-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Top Illinois Stories
An audit found several documentation lapses by the Department of Children and Family Services, including failures to provide evidence of routine healthcare for children in state custody.
Citing the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, U.S. District Judge Colleen Lawless said, "the State’s strong interest in enforcing its own laws must yield to Congress’s decision more than 50 years ago to expressly preempt 'any and all State laws as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan.'”
The bill allows Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs to invest in the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (AFL-CIO HIT).
Frerichs has scheduled a press conference for Sept. 3, ahead of the Labor Day weekend, where labor leaders will join him to announce the state’s investment in the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust.
More Highlighted Illinois Stories
mass shooting in Jeanette Taylor’s ward, a federal offer turned down, and the uncomfortable question of whose safety Chicago actually guarantees.
Rep. Regan Deering said Illinois needs to return to academic fundamentals, including phonics, math skills and higher expectations. “We've really just gotten away from the fundamentals,” she said. “And so, I think getting back to that, getting back to having that higher expectation, making extra resources available to our students” is necessary.
Essendant, a rebranded century-old wholesale office supply company, is laying off nearly 1,300 employees across six states (including 510 at the Lincolnshire QC and 134 at the Carol Stream distribution center), winding down operations and preparing to close its doors for good.
State Rep. Jed Davis, who has battled with DCFS in the past over the agency’s use of interns as investigators, said DCFS is failing to check the boxes for compliance. “And if we're failing in checking the box, how much more are we failing in dealing with the actual humanity of the kids that are caught in the system?” Davis said.
The law establishes an affirmative defense for survivors, which means if they are sued or collection agencies come after them for debts they were forced to take on, they can be legally excused and avoid liability.
County Clerk Tom Holbrook warned the county may need to hire additional staff in the clerk’s office. He said the legislature could help county clerks by revising the law to allow credit card payments instead of cash or cashier’s checks.
The university surveys students, including those who did not choose to enroll at ISU. “And by and large this year, the students told us that it was affordability-type concerns or affordability-type issues,” said Jana Albrecht, ISU's associate vice president for enrollment management.
“As far as voters are concerned, nothing is changing in Illinois regarding the process for applying for a vote-by-mail ballot. And we are, at this moment, on schedule to send out vote-by-mail ballots on September 24th, as required under state statute,” Illinois Board of Elections Spokesman Matt Dietrich said. He noted that the board is keeping close watch on the federal court cases, noting Illinois is a plaintiff on one of them.
According to FBI data, the state saw a 6 peercent increase in hate crimes targeting Jews from 2024 to 2025. “While Jews are a very small percent of the population, less than 2 percent, they constitute 38 percent of hate crimes that have happened in Chicago,” Georgia State University professor Mia Bloom said.
Governors in other Democratic-controlled states are more critical of legislation. In 2025, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed 13.4 percent of bills sent to his desk, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham vetoed nearly 18 percent of bills she received.
“We have a $4.8 million deficit, so we are going to do everything we can to make up for that $4.8 million deficit as fast as we can,” Eastern Illinois University spokesman Matt Bierman said. Nineteen employees left Eastern via the VSIP last November, and layoffs followed.
Illinois’ tourism industry was also supported by over $3.3 million in state grants in fiscal year 2025, helping to promote projects like the state’s Route 66 centennial celebrations and the Illinois America 250 campaign.
The complaint alleges that Amazon’s scheme has likely illegally generated tens of billions of dollars of revenue for the company by, for example, substantially increasing the prices charged to advertising customers on ordinary shopping days and applying far greater increases to prices on high-volume shopping days such as Prime Day and Black Friday.
"At the very least, Illinois ought to heed federal law, which bans the use of federal healthcare funds for assisted suicide, and forbids Illinois from discriminating against those who, like the Sisters, refuse to participate in assisted suicide," the plaintiffs said in the suit.
Revenue in August was up $326 million, or 9.2 percent, compared to August 2025. That beat July’s $188 million, or 5 percent, increase. Personal income tax growth was the main driver of that, as it grew by $195 million, or 10.4 percent, compared to the prior year.
Despite overruns on time, Architect of the Capitol Andrea Aggertt said the $350 million project, funded by the Rebuild Illinois capital construction program, is “within that budget” and they “don’t anticipate going over that.”
Funeral home oversight in Illinois is split among multiple government bodies. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) issues funeral director and embalmer licenses, the comptroller’s office oversees crematoriums, and local health departments regulate sanitation. “I think the problem with having three different entities involved, we’re not necessarily having the type of oversight that we need to have,” state Rep. Diane Blair-Sherlock said.
A spokesperson for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer noted that invasive carp had recently been found farther up the Illinois River than ever recorded, about 80 miles away from Lake Michigan.
Jim Dey: "The bankruptcy filing represents another embarrassment for the local Democratic Party. Having a county treasurer who files for personal bankruptcy certainly will not build confidence or make a positive impression on voters. At the same time, two other prominent local Democrats — state Rep. Carol Ammons and her husband, county Clerk and Recorder Aaron Ammons — are under federal criminal indictment in connection with the theft of campaign funds and state grant money as well as conspiring to obstruct justice.
The plaintiffs argue the law violates their religious beliefs by forcing them to help terminally ill patients kill themselves, and that Illinois also threatens religious caregivers for speaking a life-affirming message against suicide by imposing a gag order on their care.
In a social media video, Ted Dabrowski said he found multiple closed rest areas while traveling to an event in Effingham and returning north. “Illinois lawmakers are taxing the heck out of us and yet they can’t even keep our public rest stops open,” he said.
"Tax-competitive border states are an easy escape for Illinois residents who want relief from high taxes without straining their connections to family, friends and employment. This should concern Chicago lawmakers, as workers can move to Indiana or Wisconsin and remain within commuting distance of Chicago’s commercial hub."
Nearly half of states registered enrollment declines greater than 10%, including Connecticut (15.7%), Indiana (15.8%), Texas (16.6%), Utah and Illinois (16.7%), Oklahoma (19.6%), Louisiana (21.5%), Florida (22.2%), Nevada (23.1%), Georgia (36.5%) and Arizona (53.8%). As always, the political left is spinning these declines as a human tragedy. Not so. Republicans have merely ended the literal free lunch for able-bodied beneficiaries and states.
The University of Illinois College of Medicine renamed its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office while retaining the same director and four listed staff members. The office continues to link to initiatives involving equity, bias training, and other programs associated with its former DEI structure.
Among other issues, the 106-page report focused on a sample of so-called home safety checklists, which the agency is required to complete before a judge determines a child can return to the custody of a parent or guardian. In that sample of 50 cases, DCFS was unable to provide 329 of the 399 required checklists, amounting to an 82 percent deficiency rate.
And unless Congress acts to reverse those policies before they take full effect, Illinois Health and Hospital Association officials warn, roughly half the hospitals in Illinois could be forced to reduce staff, cut back on services or close altogether.
Top Chicago Stories
For bankruptcy to work, a city must have enough to work with. It's is unclear if Chicago does.
"The partner school’s own annual plan says it is guided by 'Xi Jinping Thought,' makes strengthening Party leadership its first priority, expands its 'ideological-political classroom,' monitors public opinion and treats ideological control as an institutional responsibility. This is the school now positioned to help shape curriculum and train teachers with a Chicago public high school."
"The challenge for Pritzker and Johnson is therefore to demonstrate that their opposition is based on operational and constitutional concerns rather than partisan politics."
More Highlighted Chicago Area Stories
Affordable housing developer: "The path forward is not mysterious. Chicago needs a four-year housing agenda built around one simple standard: producing more homes. We can create up to 50,000 housing units and close half the city’s affordable housing deficit with this four-year plan."
According to CPD records, Monday’s arrest was the sixth time Chicago police arrested Johnelle McDonald in the past year. He was on pretrial release in two theft cases when the Red Line incident occurred. One is a felony theft case from February, while the other is a misdemeanor retail theft case stemming from an arrest just nine days before the train incident.
The reduction was announced Tuesday in a memo to employees from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. The memo, titled "Building a simpler, faster Uber," said the company was making "significant organizational changes" and simplifying team structures despite Uber's growth over the past five years.
Husam Marajda of U.S. Palestinian Community Network stated, “Per Palantir’s own admission, it serves to help fight ‘U.S. adversaries.’ This specifically means that Palantir serves war and terror. It means that Palantir gives technology to criminal governments and administrations like the United States and Israel and others, to commit war crimes. To kidnap and separate families. To cause destruction everywhere.”
"While upgrading passenger rail infrastructure is a valid regional goal, it should not require imposing a heavy industrial footprint on a stable, working-class residential community. A primary driver here remains clearing the South Loop parcel for real estate acquisition and a potential stadium project. If the White Sox depart, Chicago will be left with two massive sports stadiums lacking primary tenants — leaving Guaranteed Rate Field to sit underutilized unless substantial public funds are committed to maintain or repurpose it."
Several major provisions remain unchanged. The ordinance would still cap security deposits at one month’s rent and ban move-in fees and other so-called junk fees.
Bryan J. Zarou, of the Better Government Association: "We are now seeing an executive director of the Board of Ethics retire without a known replacement, two members of the board serving on expired terms and no named chair of the ethics board ..."
The administration points to a boost in pension payments, saying that by year’s end, the city will have made nearly $1.1 billion in supplemental contributions since 2023. But Ald. Anthony Beale says, “We have not seen this administration tighten the belt. I don’t see where they pulled up their bootstraps to stop spending and move forward with different things in the City of Chicago where we could have saved money.”
Since the TIF program was created in 1986 Chicago has created 186 TIF districts. A total of 78 TIFs have been closed or terminated.
Rising expenses are piling up across multiple fronts. Settlements and judgments, employee benefits, and fuel and energy costs are set to increase by $266 million in 2027, and police misconduct settlements alone are projected to cost $401 million, a steep jump from the $82.6 million the city budgeted for police settlements this years. Johnson has also committed to a $364 million advance pension payment in 2027.
"Say this about the Chicago Bears: They’re going to eat taxpayers, but at least either Indiana or Illinois will get a stadium. I say this having spent decades analyzing state efforts to lure sports teams and businesses using taxpayer dollars."
Johnson, who did not directly rule out a property tax hike, said the budget gap is driven in part by $70 million more in the city’s bond payments, $90 million more in pension obligations, cost-of-living adjustments for union workers, and commodity price hikes linked to the U.S. war against Iran, including $32 million more in fuel and energy costs.
The official data so far for all of 2026 reports 442 shootings in New York versus 982 in Chicago, with more than twice as many Chicago shooting victims and 100 more murders in the city. “The fact there's 8 million people in New York City, there's only 2.7 million in Chicago. The numbers should be consistent, but they're not,” retired Chicago police chief of detectives Gene Roy observed. “They're just way out of kilter.”
A 2025 inspection of the Michigan Avenue bridge found the superstructure was “in serious condition” and rated the structural evaluation and deck geometry was “intolerable with a high priority for replacement.” LaSalle Street bridge has a variety of problems as well: the deck is in “Poor condition with advanced deterioration," the superstructure is in “serious condition with significant section loss," and the structural evaluation and deck geometry was deemed “Intolerable with a high priority for replacement.”
As New York’s cultural affairs budget increased by 8.1 percent, local arts funding also climbed in the most recent budget cycles in Phoenix (by 2.3 percent) and Los Angeles (by 4.7 percent). In Chicago, funding trended downward in the 2026 budget.
So far, more than 45,000 refunds have been mailed since December, totaling over $59,100,000 according to the Treasurer’s office.
"For Chicago, AI offers an unprecedented, generational economic and educational opportunity — one that could rival the transformative impact of the Industrial Age. Unfortunately, recent events suggest that Chicago’s leadership may elect to bypass these opportunities altogether."
This bond refinancing plan is at best a one-time quick fix that is unlikely to generate its promised savings – now or in the future. And even if the city somehow generates its expected $65 to $71 million, it will still have to dip into its $6 to $10 million in remaining ARPA funds and/or reserves in the city’s Grant Management Fund.
Johnson is expected to release his proposal to close the gap in October, kicking off a frenzied stretch as he and the City Council hammer out a final budget that must be approved by the end of the year. The mayor did not reveal his hand on what new and increased taxes he’ll push for this year, but it is expected he’ll return to the head tax.
“We have turned the page on just this incredible, just nasty, deplorable, disinvestment that we’ve seen over decades in this city, and we’re still recovering from that. We know where schools have been closed, where schools have been disinvested in, where teachers – primarily women educators – were laid off, we’ve seen spike in violence, but now these investments have proven to be effective,” Johnson said.
World Business Chicago receives much of its funding from city and state grants. Several alders are requesting the Committee on Ethics and Government Oversight to conduct a hearing to see how its spending public money, as many have said the promotions look like campaign ads.
"As residents watch their property taxes and municipal fees continue to rise, the city’s operational choices signal skewed priorities. While Chicago managed almost $640 million to shelter and support 46,282 new arrivals, the city funds only about 3,000 beds for its broader homeless population and fewer than 150 beds for victims of domestic violence. Meanwhile, the Mayor has delivered fewer than 600 affordable housing units to date, despite promising 10,000."
The White Sox are the biggest surprise of 2026, and part of the solution has been simple: swing harder.
Chicago had 122 murders in June, July and August, according to city and police data posted through Tuesday evening; That’s the lowest summer total since 1965. FBI-classified “index” crimes at CTA locations are down 29 percent this year through Aug. 23, according to police figures. Seven categories, ranging from thefts to shootings, are all down. Two other categories increased: There were 24 sexual assaults and four arson incidents.
Police believe the same crew may be responsible for the break-ins, which all happened between 1:42 a.m. and 2:37 a.m. Police said in each incident, five suspects wearing dark colored clothing broke in through a windowpane or a glass door insert before taking money and leaving in a small grey-colored sedan.
The nonprofit said it would put money from the sale of its former charter school built with $27 million in state grants into an account it cannot access until a judge decides its fate. Previously, Aspira had planned to use some of the proceeds for its own operations. State officials have not responded to questions about whether they will go after the proceeds, nor have their attorneys shown up in court.
Wirepoints Research and Commentary
Most of Illinois' local municipal pensions are distressed and hundreds are deeply distressed, imposing a costly drag on the towns and cities that sponsor them. 
There's an irony surrounding the battles over solar farms in Illinois. Residents are being forced – through mandatory surcharges in their electric bills – to pay for the very subsidies that help make solar projects profitable. Their own money is being used to finance solar farms that many residents don’t want. That’s exactly what’s playing out in Effingham today. 
Summary and audio SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
FOLLOW US
WE’RE A NONPROFIT AND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ARE DEDUCTIBLE.
MORE WIREPOINTS ORIGINAL STORIES
Much of the routine trade and investment between China and America is entirely appropriate and in America's interest. But inserting the Chinese Communist Party into America's pay-to-play system and its economic development strategy isn't just crossing a line. It's a leap into an abyss of stupidity. 
Illinois paid the price for embracing Fauci's "science." Here's the retrospective. 
Presented without comment. Take a look here 
Recent Comments