Investigation

After a Better Government Association investigation found the Village of Lansing giving retiring police and firefighters raises on their last day of work, the board voted to repeal the pension sweetener.

Employees at small federal agency in Chicago rack up huge taxi bills, supposedly for official business. But the BGA and FOX found some rides were for just a few blocks, while one government worker expensed nearly $550 in cab fares during a trip to Miami. Prompted by our inquiries, the agency is conducting a “review.”

Firm owned by Cook County’s former public housing chief, Elzie Higginbottom, wins a $3.2 million contract from a nonprofit created by the agency he once led. But that’s not the only conflict-of-interest question being raised by a BGA/NBC5 investigation.

DuPage County Sheriff John Zaruba not only let his high school-aged son go on ride-alongs with deputies and participate in arrests, the teen was given access to a confidential police database containing information on all licensed drivers in Illinois. The BGA is suing to find out whose data was accessed.

A year after running unsuccessfully for alderman, dozens of politically active Chicagoans find themselves remapped into different wards, a sign that political powerbrokers are looking after themselves instead of residents.

While municipal facilities are plundered in Chicago – with crooks making off with everything from truck wheels to tools and rolls of costly copper wire – bureaucrats struggle to answer: Why is security so bad?