Center for Municipal Finance faculty and staff contribute to vital academic research on topics relating to Municipal Finance. Check out some of the major contributions these faculty and staff have made to the field.

COVID-19

Paula Worthington addresses COVID-19 Fiscal Pressures in Illinois: 

Illinois State Tax Revenues - April 17th, 2020 

Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund - April 6th, 2020 

State Retirement Systems - April 6th, 2020 

Property Taxes: Assessments and Equity

Visit the Property Tax and Equity Portal

Reports

• A Summary of the Center's Forthcoming Evaluation of Property Tax Assessment Regressivity Nationwide, June 2020
   
• An Evaluation of Residential Property Tax Assessments in the City of Detroit, 2016-2018, February 2020
   
• Estimating Property Tax Shifting Due to Regressive Assessments: An Analysis of Chicago, 2011 to 2015, March 2018
   
• The Impact of Property Tax Appeals on Vertical Equity in Cook County, IL | Robert Ross, May 2017

Briefing

Read a non-technical briefing on our research

Origins of the Pension Crisis

From High to Low

The Center for Municipal Finance is currently engaged in a research project to identify common factors and policy changes that caused many state and local plans to transition from being well-funded to underfunded during the 2000s. This analysis will prove useful to fund managers and policy practitioners as they consider various alternative strategies to efficiently sustain similar funds in the long term.

The research team aims to analyze the actuarial valuation data for state and local government pension funds over a time period of 2000 – 2015 to determine and explain the factors that led to increases in unfunded pension liabilities. These factors will be organized into six major categories including: insufficient employer contributions, deviations from expected investment returns, and changes in actuarial assumptions. The Center will publish reports on each pension fund, and a summary report that identifies common trends amongst all funds studied.

By broadly categorizing and summarizing the many intricate contributors to unfunded pension liabilities, the Center aims to make this previously nebulous information accessible to a wider audience. This accessibility is now more critical than ever, as public attention to government pension fund challenges is rapidly increasing.

Reports

• Understanding How the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System Became Underfunded
   
• Understanding How the Education Retirement Board of New Mexico Became Underfunded