revised the way in which is selects and prioritizes capital projects. CTA’s revised capital selection process includes…
Today the Civic Federation released its analysis of the FY2010 City Colleges Tentative Annual Operating Budget,…
The Civic Federation supports the $492.1 million City Colleges of Chicago FY2010 budget because it is a prudent spending plan that both holds the District’s property tax levy flat over the next two years and compensates for…
This report analyzes the public funding for 12 major cultural institutions in Cook County that receive property tax-based funding from the Chicago Park District or the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. It makes recommendations for…
This report provides a trend analysis of indicators that measure the financial health and performance of ten major local government pension funds from 1998 to 2007, the most recent year for which audited data are available. It finds that…
This report reviews best practices in the composition of public pension boards of trustees nationwide, and makes recommendations on improvements to pension boards in Illinois.
The Civic Federation's legislative priorities for 2009 include public pension reform, the dissolving of the Illinois International Port District, creating a new governing board for the Cook County Forest Preserve District, requiring all…
