The police department accounts for about one-third of the city’s corporate budget. But cuts have long been politically thorny in a city struggling with street violence. more ›

The Gordian Knot that is Illinois' budget deficit continues to grow to the point where not even bold moves can solves it. The latest addition to the woes is the $289.3 million in delinquent finding from Springfield to the Regional Transportation Authority for this year. That's in addition to $124 million the state owes RTA for next year. more ›

Mayor Daley, yesterday, in response to State Rep. John Fritchey's TIF legislation: more ›

Ten year-round high schools opened Monday with those larger class sizes, and, as a result, fewer teachers than normal. Huberman said schools will be getting "budgetary guidance'' soon on how to open slashed positions.

With the city's budget deficit growing and crime a hot topic, we were wondering if we'd get any answers from Mayor Daley yesterday in his annual State of the City speech. We got one, alright, even if it was indirect and we need look no further than this morning's headlines to find it: more ›

We knew the financial situation is pretty dire across many city agencies and now the RTA has come out and said that it needs about $24 billion in repairs to CTA, Metra and Pace across the next 10 years. From Mary Wisniewski at the Sun-Times: more ›

The U.S. Department of Education has announced the recipients of its first round of "Race to the Top" funding and despite being a finalist, the state of Illinois didn't hit the jackpot this time around. In fact, only two states from a list of 16 finalists - Tennessee and Delaware - received funding. Overall, 40 states applied for the first round of funding which comes from a pool of $4.35 billion. Another round will be awarded this summer. more ›

The State of Illinois is one of 16 finalists for $500 million in education funding. The money, per the Tribune, is meant "to transform how teachers are evaluated, students are tested and failing schools are fixed," is part of $4.35 billion being dispersed via the U.S. Department of Education's "Raced to the Top" fund. This is the first round of funding to go out. Besides Illinois, the other finalists are: Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Winners will be announced in April and another round of funding will get underway this summer. With former CPS chief Arne Duncan behind the whole thing, we like our chances of coming away with some cash. But we can't help but remain skeptical of the high likelihood little of the money will actually be successfully put to any real use. more ›

The new Green Line stop. Renovations of the Red and Purple Line tracks. The need for new rail cars. The CTA has a list of projects it wants to do, but little funding with which to do it. Chicago Current looks into the issue, including how the CTA has a $9.6 billion wish list of projects but only $2.8 billion to spend. more ›

The Chicago Community Trust, a foundation that funds programs to benefit Chicago, announced today that it will award 12 local news organizations with $500,000. The awards are part of a new program by the trust, Community News Matters, designed to support the sources of Chicago news and information. more ›

Now that Mayor Daley is firmly back on Chicago soil, he's staring down not only a dangerously low popularity rating, but also a city that's on the verge of economic disaster. Impending budget holes, (yet another) CTA Doomsday scenario, unemployment and of course the on going parking meter fiasco. Before any of these crisis, individually or in total, do him in, Mayor Daley is trying his darnedest to to some serious spin. He's already insisted he won't raise property taxes to close the budget gap, likely taking reserve funds to help him do that. more ›

When Chi-Town Daily News announced last week they were shifting models from non-profit to profit, that left a lot of questions out in the open. What did it mean? Who was laid off? What's in store for the CTDN in the future? The CTDN's Ed-in-Chief, Geoff Dougherty took to his site for a little Q&A in which he answered some, but not all, of the questions floating around out there. more ›

WBEZ's Rob Wildeboer brings us an interesting and all-too-familiar story of funding for court services - like drug court, mental health court and youth services court - being stuck in limbo. For three years, the county has allegedly been collecting $5 from court fees, which cost $135, to distribute to these court services. But a legislative hang-up is preventing that money from actually going anywhere, particularly to these court services, such as a mediation service provided by juvenile court Judge Michael Stuttley which allows a victim to meet face-to-face with an offender to settle differences. Stuttley tells Wildeboor, "If we had $80, 85,000, we could run the program and we have mediators who have been trained at no cost, no cost to us whatsoever, it's just the clerical expense of setting everything up that we're looking for." After doing a little math, Wildeboer discovers there should be roughly half a million dollars going to programs like Stuttley's. but the money's not getting there thanks to a legislative oversight. Check out the full story here. more ›

• Controversy in Evergeen Park where parents of Evergreen Park Community High School students are alleging they were barred from entering the school's graduation ceremony.
• Gang member Steve Bryant was sentenced to 85 years for the 2006 murder of marine Ricardo Martinez.
• Cook County Public Defender Abishi Cunningham claims his office is out of money to defend death penalty cases.

If there is one thing we can thank the former Governor for, it’s the gridlock in state funding he helped to create that has left a long list of “shovel ready” projects. Illinois may have benefitted from this laundry list, of sorts, winning quick approval for many transportation projects in the federal stimulus program. more ›

Some CTA news has come across the wire in the last few days. First, the truly surreal. It seems our fair transit system was honored with "Most Improved Metro" at the 2009 Metro Awards, and international awards ceremony held in London. The category aims to award the "metro who has gone the extra mile in improving their metro network in the past year." So, um, the Grand Red Line station doesn't count? The website goes on to say: more ›

Worried that financial guarantees don't match those of rival 2016 Olympic candidates Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio, Chicago 2016 is asking the state to increase its financial guarantee of taxpayer money from $150 million to $250 million. The $150 million was originally set by former governor Rod Blagojevich, but current gov Pat Quinn supports giving the extra money. Chicago 2016 spokesman Patrick Sandusky said, "We've always anticipated working with the state on a guarantee and that's the start of that process." [Trib, ABC 7] more ›

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has issued a heads up to his former legislative home state of Illinois, warning the state that time is running out for them to submit their transit project list in order to receive money from the recently passed stimulus bill. Said LaHood, "The law requires us to get the money out the door very quickly...we have not received a list from the state or from Chicago." Illinois is in line to receive $935 million from the stimulus package with $429 million of that designated for transit projects. As outlined in the stimulus legislation, the deadline for applying for bridge, highway, and transit funding is Tuesday, March 10. more ›

With a new transit doomsday prophecy, the area's transit systems are trying to figure out exactly how they'll manage to find the funding to stay running. At a CTA board meeting yesterday, chief financial officer Dennis Anosike revealed the alarming news that the CTA's budget deficit was at $87 million, much larger than had previously been thought. When added to the ginormous shortfall in tax revenue the RTA already outlined this week, the CTA now finds itself over $240 million in the red. Well, shit. And with everyone out of cash and looking for more, the infighting has begun as the CTA and RTA clashed over where the money would come from and who knew what when. more ›

In what has become a rite of passage for Chicagoans, like that first glorious spring thaw or the annual Cubs collapse, it's time again for another CTA Doomsday warning. This time, the culprit seems to be the economy and according to the Trib's Jon Hilkevitch, "The new numbers are so bleak that the "doomsday" service cuts and fare increases threatened more than a year ago appear mild in comparison to the sweeping measures that would be needed to fill gaping budget holes the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace are facing." Yikes. The CTA, Metra, and PACE are all facing huge tax revenue shortfalls which mean huge funding reductions for both 2008 and 2009. more ›

As Governor Rod Blagojevich has named November Alzheimer's Awareness Month, it was announced that the state of Illinois will be making a $190,000 grant to Alzheimer's research courtesy of taxpayer donations on their tax returns to the Alzheimer's Disease Research Fund. Since the fund was established in 1985, Illinois residents have donated over $3 million. Currently there are approximately 200,000 Illinois residents suffering from the disease. more ›