Free Republic

Mayor Brandon Johnson didn’t take ex-Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s word for it when she said she’d left the city in great financial shape, with an $85 million shortfall. It’s a good thing he was skeptical, his top aides told some City Council members in a budget briefing. Chicago faces a $538 million budget shortfall in 2024, with $200 million of it tied to the migrant crisis, influential alderpersons were told Tuesday.

When Esmita Spudes Bidari was a young girl in Nepal, she dreamed of being in the military, but that wasn’t a real option in her country. Last week, she raised her right hand and took the oath to join the US Army Reserves, thanks in part to a recruiter in Dallas who also is Nepalese and reached out to her through an online group. Bidari, who heads to basic training in August, is just the latest in a growing number of legal migrants enlisting in the US military as it more aggressively seeks out immigrants, offering a fast track to...

She couldn't get the microphone in front of her to work. She initially struggled to find the words to express herself.But as the former Georgia election worker unspooled her story of being unfairly targeted by then-President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday before the House select committee investigating January 6, she transformed into the single most powerful witness to appear in these public hearings so far. Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, had been working in relative anonymity in Fulton County until, without warning, Giuliani and Trump fixated on the notion that they had somehow committed actions...

The stretch of Interstate 75 that runs through the city of Cincinnati has been under construction for nearly a decade. Nine years ago, the Ohio Department of Transportation began the Mill Creek Expressway improvement project, at an estimated total cost of $550-650 million. The project's goal is to improve the integrity of the roadway and increase vehicle capacity. But is increasing capacity on a highway system that the state has admitted it cannot afford to maintain — under current funding levels — really the best idea? Like most things related to infrastructure in Ohio, points of view vary. It's the...

Citing state budgeting uncertainties, Oklahoma transportation officials announced Monday that they have suspended construction on about a dozen highway projects, including the next phase of the I-240/I-35 interchange project in south Oklahoma City. "That's going to give us a black eye," Oklahoma Transportation Commission Chairman J. David Burrage said, describing the situation as "bad." Burrage made his remark after another commissioner noted that many contractors already have bought materials for projects that are being suspended. Companies that suffer financial losses because of work suspensions likely will file claims with the agency, officials said. The dozen or so suspended contracts may...

State transportation officials may be forced to suspend construction on some partially completed highway projects if the Legislature follows through with a proposal to cut its off-the-top funding from income tax revenues to $320 million, says Mike Patterson, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. The transportation department was scheduled to receive $571 million in off-the-top funding from income tax revenues next fiscal year, but a joint legislative committee passed a revenue measure Thursday evening that calls for reducing that amount to $320 million. Patterson said such a drastic cut would force his department to suspend several construction projects...

Wisconsin’s highways are seriously underfunded. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s Transportation Fund Solvency report, spending only the $28 billion projected to be available over the next decade will lead to double the number of highway miles in “poor” condition — and will preclude even planning any highway expansions for nearly 40 years. Borrowing enough to spend $31 billion would slightly reduce the amount of “poor” highway miles but still would preclude planning any highway expansions until 2040. But a second WisDOT report offers a way out. Extensive research done last year for the DOT by the consulting firm...

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - A budget analysis shows the work that the Montana Legislature has done so far this session would leave the state in the black financially but with about half the cash reserves that Gov. Steve Bullock wants. The preliminary analysis released Wednesday shows budget subcommittees cutting $46 million more in general fund spending than the governor’s budget proposal. The state would have $159 million in reserves in 2019, compared with the $300 million cushion Bullock is seeking.

Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is hoping the federal government can rescue several critical infrastructure projects that the state can no longer afford.The Brownback administration recently sent what amounts to a wish list to President Donald Trump for inclusion in his planned infrastructure initiative. It includes the following $240 million in highway and bridge projects delayed or abandoned because of the state’s ongoing budget problems: $50 million to replace a section of the Lewis and Clark Viaduct that carries Interstate 70 across the Kansas River between Kansas and Missouri.$91 million to build an I-235 interchange in Wichita.$45 million to reconstruct...

Dive Brief: The Illinois Tollway announced Thursday that it had set a preliminary budget for 2017 that includes $951 million for Move Illinois projects, as well as $336 million for a maintenance and operation program, according to Equipment World.Major Move Illinois capital initiatives planned for next year include the Illinois Route 390 Tollway ($374.5 million), SmartRoad upgrades to I-90 ($163.5 million), reconstruction of I-294 ($56.5 million) and expansion and maintenance of the I-PASS system. The remaining funds will go toward development, repair and maintenance.Move Illinois is a 15-year, $12-billion capital project program financed by bonds and tolls. The Illinois Tollway,...

AGENCY LOBBYING HARD FOR MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE South Carolina’s corrupt transportation “leaders” still desperately want to foist Interstate 73 on dirt poor Palmetto State taxpayers … even as government’s embarrassing inability to do basic maintenance continues to be on display all over the state.How desperate are our powerful “roads czars” to get this Interstate built? Let’s recap …First, they’ve spent more than $100 million on an interchange for the highway (even though it’s not clear if it will ever be built).Next they’ve proposed spending millions more on wetlands mitigation related to the road (again, even though it’s not clear if...

Pennsylvania will be about $6 billion short of being able to fund all the projects legislators promised their constituents during passage of Act 89, the transportation funding bill of 2013. Secretary Leslie Richards will break the news to the Senate Transportation Committee when she testifies Tuesday, according to a copy of her testimony obtained by the Tribune-Review. Pennsylvania's 12-year transportation plan covers about 2,800 projects at a cost of about $34 billion. But that exceeds the $28 billion in revenue projected to come in for that time frame. “The Corbett administration over promised projects by at least $6 billion compared...

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple on Monday ordered deep cuts to government agencies and a massive raid on state savings to make up for a more than $1 billion budget shortfall due to depressed crude prices and a drop in oil drilling. The state had more than $2 billion in various reserve accounts just one year ago, but oil prices - a key contributor to the state's wealth - have taken a nosedive in the past year. The Legislature's record-high $14.4 billion budget for the two years that began July 1 was built on oil prices and economic assumptions that...

Last month, in "Cities, States Shun Moody's For Blowing The Whistle On Pension Liabilities," we highlighted a rift between Moody’s and some local governments over the return assumptions for public pension plans. To recap, when it comes to underfunded pension liabilities, one major concern is that in a world characterized by ZIRP and NIRP, it’s not entirely clear that public pension funds are using realistic investment return assumptions. The lower the return assumption, the larger the unfunded liability. After 2008, Moody’s stopped relying on the investment return assumptions of cities and states opting instead to use its own models....

Nonpartisan legislative analysts and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget office agreed Thursday that revenue dropped $67 million below expectations between January and April, adding to this year’s budget deficit. The increase in tax revenue anticipated following the April 15 deadline wasn’t realized, according to budget analysts. In fact, personal income tax collections fell $65.5 million short of projections. Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes had forecasted 25 percent growth in personal income tax receipts.

MADISON, Wis. — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke once gushed over former Gov. Jim Doyle raiding almost $1.4 billion from the segregated transportation fund to balance several state budgets, claiming the series of moves made good business sense. But after admitting last week those actions contributed to a projected $680 million shortfall in the transportation fund, Burke is trying to pretend she never fully supported those transfers. “When we collect revenue, particularly from the gas tax for a certain purpose, I think it’s reasonable to say that it stays there,” Burke told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters and the newspaper’s editorial...

Maryland is now facing a $405 million revenue shortfall over this year and next, largely the result of sluggish job growth, stagnant incomes and a weak housing market, state officials reported Wednesday. Five years after the official end of the recession, Maryland continues to confront fiscal trouble. This latest shortfall will force Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration and the General Assembly to make deeper cuts than previously expected to balance the state's roughly $40 billion budget. "Another year has passed, and ordinary families and small businesses haven't even recovered to where they were before the financial collapse, much less made up...

Gov. Steve Beshear announced Wednesday he had again re-balanced the state’s budget using millions in state agency funds, unspent General Funds and cash from the Budget Reserve Trust Fund to plug a nearly $91 million budget shortfall. In his 14th re-balance of the budget, Beshear said he was focused on making the government “as efficient and as lean as possible.” “And to protect as best we can the core services that offer help and hope to our people and represent important long-term investments in Kentucky’s future: education, health care and public safety,” Beshear said in a statement. To re-balance the...

Moody’s Investors Service, dissatisfied with the way states measure what they owe their retirees, released its own numbers on Thursday, showing that the 50 states have, in aggregate, just 48 cents for every dollar in pensions they have promised. That is much less than the 74 cents on the dollar that the states now report, suggesting the states are short by about $980 billion, with many local governments, like school districts, being on the hook for additional billions that they have not disclosed at all. The disparity suggests that politically difficult steps taken recently by many states to fix their...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday granted New Jersey a temporary waiver on Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) requirements to help counter a shortfall in fuel supplies in parts of the state following Hurricane Sandy. The waiver allows for the sale of diesel fuel that exceeds standards of 15 parts per million of sulfur under limited conditions effective immediately, according to a letter from EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to Governor Chris Christie. The waiver -- which the letter said aimed to "minimize or prevent disruption of the supply of diesel in New Jersey" -- extends for...