Shining a light on Illinois government, record by record
Matching campaign finance disclosures to roll-call votes reveals an uncomfortable rhythm in Springfield: money often arrives in the weeks before a contested committee vote. The timing rules that govern disclosure make the pattern hard for ordinary voters to see — and easier to fix than most realize.
Most residents have never opened their county's annual budget document, even though it is posted online and paid for with their property taxes. This walkthrough turns an intimidating 200-page PDF into a one-hour exercise any citizen can repeat every fiscal year.
Illinois law demands that school boards meet in public, but says almost nothing about whether the public can actually watch. We rank the state's largest districts on digital accessibility and make the case for a simple fix.
A crowd-sourced review of small-dollar purchasing records across Illinois townships surfaces expenditures that raise eyebrows — and more importantly, shows residents how to find them. Every line item below was pulled from records any citizen can request.
Property tax bills in Illinois arrive as a single intimidating number, but behind it sits a patchwork of levies spanning school districts, townships, and special service areas. We combed county-level levy data to show exactly where the money goes — and where the patterns get strange.
When Illinois lawmakers leave office, the cooling-off clock starts — but the records that would show whether it is honored are scattered across three separate databases. We cross-referenced lobbying registrations with committee assignments and state contracts to build a timeline of the most glaring overlaps.
From agendas that appear hours before gavel to minutes that never surface at all, Illinois' smallest boards are quietly failing the state's most basic transparency law. We reviewed notice practices across dozens of local bodies and built a checklist any resident can use to push back.
Illinois' pension databases tell a story the payroll records don't: salaries that leap 30, 40, even 60 percent in a final year of service, converting political loyalty into lifetime annuities. This is an argument for treating pension math as public math — in real time, not in retrospect.
From a request that languished for two years to a denial issued on a technicality, these five Illinois public records battles show how easily the system can stall. The good news: filing an effective FOIA request takes less time than making a cup of coffee, and we walk you through it step by step.
Illinois awarded billions in state contracts last year, but how many went through genuine competitive bidding? We cross-referenced procurement records with lobbying registrations and campaign finance filings to show readers exactly how the money moved — and how to run the same checks themselves.