Open Illinois.org

The Illinois Policy Institute has developed several policy resources for you to use both to get general information on transparency and to learn how government bodies have achieved transparency elsewhere. Below is a listing of our policy resources, on transparency websites, TIFs and more. If you have any questions about the findings in our papers, please contact Kate Campaigne.

Spotlight on Spending #5: Employer Training Investment Program
Rather than giving a competitive edge to a select few companies through initiatives like the Employer Training Investment Program, Illinois needs to improve the overall business climate for all companies to help spur economic growth.

Spotlight on Spending #4: Illinois State Energy Subsidies - Picking Winners and Losers with Tax Dollars
Illinois’s energy resources should be utilized to provide Illinois’s families and businesses with reliable sources of power. However, Illinois is unnecessarily picking winners and losers, distorting energy prices, and driving up prices up.

Spotlight on Spending #3: Upward Mobility Program - Funding a Union Perk at Taxpayer Expense
Illinois taxpayers often struggle to fund higher education costs for their own families; they should not be funding higher education for state employees as well. The Upward Mobility Program should be eliminated.

Spotlight on Spending #2: Tourism Grants - Spurring the Economy or Wasteful Spending?
Rather than giving special benefits to a few specific tourist attractions, Illinois needs to consider new avenues for attracting tourists, such as decreasing the cost of visiting Illinois by lowering taxes.

Spotlight on Spending #1: The Disparity Between Public Sector and Statewide Salaries
Historically, public employees have faced a trade-off: lower wages than the private sector in exchange for job security and generous benefits. That trade-off, however, has been disappearing.

Policy Brief: Time to Throw a TIF- Invisible, Unaccountable Taxes You’ve Never Heard Of. Bob and Rita Smith* are generous people. Every year, they give about $2,000 to wealthy, politically connected real estate developers doing business in their Wilson Yard neighborhood. Bob and Rita live frugally, work hard to save for retirement, and struggle to make ends meet each month—and yet, they keep on giving to the wealthy developers, year after year. Why? Bob and Rita don’t even realize they are doing this.

Policy Brief: Illinois Government Needs An X-Ray Machine. Imagine you’re about to have heart surgery. Would you want your doctor operating on your heart in the dark? Or without looking at your x-ray first? Well, that’s what Illinois government is doing: operating without an x-ray and functioning in the dark. The state budget continues to face a daunting deficit, out-of-control spending, and lacks the tool (transparency) to measure what programs work and what programs do not. The state has little accountability in its decision-making process, and corruption charges and pay-to-play politics have further tainted any trust left in elected officials.

Policy Brief: Working for Transparency in Illinois: Do Illinois citizens deserve to know where their tax dollars go? Less than ten years ago, a state audit found that many of our public officials didn’t think so. More than two-thirds of requests for public documents, the study found, were turned away at local offices. More than a quarter of them were denied altogether. One researcher told a story of a county sheriff who, in response to a request for jail records, “wadded up a copy of the state’s freedom of information law,” declaring, “I don’t have to tell you nothing.”