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States across the country are cutting taxes. Illinois just raised theirs – by nearly $1 billion.

Posted in BOHICA, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, Unions, Wirepoints on June 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

By Ted Dabrowski and Nick Binotti | Wirepoints

More than 20 states across the country have delivered tax relief to their residents over the last three years. Some examples. Colorado just delivered $1.3 billion in tax cuts in a sweeping overhaul of its property tax code. Georgia cut its income tax rate in April, saving its residents $1.1 billion. Tennessee is set to provide $1.9 billion in tax relief for employers through reforms to the state’s franchise tax. And every one of Illinois’ neighbors have passed permanent cuts to their income tax rates since 2021. The full map of states that have cut income taxes over the last three years is below in the appendix.

Meanwhile, Illinois continues to go in the opposite direction. The state just hiked taxes again, this time by at least $900 million. Gov. J.B. Pritzker was successful in pressuring his Democratic supermajorities in the legislature to stuff several tax hikes into their record-sized $53.1 billion budget. Knowing they couldn’t go after residents directly, they hit corporations, gaming companies and retailers.

Those hikes put Illinois further out of sync with the rest of its neighbors – and most of the country – when it comes to property taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes, cell phone taxes and overall tax burdens. Check out in the appendix where each state stands on those different taxes and it becomes evident why so many Illinoisans have been quick to leave the state.

Here is the precise hurt Illinois legislators have put on job creators in this latest budget:

  • They extended the cap on what corporations can claim as a net operating loss. What began as a stop-gap to prevent companies from claiming large losses during Covid has now been extended through 2027. Tax hike: $526 million.
  • They capped the discount retailers receive for collecting and submitting sales taxes to the state. Tax hike: $101 million (It’s another $85 million tax hike at the local government level.)
  • They increased taxes on sports betting. Tax hike: $200 million.
  • They put a 1% tax increase on video gambling. Tax hike: $35 million.
  • They subjected third-party companies that resell blocks of hotel room reservations, known as “re-renters,” to the hotel operator’s room occupation tax. Tax hike: $25 million.

Article continues here.

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Illinois government’s $100K salary and pension club: 140,000 members and rising – Wirepoints

Posted in Barrington Education Association, Pension Funding, Politics, Property Taxes, School Districts, Springfield, Taxes, Topics Of Interest, Unions, Wirepoints on June 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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By Ted Dabrowski, John Klingner and Nick Binotti | Wirepoints

Over 140,000 Illinois government workers and retirees took in more than $100,000 in salaries or pensions in 2023, according to data collected by Wirepoints via FOIA. That’s more than a 50% jump since Open the Books counted 94,000 government members with $100K compensation back in 2018. The list includes active workers and pensioners from all levels of state and local government, with the exception of Illinois’ 650 downstate public safety plans, for which Wirepoints did not obtain individual data.

The teacher category led the list due to the scale of the state’s education system. More than 33,000 active teachers and administrators across the state made more than $100,000, while another nearly 23,000 pensioners took in as much. The state’s universities also had 23,000 active workers and retirees making over $100,000 last year. And it was the same for more than 17,000 current and former state employees.

And as we point out in detail further below, the individual compensation numbers get big, too. Peter Murphy, President and CEO of Illinois’ Association of Park Districts made nearly $468,000. Brad Cole of the Illinois Municipal League took in over $505,000. Kent Custer, Chief Investment Officer at Illinois Police Officers’ Pension Investment Fund, received $333,000. And Brian Townsend at the Village of Schaumburg made $343,000.

Those big compensation numbers are similar to the k-12 superintendent numbers we reported on recently in our piece titled New Trier School District set to produce the next $8 million superintendent pensioner. Take home pay for the top active and retired superintendents ranges from $300,000 to $500,000.

In all, Illinois has more than 100,000 active workers making more than $100,000, while more than 43,000 retirees take in pensions bigger than $100K. Add them all up and they now total more than 140,000, about the population of Rockford, Illinois’ fifth-largest city.

Read more here.

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New Trier School District set to produce next $8 million superintendent pensioner – Wirepoints

Posted in 220, Education, Pension Funding, Politics, Property Taxes, School Districts, Topics Of Interest, Unions, Wirepoints on May 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »

New Trier Township HS District 203’s Superintendent Paul Sally (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner | Wirepoints

New Trier Township HS District 203’s Superintendent Paul Sally is set to retire next year and he can count on lifetime pension benefits of nearly $8 million. When he does retire, he’ll join the ranks of the Teachers Retirement System’s top pensioners.

We’ve written for years that Illinois’ pension systems are out-of-whack with what taxpayers can afford. It’s a two-class system where those in government get guaranteed lifetime pensions and other protected benefits while those in the private sector, who get no such guarantees and protections, are forced to pay for them.

But it’s the superintendent pensions that help bring attention to just how problematic public pensions are. Sally has done nothing wrong, of course. He’s simply benefitting from the system that’s been put in place by lawmakers. The true blame falls on the politicians who created the pension system, those who continuously sweetened benefits over the decades, and today’s lawmakers who refuse reforms.

With no reforms expected in the near term, all we can do is highlight the results of Illinois’ two-class system.

Paul Sally’s exact pension will be unknown until he officially retires, but based on FOIA data and his current pensionable salary of nearly $350,000, Wirepoints estimates his starting pension will be around $255,000 a year. If Sally lives to 82 – his approximate life expectancy according to Social Security actuarial tables – he’ll end up collecting about $8 million in total benefits. By then, his pension will have grown to $476,000 per year – thanks to the automatic 3% compounded cost-of-living increase he’ll automatically get each year.

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And if he lives past 82, Sally can expect to collect over $8, $9, or even $10 million in total benefits.

Sally is already one of the highest paid superintendents in the state. His pensionable earnings are currently the state’s 9th-highest at $346,609.

Now, to be fair to New Trier, Paul Sally’s high salary is only a burden to the residents of the New Trier school district. 94% of the district’s operating costs are funded directly by the property taxes of New Trier residents.

Read more here.

Editorial notes: Paul Sally has done an exemplary job in his long carrier at District 203, which has consistently bested District 220 in scholastic and other measures. Yet his face may not be familiar to most readers, and for good reason.

We’ve followed the New Trier High School Facebook site for many years. Yet we’re at a loss to recall seeing his image in any of the posts. Perhaps this reflects his dedication to the job rather than pandering to social media obsessed parents and realtors as some of his peers do in other districts (hint).

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The big myth that needs debunking: Illinois needs more money for education – Wirepoints Special Report

Posted in 220, 300, Barrington Education Association, Politics, Property Taxes, School Districts, Springfield, Taxes, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)?, Wirepoints on May 25, 2024| 1 Comment »

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner | Wirepoints

Download a PDF copy of this report

Illinoisans spend all-in $44 billion, or $24,000 per student, on PK-12 schools. They’ve doubled their per student spend over the past 15 years – the nation’s 3rd-biggest increase – and Illinoisans now spend the 11th-most in the country and by far the most in the Midwest. Illinois residents have done their job in funding the state’s education system, and their highest-in-the-nation property tax bills are proof.

Despite all that, the system continues to fail Illinois children. Nearly 60% of white students statewide can’t read at grade level. Nor can 80% of Hispanics and nearly 90% of black children. In many cities, like in Decatur and Peoria, the numbers are even more dire. And covid can’t be blamed. The results were equally bad before the pandemic hit.

Illinois’ public education system simply doesn’t work. And yet those in charge clamor for even more money. This year alone Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wants another $1 billion from state taxpayers, never mind that Chicago schools already spend nearly $30,000 per student. And Chicago Teachers Unions President Stacy Davis Gates says she wants “$50 billion and 3 cents” for a new teachers contract that includes 9% minimum salary hikes for teachers. And educational interest groups want lawmakers to spend almost a full $1 billion more every year on the state’s funding formula.

It’s those kinds of demands year in and year out that push lawmakers to pour more money into education with no questions or accountability. It’s all part of the education hustle between teachers unions and the state’s politicians, which we wrote about in The Wall Street Journal.

If Illinoisans ever want to see a reduction in their property tax bills, and if they want more literate and numerate children in this state, they’ll need to push back. But first they’ll need to know the facts about how extreme and ineffective Illinois has become when it comes to education spending. We lay out five key facts below.

1. Illinois is already one of the nation’s biggest spenders on education.

Based on U.S. Census data, Illinois spent nearly $19,000 per student in 2022, the most of any state in the Midwest. (That includes local, state and federal dollars.)

It’s $3,000 more per student than North Dakota, $4,000 more than Wisconsin, and $7,000 more than South Dakota.

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Across all 50 states, Illinois ranks 11th-highest in total per student spending. The states that surpass Illinois are mostly high-cost states in the Northeast like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

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Article continues here.

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New 2023 School Report Cards reveal to parents Illinois’ dismal student outcomes

Posted in 220, Barrington Education Association, Barrington High School, Board of Education, Deception, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)?, Wirepoints on May 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner | Wirepoints

Most parents don’t know just how badly Illinois schools fail their children. In Chicago, only 17% of black, 21% of Hispanic and just over half of white students are able to read at grade level, and yet the system graduates 83% of students. The same façade is on display in Rockford, Peoria, Decatur, Waukegan and many other cities across the state.

To take down that façade, Wirepoints has just launched a new version of its School Report Cards, updated with 2023 Illinois State Board of Education data, for all 3,600 schools and 865 school districts in Illinois. Parents deserve to know the truth – that many Illinois Kids Can’t Read.

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Click here to view Wirepoints’ School District Report Cards.

Read more here.

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Pritzker squeezes Democratic legislators: support tax hikes or expect cuts – Wirepoints

Posted in Commodius Maximus, Elections, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, Unions, Wirepoints on May 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »

By Ted Dabrowski | Wirepoints

If you’ve been in Illinois long enough to go through a school district tax hike referendum, you’ll understand what’s going on right now as state lawmakers prepare to vote on the 2025 state budget.

In those tax hike referendums, local residents are often faced with threats from school administrators that go something like this: Support the multi-million property tax increase or else face cuts to popular activities including art, music and sports. The tactic works, as all too often voters give in to the false choice. (Real spending reforms, like cutting administrative bloat, are never offered.)

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is doing a version of that right now with state lawmakers who don’t agree with the nearly $1 billion in tax hikes he’s put into his proposed $52.7 billion budget. The governor wants to hike sports betting taxes by $200 million. He’s pushing for another $500 million from tax hikes on companies. And there’s another $93 million tax hike on ordinary residents. The governor is not allowing the individual income tax standard deduction to fully rise with inflation.

To get his way, the governor, via his proxy Sen. Andy Manar, has sent out a letter to his agencies and lawmakers that effectively says “vote for the tax hikes or I’ll cut your district’s grants by $800 million.” Those are grants in the budget, typically of several million dollars, that lawmakers get for their districts to butter up their voter base. If those grants get cut, those lawmakers can become targets. As the Belleville-News Democrat reported: “While Manar’s letter was addressed to “Agency Directors,” it was just as much a message to rank-and-file lawmakers – particularly those within the supermajority Democratic party.”

Pritzker has given his Democratic allies the same false choice that school district officials often give their residents. You choose. Tax hikes or cuts to popular programs.

Where’s the harmony we’ve seen in Springfield for the last five years, you ask? That harmony was never real, but rather the result of the nearly $200 billion in covid aid that flowed into Illinois’ private and public sectors over the last three years. The windfall tax revenues into the state’s coffers gave Pritzker and his Democratic supermajority huge freedom to spend and harmonize. It’s what allowed the budget to jump from just $40 billion in 2019 to over $52 billion today.

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More here.

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Illinois has MORE educators, LESS students than ever, yet officials complain about a ‘teacher shortage’ – Wirepoints

Posted in 220, 300, Barrington Education Association, District 220 referendum, Ethics, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, Taxes, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)?, Wirepoints, WTF on May 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner | Wirepoints

Illinois education officials continuously claim there’s a teacher shortage across the state. The state board of education’s most recent “Educator Shortage Report” says “4,096 teaching positions, 1,095 school support personnel, 162 administrator positions and 2,755 paraprofessional positions” remain unfilled. It also says “91% of school leaders indicated a minor, serious or very serious problem with teacher shortages.”

Yet data from the state’s own Illinois Report Card shows that hiring at schools has been booming over the last 25 years, especially when you consider that student enrollment has been shrinking at the same time. 

A Wirepoints analysis of public school data shows staffing statewide of teachers, other certified staff and administrators has jumped by 75,000 – up 55% – since 1998.* Teachers are up by 18,000. Other Certified Staff, among them special ed, bilingual instructors and reading specialists, has jumped by 54,000. And the number of administrators is up by more than 5,000, or 70%.

All that growth has happened despite the fact that enrollment at public schools across the state has fallen by nearly 100,000 during that 25-year period. 

Certainly, some districts may be suffering a general staff shortage or problems with specific positions, like in ESL or Special Ed. And small, rural districts may struggle to find educators in more specialized subjects. But the simple fact is that Illinois has far more educators and far fewer students today than it did 25 years ago.

Students per staff details

Students per teacher

The net effect of Illinois’ education hiring and student shrinkage is that there are now far fewer students for every teacher in Illinois compared to 25 years ago. Today there are just 13.8 students for every teacher vs. 16.7 in 1998, an

Students per other certified staff

Other Certified Educational Staff – which excludes teachers – experienced the largest hiring boom among educators, by far. Today there are just 26 students for every non-teacher staff vs. 144 in 1998, an improvement of 77%.

Combine teachers with other staff and it turns out classroom personnel have improved to 9.0 students per staff member, down from 14.6 in 1998, an overall improvement of 38%.

Fewer students per educator is a good thing, everything else equal. But fewer students per administrator is a bad thing. It reflects an increase in bureaucratic bloat that Illinoisans end up paying for, in part, via the nation’s highest property taxes.

Read on here.

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Brazen election interference: Illinois Democrats retroactively change law to knock out Republican challengers. Surely, lawsuits must follow.

Posted in BOHICA, DARCHED, Deception, Ethics, Girlie man, One Barrington Hills, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, Unions, Wirepoints, WTF on May 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

By Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints

As an alternative to a primary election, Illinois law allowed for a party to get its candidates on the ballot for General Assembly spots by party slating procedure, along with collection of a requisite number of public signatures on nominating positions. A number of Republican challengers have been proceeding accordingly.

But over the course of just 30 hours on the first days of this month, the Democratic supermajority changed the law to retroactively disallow that procedure, thereby barring challengers from the November ballot as Republican party candidates.

The new law almost certainly gives Democrats a win in races in which Republicans did not run a candidate in the primary and could result in dozens of unopposed races.

Gov. JB signed the new law the day after it was passed, hours after telling reporters he didn’t know all the details. He also claimed it was an “ethics” bill. “It really does make sure that we don’t have backroom deals to put people on the ballot and run as a result of some small group of people in a smoke-filled room making the choice,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference in Bloomington. “So I think to me, more transparency is better.” It’s not like Illinois Democrats ever line up their chosen candidates to run for the party, right?

“This is nothing more than a brazen attempt by Illinois Democrats to disenfranchise voters and eliminate political competition. To hide behind the guise of ‘ethics,’ is laughable,” said Sean M. Morrison, Chairman of the Cook County GOP.

The new law originated as a “shell bill” – one on an entirely different subject with a different label, before being changed in the 30-hour cram-through.

Read more here.

Related: “Editorial: State lawmakers in Springfield pass bill to cut off competition in 78 races,” “Candidates feel ‘cheated, violated, robbed’ after Pritzker enacts law ending slating,” “Gov. J.B. Pritzker signs election bill that would favor Democrats in November,” “(With cheshire grins) Democrats muscle through changes to ballot access, advisory questions”

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Don’t fall for the “progressive-income-tax-for-property-tax-relief” referendum

Posted in Barrington Education Association, BOHICA, Commodius Maximus, Deception, Ethics, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, Unions, Wirepoints on May 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner | Wirepoints

“Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to create an additional 3% tax on income greater than $1,000,000 for the purpose of dedicating funds raised to property tax relief?”

That’s the wording of a new advisory referendum that will be on the November ballot. The referendum question is just one part of a contentious bill that changed several election laws and was rapidly passed by a supermajority of Democrats this week.

While the referendum might end up being nothing more than a political distraction, it could also be that lawmakers are gauging Illinoisans’ appetite for another bite at a progressive income tax hike – this time with lower property taxes as a sweetener.

The problem with a tax swap like the one proposed is it would do nothing to lower Illinoisans’ overall tax burden, already the nation’s 7th-highest. Expect Illinoisans to continue to leave, and for the wealthy to leave even faster if they eventually become a target of such a law.

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Here’s what Illinoisans should know before voting on this advisory referendum:

In the end, the proposal totally ignores the cost drivers that continuously push Illinois taxes higher, which is the real problem that ultimately needs fixing. Like the overwhelming power of Illinois’ public unions and their rapidly rising contract costs. Or the guaranteed, multi-million dollar lifetime pensions that keep rising as government salaries jump (see CTU). Or the number of local government units in Illinois, the most-in-the-country, which continue to bloat.

For one, the proposal would change Illinois’ current flat income tax structure into a progressive tax structure. The proposal would create two tax brackets: taxpayer incomes up to $1 million would be taxed at 4.95%. Every dollar above $1 million would be taxed at a marginal rate of 7.95%.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker already tried to get a progressive income tax hike passed in 2020, but Illinoisans rejected the governor’s “Fair Tax” amendment 55 to 45 percent. Illinoisans simply didn’t trust lawmakers to not hit the middle class with higher marginal tax rates.

Read on here.

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Floundering Illinois wind energy program blamed partly on (you guessed it) climate change

Posted in Going green, OP/Ed, Politics, Springfield, Topics Of Interest, Wirepoints on April 29, 2024| Leave a Comment »

By Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints

Electricity generation from wind energy actually dropped six percent last year in Illinois, putting the state still further behind on its goals for renewable energy production. What caused that? Climate change itself, we are supposed to believe, played a part.

That’s the claim made in a recent Chicago Sun-Times news column headlined, “Will climate change suck the air out of Illinois’ wind power industry?” It was written by authors from Inside Climate News, which also published the column.

It was less windy in 2023 in Illinois, the article tells us, and that was because of big Canadian forest fires last year. And it blames climate change, of course, for forest fires.

The problem with the column isn’t just the shakiness of that theory. Instead, it’s that the column makes no mention at all of the vastly bigger reasons why wind energy is floundering in Illinois. That omission hides the bigger failures..

The 800-pound gorilla squashing wind energy production is the connection problem we explained  here.

In a monumental blunder, the federal government and states like Illinois are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build renewable energy sources, but they forgot the cost and difficulty of hooking those projects to the grid. Wind turbine projects simply aren’t in places served by most existing transmission lines.

That problem is recognized by both parties in Congress. None other than Sean Casten (D-Illinois), a leading supporter of the initial subsidies, now admits to how grave the problem is, saying that “80% of the clean energy progress we made with the Inflation Reduction Act will be lost unless we reform transmission and permitting.”

But efforts to fix the interconnection problem have stalled in Congress because the problem is so complex and cost so high. A fix might well cost trillions of dollar nationally (yes, trillions) and some argue the problem simply too complex to solve in any reasonable time frame.

Read more here.

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