Reading Carol Marin's Sun-Times column today, this passage popped out at me:

[I]n Illinois, we've deferred our problems until it's almost too late. Like in Downstate Alexander County, for instance, where all the squad cars were recently repossessed, and 75 percent of the sheriff's department was laid off. Imagine.

That's right.  The sheriff's department in Alexander County is so broke that it fired three-quarters of its staff and missed so many car payments that the bank repossessed five of their seven squad cars.  A sheriff's department in St. Lucie, FL ultimately donated five of their own cruisers last September.  Read all about it here.