Editorial Roundup: Illinois
Arlington Heights Daily-Herald. February 18, 2022.
Editorial: If lawmakers want to offer more than slogans on property tax control, they can start with grants to local communities
A group representing Illinois' mayors stepped to the podium Wednesday to plead again for the state to restore some of the Local Government Distributive Funds they've been steadily losing in recent years.
Are lawmakers listening?
They should be.
As the 2022 primary campaign season heats up, promises of helping ease the burden of property taxes no doubt will be prominent on the lips and in the mailings of candidates for the legislature. But the reality is that state lawmakers don't have a lot of tools for reducing local property taxes.
But they do have the LGDF. For years, the state routinely distributed 10% of state income tax revenues to local governments. Local governments used the money to fix roads, sidewalks and sewers, fund local operations and address any number of needs specific to their communities.
But in 2011 as Illinois' financial picture steadily deteriorated, lawmakers began cutting back on their support for local governments -- to the point that the proportion of income taxes going to local communities has dwindled to just more than 6% this year.
Local needs, of course, have not dwindled. So, where do municipalities get the funds to make up what they've lost? Property taxes, of course, the only significant funding source they have some control over.
So, if lawmakers are going to come to us in another election year with promises of helping manage the strain of some of the heaviest property tax demands in the country, they ought to have a good answer on what they've done to help with the LGDF.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker correctly notes that some legislative actions in recent years have helped local communities. The state has provided more road funding, yes, and the legalization of marijuana and expanded gambling have given some communities new sources of income. But none of these kinds of legislative byproducts -- many of which, by the way, also come with demands of their own on community health and safety resources -- replaces the stability or consistency that a routine return of funds to local communities can provide.
In a Rockford speech last week, Pritzker agreed the state 'œshould always try to do more for local governments,'ť and earlier this month, he predicted the state will have a $1.7 billion surplus at the end of this fiscal year.
No reasonable Illinoisan really thinks the state is so flush with money that it has a couple billion dollars lying around to play with. But clearly the state's financial picture has improved. That should translate into doing 'œmore for local governments,'ť too.
Some members of the 'œRestore LGDF'ť coalition who spoke Wednesday said that even a slight bump in the grants could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars for their budgets. Many said an increase to just 8% of state income tax funds would have a significant impact.
It's not the 10% they once enjoyed, to be sure, but it at least would be movement in the right direction. State politicians who really care about property taxes will keep that in mind as they campaign for local votes in the coming months.
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Chicago Tribune. February 17, 2022.
Editorial: Start it up: How the Illinois economy could really flourish
You may have heard that Illinois is among the top 10 states nationally in business startups for 2021, with nearly 200,000 businesses formed last year. That's up from 170,400 in 2020. And 2020 was also a very good year.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker took credit for this positive development, declaring the state to be 'œback, and open for business'ť and touting some of his pet economic projects.
The governor's triumphant recent statement, which claimed Illinois was sixth in the nation when it came to the number of 2021 startups, omitted any reference to the flip side of business startups: business failures. Unfortunately, a lot of Illinois businesses went bust in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, though we don't have a figure comparable to the U.S. Census count of 'œbusiness applications'ť that Pritzker equated with startups (which is only a rough approximation, at that).
The governor also overlooked how severe layoffs early in the pandemic drove some of the suddenly unemployed to launch their own ventures out of desperation, and how the anemic growth of the labor force continues to put a drag on business creation nationwide.
And did he mention that business startups appear to be slowing, so that 2022 is likely to be below the 2021 peak? Or that business failures probably will run high in 2022, partly because new ventures often fail in their first year or two?
Of course, he didn't. He's seeking reelection, after all.
Here's the truth about business formation in Illinois and across the country: A high rate of startups really is very good news, all spin aside, but it's not the whole story.
On the plus side, the recovery from the short, sharp recession of 2020 has followed a much better trajectory than the slow-motion comeback from the Great Recession of 2007-09. The absence of startups was one of the most disappointing features of that difficult period more than a decade ago. The economy stayed under a cloud that choked off the usual green shoots for years.
Today is much greener, in no small part because economic growth has been stronger, and a ton of investor money is chasing new ventures. What's more, technological advances have made it less risky and potentially more lucrative for budding entrepreneurs to take the plunge, and for current business owners to expand and diversify.
Got an idea for a new app? A cryptocurrency? Dog-walking software?
Bring it on - conditions are ripe for tech startups. Big players like Amazon and Google are practically giving away valuable business services, social-media platforms make it easier to reach customers and Americans overall are increasingly more computer savvy.
Quite a few digital entrepreneurs these days are self-funding, launching new ventures without much more than hard work and loose change. That 'œbootstrap'ť approach spells opportunity for those who don't have the backing required to start a biotech or medical-device company, for instance, which typically take years to clear regulatory hurdles before making a first sale.
Beyond tech, the pandemic left gaping holes that entrepreneurs are starting to fill. In the hard-hit food service and hospitality industry, new entrants are emerging and survivors who embraced online sales and other creative side hustles during COVID-19 have lived to fight another day.
A surge in startups demonstrates the American genius for business renewal, and the benefit of keeping our economy flexible. When Americans quit their jobs, as they did wholesale in the recent 'œGreat Resignation,'ť they had the option of becoming their own bosses, and they didn't need to live in Silicon Valley to pull it off.
Of course, Chicago or any other city would love to be like Silicon Valley. For all the wonders of digital technology and the supposed ability to work from anywhere, the local business environment still matters. And while Illinois is indeed among the fastest-growing states for new-business applications, it could be doing a lot better.
One obvious indicator is unemployment, which as of December was running at 3.9% nationwide but 5.3% in Illinois. The higher figure reflects a relative lack of economic opportunity that can prompt productive people to pack up and move to another state.
Illinois also is weighed down by the red tape and high taxes that go along with its excessive number of costly and duplicative local governments. And while Pritzker, who has a helpful background in new business incubation, deserves great credit for chipping away at the state's fiscal mess, Illinois' ongoing public pension crisis continues to discourage job creation and long-term investment. Much more needs to be done.
The state has a lot going for it, especially a dynamic, diverse and well-educated workforce supportive of entrepreneurship. If Illinois would make the business environment friendlier to those willing to invest and reduce the costs imposed by government, who knows how many startups would take root here and flourish.
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Chicago Sun-Times. February 17, 2022.
Editorial: Open up court administrative matters to freedom of information requests
The public should have a transparent look at how its money is spent.
The Illinois court system spends tax money. It signs contracts for everything from electronic filing systems to janitorial services.
The public should be able to have a transparent look at how that money is spent. It should be able to see which procedures are in place to protect private information, and whether those procedures are carefully followed. The public should be able to see whether court clerk offices are operating efficiently.
But, unlike the executive and legislative branches of government, the court system need not respond to Freedom of Information requests. It's time to lower the gavel on that.
The 1984 Illinois Freedom of Information Act, which allows citizens, news media and others to request a look at government documents, does not mention the judiciary. But the courts have interpreted the law to mean the judiciary is not a 'œpublic body'ť for purposes of FOIA requests.
In short, the courts are keeping the public in the dark about how they spend taxpayer money and engage in other administrative activities - for no good reason.
On Feb. 9, state Rep. Curtis J. Tarver II, D-Chicago, introduced a bill that would make it clear the courts are a 'œpublic body.'ť The bill exempts records related to court cases and court decision-making.
Such a bill might run into a thorny separation-of-powers issue, with one branch of government, the Legislature, telling another branch, the courts, what to do.
A better solution would be for the Illinois Supreme Court to implement this reform on its own. That would avoid the separations-of-power issue and pre-empt any effort to water down the legislation, as happened last year with a bill that would have defined circuit court clerk offices as public bodies subject to FOIA requests.
No one is talking about digging into private court documents or interfering in the realm of judicial decision-making, which should both remain private. It's just about making government operations more transparent.
The Illinois Supreme Court does release annual reports with some statistical and financial information about courts on all levels. Circuit court clerks are required to submit annual financial audits and caseload information.
That information is helpful, but it is not enough.
Forty-four other states permit disclosure of data regarding administrative court functions, either through a freedom of information law, a statute that covers judges or a rule imposed by the courts, according to the Civic Federation. Illinois, the last state to enact a freedom of information law, needs to catch up.
It's time to put a little more transparency on the docket.
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