May 29, 2025
As this newsletter posts, we are in the middle of the final furious flurry of activity in Springfield to land the Illinois FY2026 budget ahead of the May 31st deadline. It brings to mind the logo of The Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” That is true, of course—independent journalism is critical to full transparency and accountability. But that bumper sticker skips over something equally important: government is the proxy for democracy (as it must be in large, complex societies with neither the time nor attention span to decide everything by direct vote). So, is the “darkness” in need of light, or is it a design feature that We the People built into what is our proxy? Today in that darkness, major decisions of enormous consequence are being made against the backdrop of deep uncertainty and instability.
This is especially the case when it comes to budgeting at most every level of major government locally.
There will be a state budget. It will be balanced (technically). And based on what we presently know, we expect it to be passed on time.
Yay us? Maybe.
However, what that budget actually entails, in terms of priorities, trade-offs, and implications, won‘t be clear for weeks. Maybe longer. Why? Because it will have been brought forward for debate and vote at the last minute, leaving legislators little time to read, let alone understand, what they’re voting on.
At all levels, we are facing a real-life version of Chutes and Ladders, with fiscal cliffs and funding ramps everywhere you look. So when you hear “fiscal cliff” or “budget crisis,” don’t just think tax, spend, or service. Think about governance. Fiscal issues are, more often than not, a manifest symptom and consequence of governance issues.
That is one reason, for example, the Civic Federation has been active in Springfield and the media in recent weeks, calling for the $771 million transit fiscal cliff to be leveraged into governance reform to assure more reliable, safer, and cleaner public transit with integrated oversight.
Another concern of the moment is that amid today’s federal uncertainties and rhetorical flourishes, people may mistake our fiscal challenges as bugs in the system, rather than systems and features that we co-curated. So as the Civic Federation stands midstream, we are looking at ways of teasing out greater, standalone understanding and awareness of the design flaws in our local governments. What does it mean that Chicago is the only major city without a municipal constitution? How does that shape our fiscal decision-making? What budgeting best practices should be embedded in how we govern?
Those aren’t just money or taxing issues, by the way. Forty percent of Chicago’s net operating budget is consumed by debt and pensions, which means an unacceptably large percentage of our tax dollars is not going to critically needed services and programs. We won’t build an equitable, sustainable future without better governance. And in a state with almost 9,000 units of government--we’re #1!--it’s not just about fewer units of government, but the right forms of government. And, hopefully, with it, a better proxy for democracy and the future we want to build.
We are grateful to be joined with you in the effort to bend the arc in the direction of that better place.
Published originally in the Civic Federation's May Newsletter on Thursday, May 29, 2025.