45 Comments - Vole - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 9:12 am: “Their announcement comes even though the Illinois Senate last week advanced a budget that wouldn’t cut funding for schools. Still, the unions said, there’s no money to pay for that spending.” Nice to know that at least some see and call it just the way it is — the legislative shell game of passing budgets and then shorting the appropriations. - MrJM - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 9:17 am: Ok, how’s this for a meaningful revenue idea: 1. We strip the Lieutenant Governor’s office of ALL of its authority. 2. We make the Attorney General the next in succession. 3. And then we lease — in four year terms — the naming rights to be Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. SLC wants to be LtGov? How much you got? Christopher Kennedy wants to use it as a political launching pad? Let’s see your check. United Airlines has more money than sense? Let ‘em out bid AT&T. We’ve got this thing, Illinois, and it’s f’cking golden! It’s time to think outside the box. It’s time to lease the Illinois Lieutenant Governors office. – MrJM - cassandra - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 9:26 am: Is the Shawnee Development Council the only provider for this service in southern Illinois. Perhaps some other agency could provide the service, or the seniors involved could receive direct grants to arrange the service themselves. I’m assuming that these services are means-tested, but of course this is Illinois. Maybe not. This should be a requirement in an era of shrinking resources. Think free senior rides. Anyway, I’m old enough to see seniorhood up ahead and I must say the word senior no longer causes me to think frail, helpless, etc. Or poor. Nor does the word children for that matter. Or mentally disabled. Nonprofits may need to consolidate and make some changes too. The unpleasant truth is that many mimic state government in that they have overpaid, underworked management staff who operate with little accountability. And we taxpayers, the ones who are always paying, paying, have no way of telling (except for extreme cases) which ones are using our scarce monies well. - Joe from Joliet - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 9:28 am: …shell game of passing budgets… Who passed a budget? - Chicago Cynic - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 9:33 am: I visited a Chicago Public School yesterday as a possible place to send my kid. I was told that their budget as of now gives them five teachers for eight grades and that they have enough for 1 1/2 teachers for 104 kindergarten kids. In short, they’ve been told to prepare for the worst. What people in this state don’t realize is that public education WILL be gutted in this state for years if we don’t address the problems. When you can’t balance the budget when times are great, and the borrowing enters this vicious cycle, this is what happens. It’s very bleak as we careen towards oblivion. - Jim - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 9:34 am: This general assembly is indefensible, whether they are too cowardly (or pragmatic, to me it doesn’t make a difference) to pass a combo of tax hikes and service cuts or afraid to cross Madigan and Cullerton, this is the pits. And in reality I would guess that no more than 20% of senators and reps up for election have any real opposition. - VanillaMan - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 9:34 am: When stories like this are being told, most listeners will blame the folks in power and not tolerate any of their fingerpointing. It was one thing to hear about threatened cuts, but once the pain is being reported, voters will decide to take action against the folks in power. For too long voters have been hearing about these things without them coming true. So, they have not changed their voting patterns because many interpreted these threats as political spin and worry. But stories like this will force a change. Voters will not tolerate this. They will not support tax increases, but they will not support this either. The status quo is definately in danger. - Central Viewer - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 9:39 am: STAR BONDS Rich I understand Mt Vernon has filed amendments to the bill and now their mayor wants part of the action. She was ranting last week how bad it was! - Linus - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:04 am: Vole - You said it, brother. (Or sister.) Cass - re: “Is the Shawnee Development Council the only provider for this service in southern Illinois. Perhaps some other agency could provide the service, or the seniors involved could receive direct grants to arrange the service themselves.” Even if SDC aint’ the only provider of such services down there - how is any other provider who’s being stiffed by the state in any better position to take-on more of these seniors who need care? As for “direct grants,” who’s going to pay for them? - zatoichi - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:08 am: Glad to see that the Cassandra mantra of “overpaid, under worked management staff who operate with little accountability” is now pointed at non-profits. Who is paid and worked appropriately? “Perhaps some other agency could provide the service, or the seniors involved could receive direct grants to arrange the service themselves.” Why would anyone take on the service, regardless of how much they are needed, if the funding is not there? - CircularFiringSquad - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:16 am: Speaking of Decatur’s Southlake Paharmacy…here’s an item from the employee news letter….DECATUR - Illinois Rep. Ron E. Stephens, R-Greenville, pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol in Macon County Circuit Court on Tuesday morning. Stephens, an assistant minority leader of the Illinois House, was arrested by a Decatur police officer about 8 p.m. March 15, after he was observed crossing the center line and hitting a curb on U.S. 51. Stephens, who has no prior record of DUI offenses, according to the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office, was sentenced to one year supervision, plus $1,410 in fees and court costs. Stephens appeared before Associate Judge Scott B. Diamond, alongside his attorney Greg Fombelle. Diamond asked him if he agreed to the plea, agreed to refrain from drinking alcohol and understood that he could receive a jail sentence if he violated supervision. Stephens responded affirmatively to all the judge’s questions. As a condition of his supervision, Stephens was ordered to refrain from drinking alcohol for one year. His driver’s license has been suspended, effective from April 30 to Oct. 30, according to Dave Druker, spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office. When Stephens was stopped by Decatur police officer Steven Hagemeyer in March, he was given a breath test, which showed his blood-alcohol level at 0.101 percent, above the legal limit for driving of 0.08 percent. After the disposition hearing, Stephens said he would not make any statements, because he had already made a statement. Shortly after his arrest, Stephens issued a statement saying he exercised poor judgment and was truly sorry for his actions. Stephens has been serving in the Illinois House since 1985, with the exception of two years. Wonder if the help wanted sign is out? Is the drug store on a bus route so RxRon can get to work? - wordslinger - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:18 am: There’s nothing worse than a deadbeat. If you want something, you pay the price. Not willing to do that, you go without and deal with the consequences. - Way Way Down Here - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:22 am: FYI: Shawnee Development Council serves seven of the poorest counties in the state. As for overpaid staff, I know two social service employees who resigned their positions to spare the agency director (a long-term coworker) the pain of having to lay them off. - Confused - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:25 am: I’m getting tired of hearing that we need tax increases to fix our problems. I’ve heard peoplse say it’s been the same for years, so it’s time to increase it. I fail to see the logic in that. If the economy grows, then income grows, and so does tax revenue. At that point, spending can increase. Our state’s problem is that our legislators use very optimistic revenue estimates to justify their overspending to create programs to help them get re-elected. Every year. Without fail. Then “suddenly” we have a budget problem and it’s a big emergency requiring a tax increase. So we got to 5% in January. Then things get better for awhile, and our legislators decide to make even new programs with all this money. But wait, then there’s another budget problem, so we’ll need to go to 7% in a few years. When does it end? - cassandra - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:30 am: Well, if there is more than one service, perhaps they should consolidate, so that more money could go directly to the service. Fewer administrative costs, etc. I don’t wish to speak ill of the SDC, I’m just addressing the example, and the service given. I don’t know anything about the SDC and how it is managed. But as a middle class taxpayer who is being asked by Quinn and the free-spending Democrats to give them more money in perpetuity, and from my own shrinking resources (virtually every economists says the feds will soon have to raise taxes too), I think it’s fair to point out that some of these nonprofits are no doubt run better than others. Nonprofit does not equal eligible for sainthood, as many examples across the country have shown. And it’s very difficult for taxpayers to assess the quality of the nonprofit services for which we pay billions of dollars annually. Or the quality of management. - One of the 35 - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:32 am: Shawnee is one of the best run Case Management and Provider Agencies for senior services in the State of Illinois. The Illinois Department on Aging is now charged with the provision of services to those clients’ enrolled in the Community Care Program. As a previous poster pointed out, who will want to provide immediate services to those needy seniors with the hope the state will pay them in about 8 or 9 months? - Ghost - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:41 am: Confused I agree that the argument we need to raise taxes because we havent in a long time is falacious. I agree that we need cuts to govt spending. But I disagree with the idea that there is bloat or excess in out budget of even a billion dollars. So far I see a lot of people cliam some mythical bloating of governemnt spending, but they never really point to much dollar wise. There is also tis myth that Govt operates the same as a business, and just neds to trim when it runs low on revenue. Settin aside that these two are different, business does not operate so simplistically. Most large business, if they see a donwturn in revenue, look for other revenue steam, (or people get second, third jobs etc). So if coke sees it is not making money selling soda, they dont just trim costs and wait for people to buy more soda, they start making snack foods. The idea that we just cut and wai is a cartoon like simplistic view of economic operations. We need to cut and bring it new revenue to address the problem. - VanillaMan - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:47 am: Vole is right regarding this shell game. It is simple, but legal, fraud. - NotFunny - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:51 am: It’s not really the “state” is it but the Madigan and Cullerton General Assembly with Quinn signing a 2010 budget they knew was grossly under funded in hopes of scaring people into passing a tax increase later. Now it’s to close to the election for Madigan to risk losing control of the General Assembly to risk a tax increase. Some in the media are of course letting Quinn and company off the hook by deflecting blame to the more ambiguous “state”. Should the media is that helping our poor elderly reported in this story? If Quinn and GA had their feet held to the fire on spending would they of maybe not done the Sales Tax Holiday for School Supplies and saved the money to pay the $300,000 that the Shawnee Center needed? - dave - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 10:53 am: Shawnee is one of the best run Case Management and Provider Agencies for senior services in the State of Illinois. You are talking about a different Shawnee. SDC didn’t do case management. That would be Shawnee Alliance for Seniors. - David Ormsby - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:01 am: –I don’t know anything about … – Truer words were never spoken… - dupage dan - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:06 am: Cassandra, You should know a little bit more about the subject before you opine. Knee jerk reactions to specific issues that follow your personal view of the world only serves to expose your ignorance of the matter. Senior service agencies are private groups that contract with the state to provide services. In rural areas, they are the only player. The state is not going to pay for competing agencies to provide services to a small, far flung, population of seniors in a rural area. There is only one agency for each county or, in the case of many rural areas, an agency covers multiple counties. It ain’t like deciding which Wal-Mart to go to, the one down the street or the one up the street. There is only one general store. - cassandra - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:10 am: Yeah, Ormsby, I should just give up the additional cash to the “trust me” folks who run the state. Questions are, well, tacky. And we’ve done so well with the “trust me” approach to date. - Confused - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:12 am: Ghost I agree that there is a big difference between government and business. But there are some things that shouldn’t be different. Like operating with a balanced budget. (A “true” balanced budget, with no numbers that are kept separate, and no overly optimistic income projections. I know for my personal budget I’m not planning on a 20% raise this year, as much as I would like that to be happen.) Businesses will sometimes run a deficit budget during actual tough times, but our goverment (state and federal) run a defecit every single year, in good times and bad. So yes, they are different entities, but some of the basic rules should still apply. Don’t spend more than you have. It is that simple. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:27 am: === They will not support tax increases, but they will not support this either. === Vanillaman - State funding for public education has dropped to 25%, the lowest ever. If you have a secret plan to restore state funding for public education to 50% without a tax increase that the majority of lawmakers will support, we’d all love to here it. - dupage dan - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:40 am: YDD, There is no realistic way to restore full funding to public education without causing some other group pain. There is no realistic plan that will prevent major programs from being shorted even with a sizeable tax increase. Who do you pick to suffer? - Truth Seeker - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:44 am: Rich, you have described a bankrupt organization–the State of Illinois. Can we just admit it, file, and start again? - VanillaMan - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:49 am: If you have a secret plan to restore state funding for public education to 50% without a tax increase that the majority of lawmakers will support, we’d all love to here it. I’m not making that claim, if you reread what I wrote. I am simply saying that as of today, voters will not support tax increases and they will not support government failure. You are making a connection somehow I didn’t make. As for public education, that is for another post. That said, I suspect that voters with school age children, today, do not feel compelled, as were previous generations, to support public education. Over the past twenty years, public schools not met expectations, and after twenty years, a new generation of parents consider alternatives to public schools at a much higher rate than previous generations. We have a new generation of Boomer seniors that do not feel the same level of duty to public education as their parents and grandparents had, and we are not seeing the same level of duty to public education with new parents either. Meaning, that using public education as a public duty in order to raise taxes, isn’t as effective as it was twenty years ago. We are discovering that more than a few school districts are still counting home schoolers within their reports, in order to generate sufficient numbers for funding. So, it seems that we are discovering that the number of home schoolers has been under-reported. When we consider the number of home schoolers that are being officially reported, and also take into consideration these recent revelations, it is possible that our public schools are experiencing a bigger change than has been previously estimated. Be ready for changes. With inflated attendance figures, higher drop-out rates, home-schooling popularity, and the increases in private schooling in Illinois, be prepared to have some fundamental changes in public schools. That 25% drop in public education funding may be acceptable to voters. - Anonymous - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:50 am: I do not support any increases in taxes for anything, schools included! This state is a joke, and deserves no increased revenue until serious changes is made in how taxpayer money is spent. The 1 percent tax intended for schools is just (more) b.s. like proceeds from the lottery going to fund schools. Illinois has serious spending problems. - Louis G. Atsaves - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 11:59 am: I was in Pittsburgh last weekend. Big article in the paper about the Pennsylvania Legislature trying to deal with a “catastrophic” deficit of $3 billion. So what is a good word to describe over 4x catastrophic for our little $13 billion problem? Perhaps that should be Rich’s next QOD? - Bobby Hill - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 12:00 pm: “That 25% drop in public education funding may be acceptable to voters.” It is acceptable to this voter with school aged children. I see no need for Parent Teachers, Community Liaisons, PR Firms, Japanese, Dance class and a whole host of other wastes. - Michelle Flaherty - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 12:13 pm: Those claims of state support to schools dropping to 25 percent are another numbers game. The schools getting the least support from the state are the wealthy suburban schools, some of which get less than 10 percent of their money from the state and clearly do fine thanks to the local property wealth. But when it comes to tax hike time, the pro-tax groups lament the low contributions from the state. So you want the New Trier’s of the world to get 50 percent of their money from the state? That’s gonna require a really, really big tax hike. Many if not most of your downtrodden districts already get half their money from the state. You can have a real debate about whether those districts should get more to provide a quality education in a system based on unequal resources, but this state funding percentage argument is almost as faulty as the lottery funding myth. - dupage dan - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 12:31 pm: =Rich, you have described a bankrupt organization–the State of Illinois. Can we just admit it, file, and start again?= Truth Seeker, do you spend much time on this blog? If not please commit this to memory - The State CANNOT declare bankrupcy - PERIOD. If you do spend much time on this blog please take some ginko baloba - you need it. - Star Bond Giveaway - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 12:41 pm: Hopefully our senators will follow the lead of Capital Fax and virtually every paper in the state and dump this Star Bond mess once and for all. Let you senator know that you expect them to vote against this massive giveaway of state sales tax - Sueann - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 1:02 pm: Why increase taxes when the spending won’t stop? Remember when the lottery was publicized as an education funding measure and then it turned out, in reality, to just increase the amount of funding that was availiable to be spent on more of everything else? If history is a guide, a tax increase would just go to additional new vote buying programs while the business as usual would continue. Nothing ever seems to change in Illinois including the same politicians who routinely get re-elected - wordslinger - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 2:30 pm: –I see no need for Parent Teachers, Community Liaisons, PR Firms, Japanese, Dance class and a whole host of other wastes.– Bobby Hill? The great Cubs 3rd base prospect from the turn of the century (what do you call 200-2010 — the 00s?). Problem with dance and Japanese? Come on, brother, it’s school. Learning. School curriculum, performance and funding is a little more complicated than that, isn’t it? - Justice - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 2:31 pm: The first to get hammered in a budget crisis, or in this case a failure of our spineless legislators to act and make the hard choices, is the poor, the old, the mentally handicapped. These are the ones with the weakest lobbies, and the ones whose voices are not heard above the roar of unions and special interest groups. The measure of a society is how it treats their very young and their very old, and how they care for their weak. We are a sorry lot in that regard and the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of those we elected, the career politicians full of self importance and bought actions. The sad fact is there is no money and there is a huge debt. We spend our money on high profile projects and ignore the weakest members of our society. We cannot borrow, but must cut; we cannot tax, but must cut. We all must share the pain but we still must care for our most vulnerable. - dupage progressive - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 2:34 pm: If there was audio on the cap fax blog, I’d do the “goin’ down” sound effect legislators whistle on the house/ senate floor when a bill is about to crash & burn. - The KQ - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 2:34 pm: An interesting fact is that the Lottery was not created to fund education. The document link is to an article that talks about education funding and the Lottery - Interesting read. “The government of Illinois finally enacted lottery legislation on December 1, 1973, and the first lottery tickets were sold on July 30, 1974. Remarkably, the politicians created the Chicago area Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) on the same date and authorized $171 million of annual funding for it. Even though the lottery legislation did not mention that lottery funds were to be used for the RTA, the legislators apparently reached an informal agreement to that effect (Gilbert 1973b). In effect, the state was undertaking a money-laundering scheme (legal because the state made it so) in which lottery revenues funded the RTA.”…The lottery legislation was revised in 1985 to earmark net lottery revenues for education. http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_10_3_03_gribbin.pdf - Bill - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 2:51 pm: Word, Ive got two for Wrigley tomorrow if you are interested. - wordslinger - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 3:36 pm: Cubs-Pirates? A couple of hondos minimum for the experience? Done that. Thanks Bill, but my kid has a lacrosse round-robin. Awesome game. Hockey on turf, but you can hit more. - Bill - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 4:06 pm: Nah, these woulda been on me. Enjoy the lacrosse game. I hope the weather is nice. - Sueann - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 4:45 pm: I must say KQ, that is a very interesting read and thank you for posting the link to it. I particularly liked the comment by Rep. Hudson, “…how many months it would be before we start raising payments for welfare so that these people can purchase more lottery tickets?” I don’t know why, but I was previosly always under the assumption that the lottery was marketed to the voters as an education booster. In any event though as per my original post it just created more money to squander by the politicians and by raisng taxes my theory is that past due bills will not be paid and instead just more programs of entitlements will be enacted - state worker - Friday, May 14, 10 @ 6:27 pm: They should take all the State cars. I have to pay to drive to work everyday so why do Administrators in the Department of Juvenile Justice get to keep the State cars 24/7 They are not working 24 hours a day. Take the cars! - Ronbo - Saturday, May 15, 10 @ 9:04 am: To Central viewer: Tthe Mt Vernon Mayor said its bad to give it to one community and put them at a competitive disadvantage. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.