CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard is doing what he can to help balance a $720 million budget deficit, refusing to accept a series of performance-based bonuses. more ›

We all know about the Gordian Knot that is Illinois' budget deficit. But the Land of Lincoln is not alone in having to deal with a deficit. A "60 Minutes" segment last night focused on the current and looming financial meltdowns in Illinois and other states. more ›

With the state legislature ready to debate and vote on major casino expansion when they return to Springfield next month to complete their lame duck session, they may have public opinion in their favor. more ›

Sigh. Another day, another Sun-Times report about how much money the city is wasting paying top management. This time it's the staggering six layers of management that it takes to run the city's Aviation Department. According to the Sun-Times, it takes 49 management positions in the department to operate the city bureaucracy over Midway and O'Hare, and nearly 60 percent of those positions take home salaries that top $100,000. more ›

While service providers across the state are still reeling from the $1.4 billion cut out of the state budget, an Associated Press report found that Governor Quinn’s office doled out 43 salary increases to staffers over the past 15 months. Some of the largest raises were more than 20 percent and the average salary increase comes out to be 11.4%. more ›

In a newly issued report [PDF], Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson says that a recently completed audit of overtime pay for the 50 exempt positions in the fire department show that Chicago is "hemorrhaging" cash. Exempt positions are those that not governed by city and federal hiring oversight - essentially formalized political appointments. Ferguson says that overtime payments have "skyrocketed," from $18,516 in 2008 to $311,180 in 2009 and $191,293 during the first three months of this year. If payments continue at the current pace, it will cost Chicago $765,174, an increase of almost 250 percent over last year's already inflated numbers. The surge in increased payments coincides with Daley's recent mandate that city workers take furlough days to help close the city's budget hole. Those savings have been wiped out as the mayor's top brass take "liberal" overtime payments from the city. more ›

With the May 31 deadline looming to get a budget passed without a super-majority, the state House managed to pass a $4 billion borrowing plan to cover the state's five public employee pension plans. It took two votes to get the legislation passed as it fell one vote short of passage earlier Tuesday before being passed with the necessary 71 votes last night. The swing vote, according to the Tribune, turned out to be Rep. David Miller, D-Lynwood, who also happens to be running for state comptroller. Miller apparently had a change of heart after a pow-wow with House Speaker Mike Madigan and House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie in Gov. Quinn's office in which Miller insists he wasn't promised anything in exchange for his vote, telling reporters after the vote, “You’ve got to do the mature thing which is to at least get us through this crisis, no matter how bad it is... At some point you have to do some soul searching about why you’re here in the first place." You can check out the voting breakdown here [PDF]; GOP Reps Bob Biggins and Bill Black voted with Dems on the plan. more ›

Leslie's Place, a Chicago women's shelter on the West Side, is one of the most successful shelters in the area. Opening in 1994, Leslie's Place was founded by Leslie Brown, who spent seven years in prison after conspiring to commit murder of her abusive husband. Reflecting upon her own experiences during and after her time in prison, Brown felt the need to help other women who are in similar situations needing support and a home. Despite the help Leslie's Place offers to women in need of a home and skills needed to reintegrate into society, the shelter might have to close its doors in a month if the state fails to pay Brown around $50,000 it owes her. Brown states that the state has not given her a check for about seven months, and that she has been using her own savings to support the continuing operation of her homeless shelter. But now, her own private funds are running low. more ›

It looks like Mayor Daley is backing down from his proposed "grid" plan for the city's street sweepers. Instead, there seems to be agreement on something of a hybrid plan, reducing the number of overall sweepers but allowing aldermen to maintain control of the sweepers four days a week. According to the Sun-Times, the new plan would retain 40 street sweepers (instead of the current 50 and the Mayor's proposed reduction to 33). As for the specific plan, The Parking Ticket Geek reports: more ›

In yet another cost cutting move, Mayor Daley is proposing changes to the way the city allocates street sweeping services. Currently street sweeping is done by ward, with 50 street sweepers, one assigned to each ward. This gives aldermen more control over how the streets get cleaned in their ward. Under the mayor's plan, however, the city would switch to a grid system, breaking Chicago up into 33 equal sized "chucks", the Tribune is reporting. Daley says that the switch will lead to more efficient cleaning of city streets, and of course cost savings. "If this side is one ward -- of the street -- and that's the other side, we can only street clean one side one day and the other the other day," Daley said Tuesday. "Now you clean both at the same time." more ›

• Chauvet Stiggers was charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault with a firearm and aggravated criminal sexual assault committed with a threat to life in connection to last week's Southwest Side rapes.
• As many as 50 people have been sickened this week by a Shigella outbreak traced back to a Subway in Lombard.
• Cook County Sheriffs have busted up another prostitution ring resulting in 14 arrests.

With a state budget still not in place and lawmakers trying to figure out how to plug a budget hole that ranges somewhere between $9 billion and $11.6 billion, Governor Quinn has decided to go straight to legislators instead of the usual dealings with party leaders. Among those who Quinn has met with is Sen. James Meeks, who supports Quinn's proposed income tax hike. Quinn told reporters, "I have a number of other legislators -- Democrat and Republican, House and Senate -- I will be meeting with over the next few days. We believe in consensus-building.'' more ›

We mentioned it yesterday, but the numbers are in and they aren't pretty. In the first round of cuts meant to save money, the Chicago Public School System has cut 557 jobs. The cuts lower the CPS deficit by about $100 million, from $475 million to $375 million with even more cuts expected in the near future. According to the Sun-Times: more ›

Amid the ongoing game of political football that has defined negotiations over how to close the gap in the city's looming budget hole, one voice has been remarkably absent: city workers who would bear the brunt of the mayor's economic sanctions. That silence was broken yesterday as SEIU Local 73 members descended on the city council meeting to vent their anger at both the city and the union. Workers are angry at the city for forcing layoffs on them, and at their union for not accepting furlough days. “We will take the [furlough] days. We will make the adjustments. But somehow people are demanding something that we haven’t demanded,” detention aide John Joynter told the Sun-Times. “We are not being represented by either the city or the union. We have not had a voice in any of this. It’s like we’re pushed aside.” more ›

House Democrats passed a 50 percent income tax hike for the next two years today, but final approval is still questionable as the General Assembly moves one day closer to adjourning.The proposal was a move to get lawmakers who didn't approve of Quinn's permanent hike on board. Although Quinn has previously said he wouldn't stand for a permanent hike, he "backed off that position today," the Chicago Tribune reports. Republicans say they "aren't ready" to vote for a tax hike, noting it also includes increasing the cigarette tax and decreasing public pension plan payments. more ›

Among the mayor's more quixotic statements, his declaration yesterday that he is "leading the way" on ethics reform is at the top. At a press conference where he outlined his wishlist from state lawmakers (including more education funding, better gun control laws and property tax reform), he left out ethics reform. When asked why, he announced that Chicago is "more transparent than any other government." Said the mayor: "We've done everything here. We're leading the way with our inspector general, office of compliance, all the things we've done." Adding that "we're doing a tremendous job here, we lead by example," he noted that he hasn't finished reading Governor Pat Quinn's reform commission's recommendations. "I haven't completed reading it yet," he said. more ›

Mayor Daley's plan to enforce furlough days on nonunion city workers has been delayed indefinitely while some changes are made. The City Council balked at Daley's original plan and insisted, instead, that a sliding scale be implemented: the higher a worker's salary, the more furlough he or she has to take. Ald. Willie Cochran (20th) told the Sun-Times, "It would have been very difficult to pass without it. When you get to a certain level of income, the impact should be greater. We have to take that into consideration for those on the lower end of the pay scale." And while Daley seems to have agreed to make the concession, he wasn't happy about it, especially the suggestion that workers making under $35,000 should be exempt from furlough days altogether. more ›

Talking about the budget recently, Governor Quinn dropped the word "doomsday," rattling the nerves of residents who have had enough "doomsday" budget talk (thankyouverymuch, CTA). The threat came over the possibility the state legislature wouldn't approve Quinn's desired income tax hike. According to WBEZ, Quinn said, "We are going to let people know what the consequences are if we don't do this plan. A doomsday budget is very, very dangerous for our state. It will harm our state. It will harm people, very vulnerable people in our state. And I don't want to ever have a doomsday budget." more ›

Mayor Daley took issue with President Barack Obama's assessment of the economy yesterday, saying that he didn't see the "glimmers of hope" for an economic recovery that Obama does. "When you talk about a glimmer of hope, I don't know what that meant," Daley said. "I don't know where you see it. Maybe you see it in Washington, D.C., but I don't think you're seeing it across the country," he added. "I don't want to do it [layoffs]. But if next year, everything falls apart and the economy gets worse, what do we do? ... That's the problem," Mayor Grouchypants said. "I'm not trying to be a doomsday person. I'm just telling you the facts. ... Someone said, 'There's a glimmer of hope' [for the economy]. What is the glimmer of hope? Where is it? We don't see it. ... The recession could last for a few more years." more ›

Da Mayor giveth and Da Mayor taketh away. On the heels of finally showing his hand on plans for the city's stimulus money, Mayor Daley is back to huffing and puffing about the budget shortfall. Apparently tired of waiting on the unions to get back to him on an agreement, Daley will take out his budget rage on 3,500 nonunion employees who will have to take up to 16 unpaid days by December via furlough days and an elimination of sick and vacation days. Da Mayor's hoping by taking his frustration out on nonunion employees, he'll spur the unions to action. A mayoral aide told the Sun-Times, "We can't control the unions. But this is a piece we can control. We're facing a serious budget deficit. The unions will have to help us, or there will be layoffs." more ›