73 Comments - Commonsense in Illinois - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 9:32 am: I’m wondering if that’s why local news in Springfield last night carried a story calling for volunteers to work at the fair. While they have volunteers every year, I don’t really recall seeing news coverage like last night’s. - Wumpus - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 9:32 am: Good, then maybe people will show some outrage about the Springfiled Circus. There needs to be some accountability. It needs to be a real solution (1 year or 11 month budget), not a temporary fix. (monthly budget) - Siyotanka - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 9:33 am: So Rich? Does this mean IF the Government shuts it’s doors, let’s say for August, that the State Fair is toast? Or would it be moved to a later date? - keepin up with the jones - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 9:34 am: Now,that Prez Jones has saved us from electric rate; he can led the way to solve the budget( as long as his family gets more). Really the idea of the State Fair going on if the state government has to shut down is really stupid. No budget by August 1st Blago do manly thing and cancel the fair. - Ravenswood Right Winger - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 9:42 am: If it occurs, Illinois will be the laughinstock of the nation. Then the real question is whether the ILGOP can capitalize on it in 2008. - Objective Dem - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 9:52 am: I think the Republicans would love to shut down the state fair and blame it on the Gov. It will fuel the perception that the state is controlled by Chicago politicians that don’t care about downstate. I’m increasingly thinking the Gov’s Budget crisis is similiar (but less deadly) than the Iraq debacle. Both the Pres and the Gov. believe they are right and eventually everything will work out, despite all evidence to the contrary. I don’t see the Gov having any real strategy for resolving the crisis other than sticking it out. - Concerned Voter - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:02 am: If they do get to a govt shut down because of no budget, it sure would look silly to tell people they can’t get there driver’s license renewed, etc.. but you can go ride some rides and hear some music in Springfield. The guv loves his testicular virility, but maybe he needs to think with his brain that’s hiding underneath all that hair and realize he is not going to get everything he wants and needs to work with the legislature, not just be in the vicinity of Springfield. - Macbeth - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:12 am: A shutdown would be disastrous for everyone. The legislators have a moral responsiblity to complete their job. A shutdown would be an admission of failure — and I’m appalled that GOPers are even threatening one. Clearly, the legislators — and perhaps the governor, too — don’t understand the implications of a shutdown to normal, Illinois citizens. And if they do — if they’re doing this *despite* an understanding of the implications — then it’s appalling. - Cassandra - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:16 am: I am not particularly sympathetic towards state employees, whom I view as overpaid and underworked (way underworked) but this type of scaremongering is cruel and manipulative. Billions are flowing into the state treasury as we speak. If bills need to be paid, the mechanisms are there to do it. The guv and legislators should take as long as necessary to pass a budget that does not unduly burden the middle class taxpayers who pay the bills here in Illinois. - Wumpus - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:17 am: How could the state GOP take any blame for the shutdown when until the overtime session, they have had zero input in the process per the Gov’s directions? PA’s gov just ofrdered a shutdown WITHIN THE past month. - Bill - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:23 am: Casssie, Really, all bull aside, they are not underworked. There have been real cuts under the governor.Vacancies have not been filled forcing one person to perform functions previously performed by two or three. Frankly, most are underpaid from what I can tell, except for a few. I wouldn’t do their jobs for double their pay and besides all that a lot of them have to live in Springfield. - Concerned Voter - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:27 am: Thanks Bill, you summed it up well. Springfield keeps trying to do more with less. In various departments, after the early retirements have happened, they have, at different times, gone and hired back retirees to do jobs that are backed up. - Shelbyville - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:28 am: I last worked for the State in 1981. Almost every year these rumors popped up - it never happened. Can you remember programs like the take an upaid leave day? It sounded good until a co-worker found out it was going to effect his retirement. (He was close to the right age.) Blago really doesn’t care if he shuts down the fair. It means that he doesn’t have to go. Wasn’t there some incident with him and reporters and his daughter last year? The unions would have a field day, with that. - Concerned Voter - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:37 am: “Blago really doesn’t care if he shuts down the fair. It means that he doesn’t have to go. Wasn’t there some incident with him and reporters and his daughter last year?” Yes, the reporters “ambushed” him with questions at one point and he happened to be holding his daughter. At some point she started crying and he got indignant. Well, the reason they “ambushed” him is because he was not making him self available to the press much prior to that time. From wht I’ve heard, some previous guvs even had arrangements where the press would leave them alone for some family time at the fair then give interview time to the reporters, but not Blago. Some people even joked that the reason his daughter started fussing was that daddy was poking her in the ribs to cause the ruckuss to get away from the media. - GLT - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:37 am: Those of you who are close to state government know that operations have been close to a shutdown for years now. No funding, no people and no leadership equal barebones programs functioning far below levels considered adequate in the past. An official shutdown is not that big of a step from where state government has been for sometime now. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 10:41 am: CV, the people who made that joke were sick and/or pathetic. Let’s not repeat that crap here, OK? Thanks. - He Makes Ryan Look Like a Saint - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:24 am: Hell is going to freeze over because I agree with Bill’s response to Cassie. Bill you are correct, and I promise not to cuss you the rest of the week. Shutting down the state will be disasterous to downstate. Shutting down the Fair will cost the state Plenty as the sales taxes will be lost. We have all the hotels filled and people eat out etc. If the state gets shut down, does the Gov, and the legislators get paid??? - Captain America - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:29 am: I thought some other gubernatorail remarks, in the article about a possible State Fair shutdown, were a little absurd: It’s totally as I envisioned it in January, February, and March. But he hadn’t thought far enough ahead to address the reporter’s question about approving another one month stopgap budget. Not much is getting done to resolve the budget impasse, I think we will have a government shutdowm on July 1. Blago will try unsuccessfully to blame others. Cancelling the State Fair would be poltical dynamite downstate. So we will have another interim or final budget before the State Fair starts a week or so later. - Macbeth - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:39 am: If the govt shuts down — does the state fair actually get cancelled? I’m not clear on this. In other words, if there’s a shutdown — and I hope there isn’t — but if there is, I would assume it’d be for 24 or 48 hours tops. Does this endanger the state fair? - Cassandra - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:39 am: But Bill— Does all that work really need to be done. Or is it being “done” to provide jobs–the tail wagging the dog. On a related note, the Sentencing Project has just come out with a report highlighting the disproportionate racial makeup of US prisons. A black male born today in the US has a likely, astonishing one in three chance of going to jail at some point. And in Illinois the incarceration rate per 100,000 population is 223 whites vs. 2020 blacks. We haven’t heard much from the patronage job hungry Blago administration about those numbers. We haven’t heard much from the black community either. But those jails do provide lots of cushy state and local government jobs. Democratic patronage jobs. Yes, they do. - Dazed & Confused - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:41 am: Regarding the State Fair, the entertainment, venders, etc. have all signed contracts and must be paid regardless. You shut it down and you have to pay anyway which hurts the state even more. Look at the amount of tickets that have been sold to the Grand Stand events and will have to be refunded. I can see many law suits stemming from this. The leaders, Reps & Senators would be stupid to waste even more money than they are doing by having special sessions every day. I am beginning to wonder if anyone has any common sense. It is ridiculous that a deal can not be reached. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:42 am: Cassandra, color me naive, but I really don’t think that very many legislators vote to increase criminal penalties in order to keep the jails filled up and their cronies in state jobs. Those prison jobs are not exactly cushy, and not very well paid. Perhaps you should try to walk in one of those state worker’s shoes for a day and see for yourself. I’m sure it could be arranged. - Objective Dem - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:45 am: Cassandra, Your bias against all government workers is clearly evident when you say that working in a prison is a “cushy” job. - dan - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:47 am: Would a shut down affect the DuQouin Fair also? - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:52 am: Seriously, Cassandra, did a state worker run over your dog or something? Can you explain to us how you’ve become so overtly hostile to them? And, Dan, a shutdown would impact a whole lot of things, but it would have to go on a long time to knock the DuQuoin fair out. - Objective Dem - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 11:55 am: It would be interesting for the media to cover the issue of what services will be provided if there is a shut-down. What is considered essential services by the state agencies? What happens to the non-essential services? Will there be problems immediately, down the road, or no real impact? Also how much management time is being spent on planning for a shutdown? And how much are state workers worried about it? - JolietJake - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:04 pm: If there is a government shutdown, shouldn’t we be more worried about all the thousands of jobs and state services that would be affected rather than the state fair? Plus this is a question I have been interested in finding out. If there is a shutdown, does that mean the state prisons and state mental hospitals shut down too? And then what happens to the people incarcerated within those institutions? - NI80 - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:04 pm: A majority of the state workforce with the exception of at will employees are people who have been there for many years, and are Republican. Employee paychecks are not about a cushy state job, it’s about doing what needs to be done to keep the state running. If Cassandra is so intent on thinking that the employees do nothing, perhaps she could try working at Revenue during tax season , or maybe IEMA during a disaster? These are not jobs people actually want to do, but they are jobs that need to be done. If there were one certain way for the Democrats in power to make certain that the public does not want them back in, it would be to cause a government shutdown. People do NOT take kindly to being unable to pay their bills, nor should they have to because the governor refuses to compromise with the legislators who actually heed the word of the constituents and represent them. If Blago cared so much about taxpayer dollars and providing us the best deal for them, then he’d have worked towards a solution that didn’t cost us as much as the special session is now. I wonder if he realizes how much support he’s actually lost over this fiasco? - Herself - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:07 pm: IDOT secret staff received email of possible lay off. - Name/Nickname/Anon - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:09 pm: Cassandra: I was a IDOC prison guard for 12 years until I left to start my own business. While I often agree with a lot of your comments you are a mile off base with this one: “But those jails do provide lots of cushy state and local government jobs. Democratic patronage jobs. Yes, they do.” Bluntly - you wouldn’t last ten minutes on a housing unit with that attitude. If you believe that working as a prison guard is a cushy job - by all means APPLY. I can tell you that the state is currently paying out tens of thousands of hours of overtime annually just to keep the prison at minimum staffing because staffing levels have fallen so dramatically under this Governor. Vacation time? Forget it. Relief factors are down to nearly zero at all facilities. And, by the way, there isn’t ONE state prison that isn’t 100% over design capacity. Sure is cushy. As to the “Democratic patronage jobs” claim, this is political puffery and you know it. Line staff are not patronage jobs. It is true that the upper ranks (Chiefs of Security, Wardens, Assistant Wardens, Directors and Deputy Directors) are packed to the gills with political hacks put in by Blago (and all the former Republican governors - by the way) but the line staff are not. In fact, the ONLY Democrat I ever voted for in my life was Poshard and that was because he was far more of a conservative Republican that Ryan was. When I was hired I took the test, took a physical and went to the academy when called. Please lay off the state worker bashing…I am not even a state employee anymore but it still strikes me as over the top. The percentages of useless employees in the public sector are likely about the same as the private sector; to claim otherwise is nothing but intellectual dishonesty. - Justice - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:24 pm: All agencies have been ordered to provide layoff plans that include only the bare minimum staff to maintain security and safety of the facility, or care and feeding of any livestock. This would mean that thousands will be furloughed, without pay, state sites would be shut down and tourism impacted dramatically. This would hurt many, many hard working and dedicated state workers, Casandra. I don’t know what slugs you know but I know that there are thousands of hardworking, dedicated, and very intelligent state workers, busting their hump every day to put kids through school and to support wonderful American families. A layoff would be a terrible thing. If you have venom, spew it toward our legislators or their hacks, not toward good, decent people. - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:29 pm: 1. I sometimes think Cassandra is a self-flagellating state employee. The rhetoric is designed to get people’s blood boiling, not necessarily to be informative…and it usually works. Take it for what it’s worth. 2. If the state fair is cancelled, and my wife misses Daughtry, she will be [PLEASE DON’T SWEAR IN COMMENTS, EVEN BY USING “SYMBOLS”]. - He makes Ryan Look like a Saint - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:30 pm: Casandra, I will not argue that there are some patronage jobs, but they are fewer than you think. I am fortunate to have worked on both the private and public sector. I can say with all honesty I would put my State crew up against ANY Private sector group doing the same type of work (with probably two times the pay) Your sterotypical attitude towards state workers shows your ignorance. I am not sure what you do professionally, but feel free to apply for a state job and come do it for half the pay and see if it is an easy job. That is of course you could get an A on the state exam. - Lainer - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:30 pm: Cassie, I suppose that aside from the constant threat of being beaten, stabbed, raped, held hostage, caught in a riot or killed, prison jobs are really cushy. I think there might be some widows of Pontiac prison guards who could testify to that. - Wumpus - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:40 pm: I am not sure if Cassie is a dem or not, but she probably doens’t know the right people to get a state job. I think her isue may be is that she is lumping all gov’t employees together; from the Cook County, Chicago City, etc into one huge pile of lazy. - Blue Cheese - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:48 pm: Curious, would school teachers be in the same boat as other state jobs in a shutdown? - Also North of I-80 - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:53 pm: NI80: A majority of state employees are Republicans? It’s more like 3-1 Democrats. - Not So Fast - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 12:53 pm: Unlike “cushy” correctional officers, I have a feeling that Cassie is able to perform her job without various bodily fluids/solids being thrown at her. - Also North of I-80 - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:01 pm: Cassandra: A lot of state workers are underpaid, considering some of the jobs they have they have to do. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:03 pm: A shutdown is likely if the following chain of events occurs: 1) The Governor continues to refuse to compromise or negotiate in good faith; 2) Madigan and Jones are unable to reach an agreement; 3) Madigan and Cross pass their own budget, and the Senate fails to take a vote on it; If these three things happen, a state shutdown is likely. Madigan and Republicans know that Blagojevich, and to a lesser degree Senate Democrats, will foot the blame. On the otherhand, if: 3B) The House passes a budget and the Senate votes it down or passes their own budget, or neither chamber passes a budget; I think a shutdown is slightly less likely, because then some of the blame could fall on the House, and Madigan has worked diligently to ensure this falls at someone else’s doorstep. That said, I think 3B is unlikely, because: A)I think Madigan and Cross have plenty of votes; B) I doubt you can get 24 Senate Democrats to vote against modest increases in Education and for a government shutdown; C) I don’t think there are anywhere near enough Senate Democrats to pass a budget that requires the kind of revenue increases Blagojevich/Jones have previously talked about, especially when they know its DOA in the House (BTW, Madigan would hold a vote on the Revenue side of the Senate plan, and watch it go down in flames.) - Also North of I-80 - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:04 pm: NSF: One of my points exactly–don’t forget being bitten, hit and stabbed. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:05 pm: Cassandra isn’t responding, so let’s move back to the subject of the original post. But until she comes back, I would seriously like to offer her an opportunity to visit a state prison. I took a tour a few years back and it was certainly an eye-opener. I’ll help set something up for her. Anyway, back to the topic at hand, which is…. uh…. OK, I just scrolled up. Government shutdown! - Siyotanka - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:19 pm: Having been a SW for about 34 years now…it not been an easy job. 16 years with one Dept and then promoted (via testing and passing) to another Agency to start over again on the bottom of the food chain. I vividly remember I believe under either Edgar or Ryan the State was “closed for repairs” for about 3-4 days when a budget was not passed. We stayed and worked because our Director asked us to…and we did…and he remembered those who stood by him. It was a scary time wondering how long it would go on. Would we be short $$ on the checks…and could we still make our obligations for bills and mortgages. If we shut down, you will still see State Troopers, Correctional Officers, IEMA Emergency responders, and all the other needed personnel. What you won’t see are the bill payers, clerks, payroll staff, personnel, pot hole patchers, etc. I ask–NO I say enough is enough…let’s “get er done”…It’s not rocket science folks… - Team Sleep - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:22 pm: It would be disastrous! My wife works for one of the governor’s side offices and we would, um, be very short on money. And the services that would be halted would be awful. I’m sure senior citizens on Illinois Cares Rx would love not having their medicine filled because the governor and the two top legislative Dems can’t come to an agreement. I would beat a single mother who receives DCFS vouchers for her two kids to attend daycare would not be pleased, either. - Southern Right - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:27 pm: We all know the Governor wants to shut down the state. Don’t disagree. If he wanted to end this he can at anytime. So, we just need him to get full credit for the shutdown. He’ll spin it in his favor in the press. In the future, all state employees should try to save a month or two of income. We’ve got at least three more budgets with this guy. - Distant Observer - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:32 pm: In the event of a shut-down, does anyone know what union contracts say? Several years ago, MN had a shut-down; when the budget finally passed, all the union employees got “back pay” for the time they missed, per their contracts. - the Patriot - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 1:37 pm: Maybe the shut down will help balance the budget and make the Governor realize that we have to pay our bills before buying rainbows. Rich, I suggest the Vienna prison where there is a staph infection being passed between the staff and the inmates. By the way, the DOC officials and the governor have expressed no concern over the matter! - Captain America - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 2:00 pm: Eventually Madigan and Jones - the House and the Senate will pass a budget without much input from the Governor. I doubt that the budget will measure up to either the Governor’s or Senate President’t vision given that Republican votes in the House are required to pass a budget. Presumably the budget will be more generous that the current Madigan budget so Senate President Jones can save face. If the Governor vetos a budget or significant parts of a budget agreed to by the House and Senate,after a two month impasse,that he essentially created by refusing to consider reasonable alternatives and compromises,then I think he’s really going to be in big political trouble. - Cassandra - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 2:21 pm: I’m back. And I’m not talking about the front line jobs although there would be fewer prison guards needed in those types of jobs if the US (and Illinois) had more sane and less racially discriminatory sentencing practices. That’s because there would be a lot fewer people in jail. And the jobs themselves might be less difficult and dangerous if prisons were better equipped, less crowded, and run by professionals instead of political hacks. No, I’m talking about all those “management” jobs that surround those frontline workers. Management jobs are far more available to patronage hires (frontline jobs tend to be unionized, and hiring is regulated by union rules) and the job descriptions can be written so as to require a minimum. Assuming that the front lines have some ability to do their jobs, why do they need so many managers to follow them around. They don’t, probably. Everybody is missing my point here, anyway. I said I thought it was manipulative and cruel to threaten state workers with a shutdown. And I said the money needed to pay them is there, even if the pathway to it is blocked by self-serving pols.And I said that incarceration in Illinois is disproprotionately inflicted up on African Americans. Nothing new or controversial there. - ANON - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 2:36 pm: No Cassandra, you also said “I am not particularly sympathetic towards state employees, whom I view as overpaid and underworked (way underworked).” You conveniently forgot that part. - Cassandra - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 2:51 pm: Well, I’m not particularly sympathetic. As far as I know, sympathy is not a requirement for one’s relationship to or opinion of one’s state (or local, or federal) government. - Fan of the Game - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 2:52 pm: Oh, for the days of Donnie Snyder at IDOC… But, the shutdown is likely to happen simply because Governor Blagojevich refuses to back away from his proposed projects, and Sen. Jones seems to be following the governor’s lead. If Sen. Jones were to see the writing on the wall and get the senate to pass a budget, then a shutdown might be avoided. - "Fed-Up" - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 2:54 pm: Cassie - as a state employee who has had one raise in 6 years and holds a second job to pay for the elevated Ameren rates…perhaps some state employees are overpaid and underworked but the ones I see, including myself, watch contractual workers get more than we do per hour; we receive no raises and I guarantee you the work doesn’t stop because we lose people. A shutdown will really hurt many people who count on their paychecks for mortgages and other bills. I know I certainly can’t save anything on my salary and I have several graduate degrees to back up my being “overpaid”. - Huh? - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 3:05 pm: All I can say is that I am glad that I no longer work for IDOT. I no longer have to worry about the threat of no pay check or getting unpaid furlough days. Cassandra - I have a question for you - have you ever worked for the State of Illinois? If so what department? - Little Egypt - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 3:13 pm: I’m beginning to believe some of the posters here are correct - Blago wants a State shutdown. Why, I can’t figure out because he’s looking pretty sad as the supposed leader of our state. But I have faith in that little bugger that he can turn any negative political event into a positive campaign ad. - Southern Illinois Voter - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 3:15 pm: Cassandra is like a broken record - heard that, heard THAT….move on… All she does is bash state employees & gripe about their health care. Huh? I can answer your question I’m sure - no she hasn’t, or she wouldn’t even have those thoughts. This is from someone who spent 27 years as a State employee. The last 2 under a ship of fools. - Crimefighter - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 3:20 pm: To the folks that are gonna say the Republicans are responsible for any state government shutdown, I said it in the comments on the SJ-R article, I’ll say it here, I will walk up to you and call you a bald faced liar. The Dems control everything and they had plenty of time to get it done, they will be held solely responsible. The state GOP is almost completely powerless to do anything in Illinois now. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 3:32 pm: CF, it requires three-fifths to pass a budget. So, you’re absolutely wrong that the Repubs are “completely powerless” now. And, frankly, I don’t care what you post at the SJ-R. lol - Sweet Polly Purebred - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 4:07 pm: I am a SW with 29 years of service. The agency that employs me has continued to lose case workers, clericals, IT professionals,etc, etc, etc. The one thing we have gained under this governor is a huge number of middle and upper management employees imported from Chicago. Employees like Eugene Davis - former $85,000.00 a year chauffeur extraordinaire to DHS head Dr. Carol Adams - currently filling a newly created $65,000.00 a year Tech. Manager 5 at IDOT despite his lack of college degree or experience in the traffic safety field. Then of course we have the former “Silk Pajama King” - Carlos Estees and don’t forget - the Secretary’s right hand girl and the female partner in crime to the Pajama King - Teyonda Wertz - she of multiple SSN’s. Everyday we are bombarded with more Chicagoans who “COMMUTE” to Springfield to “work” their official 3 1/2 day work week, all the while the gov is transferring more and more positions to Chicago, while AFSCME and other unions sit back and let it happen. There is no protection from this administration’s wholesale slaughter of the downstate workforce. - Papa Legba - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 4:24 pm: I’m positive that Blago wants to shut down the government. His greatest hope IS the the State Fair will be canceled. Why? See the update from Rich Re: Fitzgerald’s office. The little man can further insulate himself from the media and just issue press releases, especially if any of the indictments hit close to home. - IDOT peon - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 4:47 pm: It will be interesting to see what happens with road construction projects during a government shutdown. Will contractors be forced to cease construction? Or will they continue to build without those pesky inspectors and Engineers that force them to build according to plans and specs? What will the unions who supported Blago say when all their members are also furloughed, if that be the case? And this is just one dept. I’d bet money that very few people even know what an actual shutdown would do to the activities of this state! The consequences will go on for a long time in law suits and paybacks. - Anonymous ZZZ - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 4:50 pm: Speaking of cushy jobs - Cassandra, where do you work, and are they hiring? I would love to get a job that allowed me the time to blog all day. - Justice - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 5:35 pm: A shutdown wouldn’t surprise me at all. Call me crazy but I swear it seems to me that the governor just hates state workers. His attitude toward them has always appeared callus to me, and continues to appear that way. I think that is why he allows incompetents to take high paying positions in his administration, with total disregard for those actually doing the job. He honestly could care less. Unfortunately, I think that attitude has followed him in his duties to balance the budget. Do it my way or I’ll wreck the train. Looks to me like a train wreck coming. - A Citizen - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 5:35 pm: - Fan of the Game - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 2:52 pm: ” . . .Oh, for the days of Donnie Snyder at IDOC…” Check out Fitz’s indictments of today. Is that the same Snyder? UhOh! - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 6:34 pm: Rich, Sorry for my near use of a semi-offensive word. But my wife WOULD be PeeVED (a better word, I hope) if the State Fair got cancelled. Even if it got moved back a week, you can bet that 90% of the acts will not be able to re-schedule, and we’ll be stuck with Steppenwolf 2007, Peterbilt drag races, and an Elvis impersonator revue. - Observer - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 6:37 pm: I work for the state and I get so tired of the mindset that we are “underworked and overpaid.” It’s just not true. Sure, there are a certain percentage of slackers, but every company in the private sector with lots of employees has the same situation. We do work hard providing the services that allow the state to function. The taxpayers expect services quickly, efficiently, and accurately. Most of your state employees are working doubly hard to make sure Illinois remains a viable and functioning monolith. As the signs beside the construction zones say, “Give ‘em a break.” - Cat - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 6:41 pm: If there is a shut-down, the ‘vacation’ for most state employees will be short. When a budget is passed, the state workers will have to come back to do all their current work AND make up the ‘vacation’ work! No rest for the weary and underpaid. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 6:50 pm: SDOS, and that would be bad? lol - state worker A - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 7:42 pm: What truly amazes me is that with all this talk about layoffs and furloughs, why is IDOT still hiring and promoting (political) individuals into positions. There was a new hire two weeks ago and a couple of liaisons were promoted into union positions. - IDOT ENGINEER - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 7:58 pm: State Worker A: They do it because they can. Also, IDOT has a fairly secure stream of funding from the Road and Construction funds (what’s left after the massive diversions to the General Fund) and federal-aid highway funding. They ran out two career deputy directors in the Division of Highways as part of their “material reorganization” a couple of years back suupposedly due to lack of work. They replaced one of those deputies with Roy Dolgos when he got in trouble for screwing up Veterans Affairs and needed to be moved out to make room for the new darling, Tammy Duckworth after she got spanked by Pete Roskam. We are hearing they will be filling the other supposedly unnecessary deputy director with some mope who is sick of “working on the budget” downtown. They are placing people who are buddies of Jay Hoffman into positions of authority in the bureau in charge of urban planning without any related education, training or experience. Playing golf with “Hoffy” is sufficient qualification for six figure employment in today’s IDOT. - Lainer - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 8:04 pm: It may be time to issue a Government Shutdown Watch… meaning conditions are favorable for the development of payless paydays, large, destructive layoffs and damaging furloughs, as well as intense speculation and rumors gusting in excess of 60 times an hour. Stay tuned to this blog for further statements and possible warnings. - Squideshi - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 8:35 pm: In regard to the state fair, I still want to know, will there be a Green day this year, in addition to a Democrat and Republican day? I’m not sure that the state can show preference for two out of the three legally established political parties in the state and deny equal treatment to the third. - Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Jul 19, 07 @ 9:47 pm: Green Day at the State Fair? Call Ticketmaster, I’ll take 2. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.