The need to fully reopen Illinois schools is growing more urgent day by day. Evidence shows the mental and emotional harm to children of not being in school is outweighing the potential harm of the coronavirus. The good news is the risk of a full-time, in-class reopening is far lower than originally feared. Other countries’ experiences show Illinois can reopen schools safely.
A New York Times article provides a fresh state-by-state look at which states are reopening and which are still shut down due to COVID-19. Notably, Illinois was one of the first to shut down and it will be one of the last to reopen.
Just as highly important information on antibody testing has started to come in for other states, Governor J.B. Pritzker recently announced that he will de-prioritize that testing. He's withholding results collected so far in Illinois.
What’s happening today is unprecedented. The coronavirus is impacting Illinoisans' lives in more ways than can be counted. We wish our readers the best and hope you all remain healthy.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has a narrative he wants Illinoisans to believe: “We are a state on the rise...we were going in the wrong direction, but we are turning the ship in the right direction, and we are powering ourselves forward.”
If you’re wondering how widespread Illinois’ problems really are, check out the below chart based on U.S. Census data. It shows that 93 of the state’s 102 counties have shrunk since 2010. Illinois’ population dropped by 100,000 people between 2010 and 2018 and few of the state’s counties have been spared.
Judges in Illinois have allowed the state government and Cook County avoid challenges to their spending power under the state constitution. But should they have?
The East St. Louis’ firefighter pension fund has demanded that Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza intercept more than $2.2 million of East St. Louis city revenues so they could be diverted to the pension fund.
Illinois’ financial decay isn't just happening at the top, it has likely spread to your community, too. Households from Peoria to Harvey and from Alton to Rockford are seeing property values fall, city populations shrink, tax burdens jump and incomes stagnate.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker says Illinois’ budget is balanced "for the first time in decades." That’s the claim he made upon signing Illinois’ $40 billion budget for 2020.
Chicagoland’s political elite know exactly how to pass the property-tax buck onto everyone else. They use their powerful connections to cut their own property tax bills and push the costs onto other unsuspecting residents. And that’s left many lower-income homeowners footing ever-larger tax bills.
Whether you know nothing or everything about Illinois’ state and local fiscal crises, take a moment to digest these two charts below, recently published by the Wall Street Journal.
