The Civic Federation joined with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on April 2, 2015 to co-host a conference on the use, efficacy and future of sin taxes. Experts, practitioners and academics from around the country gathered to discuss…
What local government purposes, services, or expenditures does your property tax dollar fund? Governments traditionally use property tax revenues to pay for a wide variety of expenditures, including employee salaries and pensions, debt…
This editorial discusses an upcoming $550 million increase in the City’s required pension payments and the stance of both mayoral candidates on increasing property taxes leading into the April 7 election. It cited the Civic Federation’s…
The Civic Federation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago will co-host a conference, “Sin Taxes: The Sobering Fiscal Reality,” in two weeks on Thursday, April 2, 2015. The conference will examine the theories behind these ubiquitous…
This article looks at both mayoral candidates’ proposals for addressing the City of Chicago’s financial challenges, which include severely underfunded pension funds, a high debt level and Chicago Public Schools’ $1 billion deficit. The…
Under Governor Bruce Rauner’s proposed FY2016 budget, one of the largest sources of state funding for local governments in Illinois would be reduced by half. The reduction is part of more than $4 billion in spending cuts and $2.2 billion…
The State of Illinois reduces its operating resources by more than 25% annually to provide individuals and businesses tax benefits through exemptions also known as tax expenditures. In FY2013, the most recent year that…
This article reviews the Institute for Illinois' Fiscal Sustainability at the Civic Federation’s FY2016 State Budget Roadmap, an annual report released prior to the…
This article discusses recommendations made in the FY2016 State Budget Roadmap, an annual report released by the Institute for Illinois' Fiscal Sustainability at the…
