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Michele Miller, executive director of Northwestern Illinois Center for Independent Living, warned in July that the agency’s contingency plan was to close temporarily, then cut down on staff and limp by on reserves when it returned to operation this month.
NICIL shuttered its doors at 412 Locust St. in Sterling for the first time in 30 years as the best route to conserve money, Miller said.
It recently reopened, and business has been limited so far – she’s brought back two people, but because of the budget struggle, some NICIL workers have quit to take other jobs, she said.
That’s one of the least noticed aspects of this impasse. Good people, well-trained people just can’t deal with the financial stress and leave to find other jobs or don’t wait around to be re-hired. And it’s expensive and time consuming to replace them.
We really are destroying our not-for-profit infrastructure one group at a time.
* More from the article…
[Sara Pasley of Dixon, an early intervention developmental therapist] carries a caseload of 25 children. She works with the state, but isn’t a contractor. In fact, the government considers her more of a vendor, and she is paid according to an agreement.
But the state is asking such providers to continue working, although the paychecks have stopped going out. Pasley last was paid in June, she said, and the sudden death last year of her husband Mike, a popular social studies teacher in Amboy, left her as the family’s lone income.
And her cash savings will run out in October.
How we expect these folks - who perform jobs that most of us wouldn’t ever go near - to operate under such conditions is literally beyond me.
* Related…
* Op-Ed: Stop waging political battles on the backs of our youngest children
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:26 am
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The real casualties are human beings without much influence in the political world. No millions to donate to super pacs. No friends in high places. Just our neighbors and families, muddling through as best they can, until it all falls apart and they are financially ruined.
Comment by Aldyth Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:33 am
Again, I would like to hear what the expectations are in tangible returns to the great expense of this willful strategy of fiscal sabotage.
Not just weasel-word, dorm-room, Econ 101 slogans. Real returns.
Business doesn’t work that way. You don’t incur such massive costs without concrete expectations on returns.
What’s the real-world business plan here?
Comment by Wordslinger Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:34 am
Starve the Beast, and if it dies from lack of funding then we didn’t really need it in the first place. The callousness of the Rauner administration, and many of its supporters, amazes me.
Comment by Gruntled University Employee Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:41 am
YES YES YES YES THIS THIS THIS THIS EXACTLY RIGHT ON BINGO! Thank you so so so much for writing that! So much has already been lost. I know personally of two really good social service people who will never go back to the insecurity of social services because they never want to deal with that horror again. And by horror I don’t mean the job they performed. The horror of being undervalued, underpaid, fighting and worrying to keep your nose above water financially every month because of a career choice. Raunerites just think they can casually bring everything back to normal after this. HAH! It’s been broken. It may remain broken for a long long time. Thank you for giving voice to this! Raunerites think they can bring it back because they live in a world of privilege where you don’t have to worry about financial failure. They can’t understand the real world. In their world things “work out”. Just yesterday ” I don’t understand how overdue bills don’t get paid”. I’m sure you don’t Governor. You have never lived paycheck to paycheck. You’ve never faced a medical crisis that could ruin your whole family. You’ve never worried about your old car breaking down and causing a chain reaction that plunges you into poverty. And as you just pointed out he doesn’t understand that a lot of folks have to give up a career of helping others because it is just too unstable and my family won’t make it. Well Illinois government just forced this terrible choice. People have to eat. People have to survive. Now many cannot afford to be in helping careers.
Comment by Honeybear Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:45 am
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats is weakest members.” — Mohandas K. Gandhi
“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
We’re failing. There’s no excuse for this.
Comment by Crispy Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:48 am
And it will be expensive to fix, much more expensive than the cost to operate the system had not been broken in service of Rauner’s goal to effect his turnaround agenda.
Comment by Concerned Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:49 am
++- Honeybear - Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:45 am:++
I hope your family makes it.
Comment by Mama Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:53 am
It’s not a bug its a feature. Make the safety net so costly and poorly run that it’s unsustainable, then gut it all and return to the glory days of the robber barons. Maybe it’s just poor planning on the other hand.
Comment by Me too Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:53 am
Thing is: I suspect Rauner doesn’t care.
Destroy it. It means he can hire private folks to fix it.
Isn’t that the point? Destroy the state, then employ private businesses to ride to the rescue?
Comment by Macbeth Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:54 am
Unfortunately social service agencies have received many cuts over the years, unfunded mandates and no COLAs for about 10 years. Many providers have struggled for years with these cuts and lack of (or behind) payments and are done - many will be hard to replace. Early Intervention has a challenging and lengthy credentialing process and providers are not easily replaced and many times can’t be replaced. The community based services infrastructure is crumbling and both parties are to blame.
Comment by Anna Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 11:59 am
Bottom line- does he even care? By all appearances, he only sees these services as pawns and drains on society. Long term consequences mean nothing to him. He had taken care of himself and his own. Survival of the fittest. And, if he and his buddies in the private services industries can make some money in the meantime, well, those “investments” paid off for him too. Karma can be a &:,!? baby, and I hope when he’s old and febrile that she comes looking for him.
Comment by Anon221 Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:05 pm
Honeybear, I have college students who get tours through my program every year. I have interns who get a little real world experience before graduation. I tell them the same thing, don’t get a job in human services or education in Illinois. Not unless you want to be a punching bag in every fiscal crisis.
I’ve worked in human services for almost forty years and have pretty much seen my life’s work and the gains we made in the 1980s and early 90s taken apart. We used to world class. We used to be cutting edge. Now, we admire what Mississippi is doing.
Comment by Aldyth Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:06 pm
- Destroy it. It means he can hire private folks to fix it. -
These are private folks. Rauner is asking them to work for no pay.
Another example of how financial industry success in no way makes you a capable manager or leader. Rauner never managed anything, he was and is just a self described salesman.
Comment by Daniel Plainview Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:14 pm
It is disgusting that these caregivers are the ones left out in the cold while Springfield burns.
I have had firsthand experience with early intervention providers for my son and they provide an essential service. I am lucky to be able to pay for private therapies for my son but many are not.
This should be unacceptable to anyone with a heart.
Comment by Jake From Elwood Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:15 pm
We don’t expect them to, Rich.
Rauner and his crew believe if you kill off the service providers, you will curtail the demand for funding the services.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
Comment by Juvenal Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:27 pm
==Stop waging political battles on the backs of our youngest children==
This has been happened every year when the Legislature decided to balance budgets by borrowing money. Where was the concern from the Erikson Institute back then? Because the decision to wage battle on the backs of children has been happening for years now.
Erikson asks “can we afford the cost?” That is a good question to ask the families whose children’s college savings accounts took a hit with the 5% tax hike for 4 years and the looming one coming up. Thousands of dollars of college savings will be lost, leading to tens of thousands of dollars lost to student debt, leading to opportunity cost and their resulting retirement diminishment for decades to follow.
Once again, where’s the concern?
Comment by nixit71 Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:30 pm
And all we hear from the governor is how we have to be competitive before we can be compassionate.
Comment by Tournaround Agenda Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:36 pm
Didn’t you know? We need the turnaround agenda so that we can help the most vulnerable in society. [insert banned word here] The number of those vulnerable in our society is growing by the day.
Comment by burbanite Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:38 pm
== both parties are to blame == (Anna)
Exactly!
Comment by Mattman Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:47 pm
“If they be like to die, then they should die and decrease the surplus population.”
— E.S., London, England 1856
Comment by Curmudgeon Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:50 pm
Thanks Mama, we’re fine now. 2008 we got close to loosing it all. It changed our lives. Prior to 2008 we lived very privileged lives. We were elitist, highly educated, highly paid, top of the world. I was politically conservative. We would have been perfect Raunerites. Then the great recession happened. Long story short, through no fault of our own and a series of unfortunate events (death of my father) we got down to 300$ in the bank, no income, no jobs, and applying for foodstamps, before we caught a lucky break and pulled out of the dive. In four years we drained ourselves dry. I had to make decisions about whether to fill up the whole tank with gas or just half so that I would have enough to buy oatmeal, pasta, and a few other long lasting staples. We only had 4 years of lean times but the experience changed my spouse and I forever. We have decent paying jobs with the State. My spouse has a TON of agency to help people on a Macro level and I have a TON of agency to help people on the micro level. So we are actualized like we have never been and are finally starting to gain ground again financially. It was because we had a brush with reality that we do what we do AND work so hard to protect those people who live those lean times permenantly. It’s also why I get so passionate on this blog. I’ve been a exactly like a Raunerite. I WAS just like Arizona Bob. I should say that conservatism IS NOT IN ANY WAY bad. Look at the fine wisdom of some of the greats on this blog, (hat tip to OW). We must have their voice to produce the “temporary better” of democracy. But plutocracy and oligarchy are not democracy and that is what I now fight passionately on this blog. Fighting that is why I am trying to learn politics in our state, again through this blog. RAUNERISM IS PLUTOCRACY. IT IS OLIGARCHY. Conservatives and Republicans should have nothing to do with it! Sorry to monologue again. But I think it is super important to hold up what Rich just wrote and add a personal element to it. We have to understand that this is real and not abstruct. Real suffering and consequences are happening now.
Comment by Honeybear Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 12:53 pm
Illinois has a dismal social service record; the State is under several consent decrees and orders which they violate without a care in the world until the Federal Courts come down on them. Our Governors and elected representatives have failed for over 40 years to properly fund, train, and staff social services. And when the going gets tough in Illinois, we can count on more of the same.
Comment by CrookCounty60827 Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:08 pm
Time for the Democrats to step up and use their supermajority to pass a balanced budget and the taxes to fund it. These are “their” people they are ignoring.
Comment by Striketoo Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:09 pm
Thank you for your insights, Honeybear. Sounds like some of the parents of students I had in school. Some are rebounding, others are mired in debt and hurt like hell to have to sign up kids for free and reduced lunches. My former rural high school (I am retired) now has over 50% students on the lunch program and getting breakfast at school. When I started there in the 1980’s it was more like 15-20%.
Comment by Nearly Normal Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:10 pm
- Striketoo -,
Again, and again. Do you know Jack Franks?
It’s as though if you say it, reality washes away. It doesn’t.
It’s the same answer as it was the last time you said “Democrats should… “
Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:11 pm
nixit71:
Rauner is gutting financial aid and doubling tuition to make college more affordable?
Thanks for that newspeak, Ampleforth.
Comment by Juvenal Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:14 pm
@Honeybear
Thank you for your honest and thought provoking comment.
Anyone can be wrong and anyone can change their mindset on social issues…that is anyone like you who has a Heart.
I’m wrong on a daily basis…and willing to change my mind when Reality thumps/dumps me on my head…What other choice is left?…Arrogant and avaricious denial…I think…but may be wrong.
Comment by Anonymous Redux Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:18 pm
Saying both parties are to blame is not the issue. The issue is the relative positions of the two parties. Tweeking current law, conventions and regulations wouldn’t be considered extreme, and is done all the time. What Rauner wants isn’t a tweek. He want’s to gut unions before negotiating on the budget. Whether you hate unions, or not, I don’t think that point is arguable. So, given that, I think it’s false equivalence, and disingenuous when people say that both parties are equally responsible for the current impasse that we face. They are not. Not by any means. Rauner hid the specifics of his agenda to get elected. All we got was sloganeering, and that’s all we’re still getting. Rauner never mentions what he wants to do to unions when he talks about what he wants, but when the union language is left out, it’s a sham bill. Come on. The only sham here is Rauner, and he and his real agenda, which must not be named, are the sole cause of our current bypass.
Comment by PublicServant Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:19 pm
StrikeTwo - Their people, is that like “those people” you know, the “other ones” who aren’t like me and you? The supposed ones who exist solely to sponge up our hard earned tax dollars?
Comment by Me too Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:25 pm
“We used to be cutting edge. Now, we admire what Mississippi is doing.”
Do you mean that just rhetorically or is Mississippi actually now catching up to us in terms of how well funded and/or organized its social service programs are?
Comment by Secret Square Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:26 pm
If the Dems pass a budget on to Rauner with a tax hike included, I think Rauner would suddenly find his AV pen and “the Dems people” would still be left in the cold.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:27 pm
I hope Sara Pasley and other similarly situated “vendors” are not hurt by this “contract by IOU” process. I fear that at some point in the future, we’ll see stories about how the state reneged on some of the promises.
Since Demoralized seems to be involved in the accounting or financial end of his agency, I’m curious to hear his take on how this IOU process has been working.
Comment by Norseman Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:33 pm
PublicServant, well said.
What a travesty being visited upon so many in this state, continuing through the absolute intransigence of a wealthy businessman whose friends, families and associates most likely are not suffering as a result of this madness. Stop the madness.
Anyone who feels the loss of the higher income tax is worth all of this worsening decimation is short-sighted, obtuse and callous.
Comment by Gobsmacked Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:56 pm
We are still being provided all necessary goods and services for the most part. We’ll see how long that keeps up. I’m not in a social service agency so keep that in mind. Most of the vendors we would deal with wouldn’t be in the situation described here.
Comment by Demoralized Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 1:56 pm
Secret Square, Mississippi used to be #50 in the United States in per capita spending on people with developmental disabilities. Used to be those folks got nothing except through court order.
We have won the race to the bottom. We are #50 in those categories. These days, pretty much everything positive that happens in Illinois for people with developmental disabilities is because the court ordered the state to do it.
Comment by Aldyth Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 2:12 pm
Aldyth, that’s pretty discouraging, considering that I have an autistic teenager who is going to need services for job placement, independent living, etc. when she finishes school. Sounds like we’d be better off living in ANY other state but Illinois….
Comment by Secret Square Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 2:19 pm
Rauner obviously places a higher priority on his turnaround agenda than upon caring for the least of these.
Comment by nona Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 3:19 pm
Everyone in leadership is responsible. Early Intervention and the 20,000 children it serves yearly is slowly being strangled. Madigan and Cullerton need to call their teams together and get a budget done. End of Story!
Comment by NeverPoliticallyCorrect Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 3:43 pm
===Madigan and Cullerton need to call their teams together and get a budget done. End of Story!===
So Rauner can veto it?!?
Governors propose and set what THEY, as governor, feel the spending for items should be.
Governors sign budgets, owning what their agencies will have as resources, and the spending to implement programs, just like all these in limbo.
If you want to say Bruce Rauner is inept… and can not craft a budget with HIS priorities seen in dollars and cents… ok, I can agree…
Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Sep 11, 15 @ 4:08 pm