44 Comments - shore - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 9:49 am: In the 21st century if you are not buying your textbooks online (where they are discounted significantly), then you deserve to be taken. - Aldyth - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 10:12 am: I don’t know how people afford to have kids, anymore. Going back to school used to mean a new notebook, some pens and pencils, and filler paper. You had to buy a gym uniform and make sure that you still remembered the combination to your padlock. Now, it is book fees, activity fees, teacher dictated lists of supplies - including expensive calculators required for certain math classes. I couldn’t believe it when coworkers with kids were telling me what they had to shell out to get the kids back in school. - such crap - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 10:31 am: I still haven’t seen one single story about the real impact of the 24 furlough day plan. Maybe a story or two about how it will impact those affected. My brother and his wife each have a master degree and work as non-union employees at UIC. Neither makes more than $45K a year. Thanks to Quinn and his furlough days, they will be lucky to make their mortgage payments each month. They basically each received a month without pay. No one seems to give a damn about the real people who are affected by Quinn’s ridiculous decision. Do you think Vaught or one of the others who received a raise will give my brother a loan? - dave - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 10:44 am: Thanks to Quinn and his furlough days, they will be lucky to make their mortgage payments each month. UIC’s furlough days are separate from State of IL employee’s furlough days. Quinn didn’t force UIC employees to take furloughs. - 332bill - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 11:20 am: We just got word at my agency that only the original 12 furloughs would be required. - wordslinger - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 11:24 am: School fees are the death of a thousand cuts. When my middle boy was 12, he came home one day and said he did a hundred pushups in gym. He said the gym teacher told him that I owed a dime a pushup for the rec. fund. Yeah, I paid. The Illinois Constitution does guarantee a free K-12 public education, correct? - cassandra - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 11:43 am: I do think that the furlough days should be limited to those with state salaries above a certain level. In fact, in the not too distant past I think that was the idea. If things are as dire as Quinn claims they are in his quest for a middle class tax increase, why not retain the 24 furlough days (sparing designated lower income employees) and apply the monies to some of the late social service payments which we are told are causing great harm to those in need. A comparatively small amount, sure, but individuals would be helped and perhaps some noprofit layoffs averted. The state workers aren’t going to be laid off either way, if the goal is to avoid layoffs and preserve jobs. Instead, Quinn is obsessed with preserving, expanding and overpaying the heavily politicized state bureaucracy. He gave his exec staff a raise to mitigate the effects of the furlough days. He signed an agreement not to lay off any unionized state employees at all, needed or not, until the end of next June. There is no state hiring freeze and there are many reports that he is hiring political hacks at a brisk pace-has been since he took office, in fact. The plan, apparently is to pay for all this with a big middle class income tax at the end of the year. In the warm cocoon of state government the recession is so far away as to be almost nonexistent. Visions of sugarplums must already be dancing in the heads of AFSCME honchos as they contemplate negotiating the next four year contract with a Pat Quinn as governor sitting on the spoils of Vaught’s two percent income tax increase. - Cincinnatus - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 11:53 am: cassandra, The Congress requires that the $26B bailout be used for Medicaid (that would be the unfunded mandate foisted on the states by the Federal government) and education expenses (read sop to the teachers unions). However, since money is fungible, Quinn and the legislator could reprogram currently appropriated education and Medicare funds to other projects and use the new bailout money to fill those resultant gaps. - Ghost - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 11:59 am: === I do think that the furlough days should be limited to those with state salaries above a certain level. === Why? So people with high levles of responsibility should be punished? a drastic cut to somone pay impact their ability to cover a mortgage and car payments. Or are we punishing people with bigger mortgages? I am opposed to a class based furlough program. - Pat Robertson - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 12:10 pm: I believe the U of I furlough program excluded those with incomes below $30,000. That wouldn’t help “such crap’s” brother, of course, and as Ghost points out, people with higher pay tend to have bigger mortgages. And, cassandra, the Governor didn’t give his staff raises in anticipation of the 24 furlough days. He gave them the raises first, and then hit everyone he could with furloughs after he was caught. - cassandra - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 12:12 pm: I’m not sure how fungible those monies are actually. They weren’t supposed to be fungible at all-the Obama admin claims to be aware of the problems of shifting with respect to federal dollars going out to the states–but this is Illinois after all and we have the unfortuhate precedent of the state lottery that was supposed to be a huge boon to education. It wasn’t. - chicago 7 - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 12:12 pm: Who are they kidding. Quinn and his cronies don’t care about MC employees - they only vare about their own salaries. Take a look at the paychecks for folks like quinn, lavin, stermer, hannig, grunnloh, shanzle, and the other geniuses who run idot. Now their taking idot’s head of Personel (the same person who gave herself a midnight raise just before quinn came, who was given that job by blago, and who is now making 150K a year) and making her deputy chief of staff. Who are they kidding? The blagohacks at idot and the governor’s office are still running the show and still making real good money, while the MC employees pay the price. - Cincinnatus - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 12:14 pm: Ghost, Good point. Since pension obligations and union salaries also among the major expenditure in the state, until the pain can be shared across the board, the small initiatives are just like spitting in the ocean. - Joseph - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 1:09 pm: Quinn only talks about caring for people. He has been notorious at being uncaring about staff. Do any of you remember when he fired his exempt Treasurer’s staff “before” Topinka took over in 1994/95? He will likely do the same thing after he loses in November. - Park - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 1:17 pm: I’m going to be interested in seeing how those affected by the furlough days react at election time. Many were certainly appointed based on their party affiliation and will not support a Republican candidate no matter what. But I know several who are ‘carrerists’ who have faithfully served under both R and D administrations. 2,700 votes won’t matter one way or another (yes I remember Brady v. Dillard, but that’s the exception), but a little inside dope on abuses over the last 7 years could hurt Quinn and the other D candidates quite a bit. What’s most dissapointing about the last 18 months is the complete and utter absence of any reform. Instead of altering the power of the legislative leaders, fumigating Blago bad-guy holdovers, or real limits on contributions, we get the classic old ‘blame the state employee’ response. Cut their pensions, force unpaid days off, don’t reward them….force them to unionize or quit. I haven’t heard much from Brady on this issue. But most business owners value their good employees, recognizing that their work is what generates the profits. They certainly don’t try to screw them whenever possible, or drive them to unionize. It’s my guess that Brady would never have pulled a move, which is so harmful to loyal employees while having no significant impact on the budget problem. I’m hoping that these people start looking at some form of protected concerted employee activity (whether involving a union or not). I also hope that they turn on Quinn and his less-than-competent staffers whenever the opportunity presents itself. - Louis G. Atsaves - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 1:32 pm: Park, 2,700 angry state employees who tell their wives/husbands or significant others, who tell their friends and relatives and who tell . . . . and suddenly that “small” 2,700 figure starts to balloon up. Add the pension contributions they will have to pay into their funds to keep their benefits while the state refuses to fund its share to the mix. Add the fact that last year and this year, the governor’s office stated that pension contributions would not be affected, and now they are being told they must pay for the 12 days off last year and . . . My wife is one of those state employees being hammered by this edict among other things. Most of her peers that I have spoken to are fed up with the current administration and the current party in control, including those who are Democrats. This mess is of his own making. He took a ton of good will from those same state employees when he assumed office under difficult circumstances and completely destroyed it. He only has himself to blame right now. - Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 1:34 pm: === 2,700 angry state employees who tell their wives/husbands or significant others, who tell their friends and relatives and who tell=== OK, but on the other hand, the Republican candidate wants to turn the pensions into 401K’s. Are they all gonna vote for Whitney? - Ghost - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 1:48 pm: === OK, but on the other hand, the Republican candidate wants to turn the pensions into 401K’s. Are they all gonna vote for Whitney? === or for that matter rely on Brady not to fumigate all of them, including the carreerists - Park - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 2:08 pm: Rich, if people are so negative about Republicans that they’ll use a protest vote on Whitney, so be it. Are these the same people who voted for him instead of that known radical JBT? The “Pension to 401(k)” is what everyone is saying in the private sector…I’m sure Brady picked up the idea there. Doesn’t mean hes going to do it. But something may have to change, and fear of reform can’t be a reason for keeping status quo. Wasn’t ‘fear of change’ a big part of the defeat of Con-Con? - notnow - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 2:13 pm: === 2,700 angry state employees who tell their wives/husbands or significant others, who tell their friends and relatives and who tell=== ==OK, but on the other hand, the Republican candidate wants to turn the pensions into 401K’s. Are they all gonna vote for Whitney?== I think Brady’s plan was to have 401k plans for new hire’s. Quinn blew that out of the water when he started this two tiered mess that force’s you to pay more then you will ever get out of it and wait until your 67 to retire and are on SSI and Medicare. - cassandra - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 2:19 pm: What’s wrong with firing his exempt staff in the early 90’s. The whole idea behind exempt is that are Rutan-exempt-that is, can be appointed for political reasons–and there is no implied promise of lifetime employment as is the case with unionized and civil service staff. The new treasurer had a right to pick her own exempt staff. If she wanted Quinn’s, she could rehire them. It’s not all about job security for every single govt employee. Get hired politically, get fired politically seems to have gotten lost in recent years. - RJW - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 2:42 pm: I was not hired politically and neither were many of the other exempt employees. Quit with the generalizations that if you are an exempt employee politics had something to do with it. I’m sick of hearing it. - Anonymouse - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 3:01 pm: In many cases, politics has *nothing* to do with exempt or non-exempt. You just happen to be hired in whatever job at whatever classification. It’s about how the job is classified, not who’s hired into the job. Many folks don’t realize this. There’s way, way, way too much emphasis on “career employees.” Cassandra (as usual) knows absolutely nothing about what she writes about. Brady is a right-wing, golf-playing rich guy and (a) won’t win in November and (b) has no intentions of “converting everyone to 401k’s”. That’s one of the more absurd things I’ve hard. It’d cost the state a fortune, and put the state on the hook for far more than they are know with regard to benefits. It’s a sound byte that folks like to repeat, but everyone knows it will never happen — nor *can* it ever happen. - Louis G. Atsaves - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 3:03 pm: — Are they all gonna vote for Whitney?— You left out Scott Lee Cohen. Pingback McHenry County Blog | Sky High Ski Lift Fee Hike - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 3:31 pm: […] But, back to Illinois Democrats making it harder to make a profit at Chestnut Mountain. […] - cassandra - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 3:44 pm: Why would we bother to have an exempt non-exempt distinction then. I’m not opposed to political hiring per se. Politicians need to have flexibility to hire employees who will pursue their agendas (or leave pronto.). There is never enough time. And few would likely admit being political hires. Everybody was hired for their sterling and wonderful quualifications. But exempt does mean that the job doesn not have to be filled using the Rutan process. The politician gets to choose, that is. And if you are hired outside the civil service process you should be able to be fired outside the civil service process. As Quinn apparently did with his exempt staff in the 90’s. - Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 3:54 pm: Cassandra, as usual, you’re confusing exempt with double exempt. It’s a common error, but you aren’t that stupid, are you? - RJW - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 3:57 pm: @cassandra: Fact 1: Not all exempt positions are Rutan exempt. You can still be fired more easily than a union employee but you are covered by the Personnel Code and there has to be some semblance of a reason to get rid of you. Fact 2: I know you seem to have a hard time wrapping your small brain around this, but a good portion of the double-exempt positions, which are Rutan exempt, are not political appointees. Yes, this group includes positions that are political, such as exectives at agencies (Deputy Directors, etc.), but it also includes professional positions, such as the one I occupy. It allows for a normal hiring process rather than the lengthy civil service process. Think of CFO’s or General Counsels, etc. Yes, shenanigans are played fair and square in this category but if you give me an e-mail address I’ll be happy to e-mail you my resume and information so you can FOIA all records related to me to see that I am not a political hire. Started as an intern and went from there. Too bad Rich doesn’t ban people for being stupid. - RJW - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 3:59 pm: I retract my last sentence above on the grounds that it is not civil discourse. - cassandra - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 4:12 pm: The insults say a lot more about you than it does about me. I rare ly get into fights on this blog and I never, never insult anyone. Most ordinary citizens are not aware of the intricacies of the civil service process nor have we memorized the exact terminology. If I’m stupid, most Illinoisians must be as well. Try asking somebody on the bus about how people get hired into state service. You’ll get some interesting answers. Things must be getting kind of tense down there in the ole state civil service, even as removed as state employees are from the country’s economic realities. - Rich Miller - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 4:15 pm: ===Most ordinary citizens are not aware of the intricacies of the civil service process nor have we memorized the exact terminology.=== Cassandra, the difference is you have been on this blog for years complaining about state employees. How many times does this stuff have to be explained to you? You are either willfully ignorant out of some sort of bizarre malice or just plain stupid. Which is it? And I’m truly sorry in advance if you suffer from a severe learning disorder. That would be unkind. But, otherwise, sheesh, human, try to retain something longer than a millisecond, willya? - RJW - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 4:30 pm: @Cassandra: Yes, we are all removed from the economic realities, having parties down here, rolling in our glorious salaries. I can barely put food on my table from working in this “ole state civil service.” I could care less how people think I or anyone else gets hired with the state. I can’t fix ignorance. But, I do live and work in the reality of state government and it has been clear to me for a long time that you have no interest in learning anything about it before spouting off about how much you know how things work. I’m not going to waste my time on your ignorance any longer. I’ll let others call you out on your ignorant rants. - cassandra - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 4:37 pm: Well, it is Illinois, RJW. We regular folks have a right to be suspicious, given, um recent history. Anyway, we’ve gotten off the track here, back to the original topic, which is somebody criticizing Quinn because he supposedly let some upper level staff go before Ms. Topinka took over. I don’t like Quinn, as many have probably noticed, but I see nothing wrong in this. Ms. Topinka has a right to hire her own upper level staff. I’m sure that Quinn would have wished the same courtesy for himself had their situations been reversed. - Anonymouse - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 4:46 pm: Cassandra — you have a right to be suspicious, but you post as though you have some insider information. Unfortunately, you don’t. You’re one of the posters who’s nearly *always* wrong — not just wrong — but so far wrong that it’s clear you’re making some of your “insider” stuff just to get a rise out of folks. Plus, when you’re set straight by folks who clearly *are* on the inside, you repeat the same info 48 hours later — same complaints, same weird “insider” fiction, and same odd generalizations. Why? - Will County Woman - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 8:40 pm: Mitch Daniels was on Fox News Sunday w/Chris Wallace yesterday. Mitch Daniels = the gold standard type of governor. Maybe even platinum standard! Indiana is really fortunate to have a governor like him, I wonder if our neighbors to the east realize how truly lucky they are. Daniels is simply brilliant! During his interview yesterday, he touts the creation of 46,000 new jobs this year alone, budget surplus, cuts (aka fiscal responsiblity), and *NO TAX INCREASE DURING A RECESSION and business friendly incentives that create private jobs, and volia! His state is a model of stability and operating in the black. Much of what he said is textbook republican public budgeting talking points, but it’s all backed up by the fact that it is working in his state. Bill Brady, being a republican says the same stuff that Daniels said, and shouldn’t be discounted. I would suspect that if Brady becomes governor, he would sit down and talk to Daniels. Even though Indiana is an Illinois competitor in many ways, Daniels’ level-headed demeanor/style and interest in doing the right thing would make him far more of an allie than rival to Brady. The last minute or so of the Daniels interview was simply amazing and caused me to have even more respect for Daniels, as if that were possible. He talked about how now, given the economic/budget crisis in the U.S., is not the time to focus on social policy issues. D.C. and the entire nation needs to have to come together to get the federal budget deficit in order if this country is to survive, and our survival is our only real priroity; the tertiary social issues are things we can just agree to disgree, but we cannot agree to disgree to survive as a nation. We can argue about abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty etc. until the cows come home, but what good will it do when the nation is in the proverbial toliet as a result of its deficit? What good has it done? This is essentially Bill Brady’s point about Illinois specifically. Advantage: Bill Brady *prior to the Daniels interview, i’ve been consistently of the view that so far as Illinois is concerned a tax increase of any kind should be an absolute last resort measure. But, I’m increasingly starting to think that Illinois doesn’t need a tax increase. I’m really starting to buy into the hardcore fiscal conservative republican argument on this issue. I appreciate the so-called finacial and budget experts in illinois thinking that a tax increase is absolutely necessary, however none of them have governed during a recession (Mitch Daniels is). - Emily Booth - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 9:46 pm: Indiana privatized their food stamp program around 10 years ago. Their error rate is 1 1/2 X the national average and they were penalized 1.2 million by the feds. This $$ comes out of their GRF should they decide to pay it. More info at this Business Week article: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9GICIIG0.htm - Will County Woman - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 10:14 pm: Emily Booth, thanks for the article. i’m honest; i call a spade a spade. daniels made what ultimately proved to be a bad policy move, but i bet you his original intent had the overall fiscal interests of indiana at heart, and he wasn’t being malicious or nefarious in his attempt to streamline a public service. for what is worth I agree with some dems who say that privitization can be, and is, problematic, because it can lead to oversight ambiguties which in turn make it harder to resolve relatively easy problems in the public interest. - Will County Woman - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 10:16 pm: wait, daniels wasn’t gov of indiana ten years ago, Emily Booth. Ten years ago he was working for George W. Bush as OMB Director. - Will County Woman - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 10:33 pm: Daniels apparently acted correctly in firing the contracted company that made the mistakes that led to Indiana being fined. So, Daniels personally did nothing wrong. I stand corrected @ 10:14. ( - steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 10:39 pm: WCW, Edgar governed during a recession. Is he one of the experts you are talking about? - Two Peas in Pod..... - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 11:12 pm: We all know, Rich knows and tried to point it out too, but the MSM apparently does not get it. Quinn got caught on the embarassing (and wrong) raises for his staff, and ala Blago, the remedy was not to admit the mistake in giving the raises in these tough economic times, but to instead “fix” the problem and respond to the self-created bad press by hitting innocent non-union state employees with a doubling of their furlough pay cuts. Outrageous. Really. Particularly given that they have already been whacked over the last ten years or so in their basic pay relative to unionized employees. - Will County Woman - Monday, Aug 9, 10 @ 11:34 pm: steve, you of all people can no doubt appreciate that this recession is of a far greater magnitude in comparsion to anything edgar experienced. the recession during the edgar administration pales by comparison to what daniels and all other current governors are experiencing. since you are a public budget expert, how do you rate daniels’ performance? wouldn’t you have rather had him as governor of illinois for the past 8 years, as opposed to blago and quinn? - steve schnorf - Tuesday, Aug 10, 10 @ 11:05 am: WCM, you simply said that none of them had governed during a recession, and I simply pointed out that Edgar had, and he is one of the people saying we don’t get out of this without a revenue increase. As to your other question, I am a Republican, I never voted for Governor Blagojevich nor Governor Quinn. I was pleased to vote for Jim Ryan and Judy Barr Topinka. I never had a chance to vote for Mitch Daniels. I have friends and people who I used to work with who work for him and they think highly of him. Elections are about choices, and ours are between Governor Quinn and Senator Brady. Raising Mitch Daniels is a straw man, because he isn’t one of our choices this year. Governor Quinn says we need additional revenues in addition to cuts. Senator Brady says we need cuts, and we should reduce our revenues. That is our choice. I think we should await each of them telling us how their plan gets us from here to there, don’t you? - wordslinger - Tuesday, Aug 10, 10 @ 11:09 am: Schnorf, in an article in today’s Dome, Brady says he will balance the budget in his first year. Details to come, I suppose. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.