Kane County Reporter

A report by Illinois Policy gave Chicago a grade of "F" in its latest Financial State of the Cities rankings, adding that Chicago—at $41,900 in debt per taxpayer—trails only New York on the list of cities with the highest debt-to-taxpayer ratio.

Illinois state Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) said the City has overextended itself and has overburdened its residents.

"I absolutely feel residents are overtaxed, as are all the people of the state," he told the Kane County Reporter. "We need [to] become more efficient at what we do."

The Feb. 10 report showed that New York, by comparison, has a per-taxpayer debt burden of $56,900.

"That means each of the city’s taxpayers would have to send a check for that amount to City Hall just to pay the bills Chicago has accumulated over the years," the report said. The high debt burden persists despite improvements from one-time federal COVID-19 aid and unusually high pension investment returns.

The study found that the City of Chicago had just $10.6 billion in assets available to pay bills totaling nearly $48.8 billion, and the total bills were more than 2.5 times higher than third-ranked Philadelphia’s $19.5 billion.

That’s yet another indicator of just how much the City is struggling with debt and spending, especially as the city experiences a drop in population, Ugaste added.

"It’s the primary driver," he said. "The people are tired of being overtaxed and know that our pension debt situation isn’t getting any better."

Overall, the growth in Chicago’s pension and debt service costs now eat up nearly 43% of the City’s budget; and after massive increases in recent years, the City has more than doubled its property tax levy in recent years to keep up the payments, Illinois Policy reported.

Ugaste noted that more of a power shift is necessary to turn things around.

"A different party in control as Democrats have shown no inclination to fix the structural problems that have been in place now for more than 20 years," he said.