She crunched the numbers and predicted the USSR's downfall. Now can she take on America's red ink?

Did I read that right? Unwilling to reverse LePage’s tax cuts for wealthy people, Gov. Janet Mills would like us to borrow another $249 million for road repair and other routine expenses. Want to clean up our state parks? OK, let’s sell revenue bonds and stick our grandchildren with the bill. And hope they won’t need better schools or some other “unforeseen” but completely foreseeable public service.

Slot revenue in Connecticut plays a critical role in helping fund the state government. But July marked yet another month where the two tribal casinos reported a drop in win from the terminals compared to the prior year. 

President Trump’s signing of a two-year budget deal earlier this month may have averted the chances of another government shutdown before the 2020 election, but it certainly added to the exposure of U.S. taxpayers. 

Hear public sector and financial data standards experts discuss how standardizing reported data can improve the efficiency of disclosures by U.S. state and local governments. This forum will feature speakers from the Bond Buyer, the Illinois Office of the Controller (IOC), Northern Illinois University Center for Governmental Studies, Truth In Accounting, Will County, and more.

The idea that U.S. government data could be less accurate than much-maligned private sector accounting seems rich.

For the first time in decades, the DoD issued an Annual Agency Financial Report late last year that it described as the “first full-scope, department-wide, financial statement audit.”

The Pentagon flunked its first ever full-scope financial statement audit. Yet simply completing the exercise represents real progress in the modern governing context.

Future generations will be crushed by the federal government's growing mountain of debt.

Phoenix faces big challenges on pension liabilities. Its plans for police officers and firefighters are roughly 60% unfunded

Lightfoot has floated the idea of consolidating the city’s $28 billion pension debt into a statewide fund that taxpayers from Carbondale to Springfield to Peoria to Chicago and the suburbs would be responsible for funding.

Currently, about 12.8 million American children are living in poverty.

The small South Coast Water District has taken key steps toward construction of a $110 million desalination plant, but the agency faces growing questions of whether it’s in over its head for the ambitious project to be built near Doheny State Beach.