Featured Projects
Water Policy
GFRC researchers have undertaken multi-phased investigations into water rate structures, affordability, and infrastructure needs. In response to a legislative mandate, the Water Rate Setting Study has analyzed how municipalities in Illinois set rates, the drivers of rate changes, and how affordability and equity are, or are not, incorporated in those decisions. Subsequently, GFRC researchers have conducted Water Affordability Analyses for the Villages of Lansing, Lynwood, and Richton Park, in Cook County. Moreover, the research agenda extends into Water Infrastructure Needs, assessing capital planning challenges in Cook County.
Fiscal Policy and Financial Position
GFRC researchers have offered reports on the fiscal implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for state and local governments, the ways in which several states provide cities with general revenue and have allocated federal Coronavirus Relief Funds, and analyzed the financial condition over time of cities across the nation. In addition, GFRC researchers examined the challenges that states face in producing multi-year expenditure forecasts.
Contextualizing Inflection Points in EERE Research Funding Over the Last Two Decades
The Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE), founded in 1981, was the second biggest funder of project grants and cooperative agreements among Department of Energy program offices in FY 2023. Focusing on EERE, this project aims to determine inflection points in the office’s research funding priorities. As such, our project will address the following question: Where are the inflection points in research funding by the DOE’s EERE over the last two decades, and what contextual factors contributed to these observed funding priority shifts?
Property Taxes in Cook County: Introduction to Reform
In 2023, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and the UIC Government Finance Research Center, on behalf of the Cook County Property Tax Reform Group and with support from the Cook County Office of the President, analyzed homestead exemptions to understand their impacts across the county. This work offers insights on how exemptions can affect taxpayers and taxing districts differently as well as options to mitigate some unwanted effects and enhance homeowners’ savings.
How Are Cities Using ARPA Fiscal Recovery Funds?
The passage of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) delivered $350 billion in emergency aid to U.S. states, cities, counties, towns and villages––the largest one-time transfer of multipurpose aid in the last 50 years. Yet given this flexibility, what policy issues are prioritizing in their use of ARPA funds? And what factors affect the decisions cities make?
This project, supported by the Joyce Foundation, will evaluate the barriers to and facilitators of cities’ use of federal dollars to advance community violence intervention strategies.