* The US House passed a budget today that includes money to buy the vacant Thomson prison. Trouble is, the cash is a drop in the bucket…
Earlier this year, the Obama administration asked for $170 million to purchase the vacant [Thomson] prison. But the request was reduced to $95 million, Traci Billingsley, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said in an e-mail today.
“It still has to be considered in the Senate, and we remain hopeful that we will get the necessary funding,” she said.
The prison will be auctioned by the state later this month, but the government cannot legally accept anything less than its appraised value of $219.9 million. The bill now goes to the Senate, which may change the budget level. We’ll see.
And AFSCME restated its call to halt the sale altogether. From a press release…
The union that represents frontline employees in the Illinois Department of Corrections is calling on Governor Quinn to halt the scheduled auction of the Thomson Correctional Center.
“It would be a mistake to sell off Thomson when the Illinois prison system is so severely overcrowded,” said Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31.
As of the end of November, there were 48,510 inmates in IDOC facilities—putting the prison system at 148% of rated capacity.
“That kind of overcrowding greatly increases inmate tensions and the potential for violence,” Bayer said. “The beds at Thomson are urgently needed to reduce the dangerous overcrowding in other IDOC facilities.”
“The prison population has increased by 3,000 inmates in just the past few months,” Bayer noted. “It doesn’t make sense to sell off Thomson at a time when the system is experiencing that kind of growth.”
COMPTROLLER DAN HYNES ENDORSES RAHM EMANUEL FOR MAYOR
Says Rahm has the strength to see reform through
“The challenges facing the city of Chicago are great, and Rahm Emanuel is the candidate with the strength, experience and determination to meet them,” said Hynes. “Throughout his career, Rahm has fought tirelessly on behalf of average Chicagoans and Americans, whether it was taking on the NRA to prevent criminals from obtaining guns or taking on the federal bureaucracy to make it easier for college students to apply for financial aid. His plans to make our streets safe, our schools strong, and our city finances stable are what Chicago needs at this critical time.”
Rahm is honored by the Comptroller’s endorsement. “Comptroller Hynes has been a constant check on mismanagement in Illinois government, as the architect of the ban on pay-to-play and an advocate for government transparency and fiscal responsibility. I am honored to have his support as I work to bring greater accountability to city government and end business as usual in Chicago.”
Hynes will join Rahm for campaign events on the South and Southwest sides on Saturday.
Thoughts?
…Adding… Gery Chico said he doesn’t want a new casino downtown…
He pointed to northwest Indiana’s casinos as proof that Chicagoans will travel if they want to gamble.
“People find their way there. This does not have to be right downtown,” Chico said. “This could be in an area where we could get the greatest economic impact to help our residents with jobs and tax revenues and other fee income for the city.”
But where? Surely not in a neighborhood. I asked the Chico campaign for a more complete explanation, but they need to get back to me.
…Adding… The Chico campaign claims that he’s not actually ruling anything out, but that it just doesn’t have to be in downtown, regardless of what the story says. He’s simply looking for the best place to create the most jobs and the most economic development.
So it’s reassuring that in the early phase of Chicago’s mayoral election the candidates have spent more time talking about the city’s future than attacking each other.
A Chicago marketing company has launched an effort to try to get neighbors not to put chairs in street parking spaces when they shovel them out after snow storms.
Blocking out shoveled street parking spaces, or “dibs,” is a Chicago tradition. On Wednesday, the marketing firm Proximity Chicago launched a community effort called Chair Free Chicago. The company calls it a movement of citizens who think public spaces should remain public.They call putting out the chairs a polarizing tradition.
* But you won’t get an answer from Rahm Emanuel at a debate because he’s only going to one. The Sun-Times isn’t pleased about that…
He owes it to the people of Chicago, who deserve every opportunity to question and study the candidates up close and as a group during this abbreviated election season. And if Emanuel fails to show up, the voters — and, for that matter, newspaper editorial boards — are right to hold it against him.
I hope they do, and I hope they make it clear during their endorsement session with him.
We don’t care where he sends his kids to school. […]
We know this is a sore point for many Chicagoans who question how serious a mayor can be about improving the public schools if he or she won’t even send his or her own kids there.
But we also know there’s not a parent in town who wouldn’t send their own son or daughter to the best school they could afford and could get the kid into, public or private. No apologies.
Chico has said that Emanuel absolutely must send his kids to public school. That makes Chico more out of touch with the parents of Chicago than Emanuel.
* Related…
* Gay leader backs Chico: Rick Garcia, who is gay and Catholic, fought to legalize civil unions in Illinois and helped shepherd the bill through the General Assembly last week. He is executive director of Equality Illinois. “As mayor, Gery Chico will be a mayor for all people,” said Garcia. “He is the right man at the right time to lead this city.”
* Lawyer Targets Emanuel’s Family Plans: Burton Odelson, the election lawyer who alleges that Emanuel does not meet residency requirements to run in the Feb. 22 election, is hoping to question Emanuel’s wife Amy Rule and also wants to subpoena Langdon Neal, the chairman of the city’s Board of Election Commissioners.
* Wal-Mart finds site for first North Side store: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has found a site for its first small-box store in Chicago, with a deal to lease about 30,000 square feet in a three-level retail center in the Lakeview neighborhood, according to real estate sources.
* Mayor Daley is not pleased at all with the pension reform bill and is cranking up the rhetoric against Gov. Pat Quinn…
Much of the Chicago City Council sent a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn [yesterday] urging him not to sign a pension reform bill passed by the General Assembly as Mayor Richard Daley again lambasted the plan.
Daley has been publicly attacking the bill at every opportunity over the past week, saying it would lead to the biggest property tax increase in Chicago history.
Daley said he doesn’t know whether Quinn will listen to Chicago officials’ pleas not to sign the legislation, but he said he and Quinn have different views on raising taxes.
“(Quinn) wants to tax people. What can I do?” Daley said.
“This is the highest real estate tax increase in the history of Chicago, and that’s only for fire and police,” Daley said. “If you put the other unions in there, it’s about $1.2 billion in one year. … This will really hit the people. How are you gonna sell your home even if you’re retired? Who would want to buy your home? Buyer beware.”
* Daley even briefly held out the possibility of a pension fund bankruptcy…
“I’m one who believes that pension funds can go bankrupt and then you reorganize, and that’s the hardest thing to say,” Daley said during a panel with other mayors at the Global Metro Summit.
Talking to reporters afterward, Daley said he simply wanted to paint a worst-case scenario if public employees don’t agree to contribute more to help pay for their pensions.
“And in that sense, (bankruptcy is) the end result of something that would take place, but we should not get to that position,” the mayor said.
Asked about using the term “bankruptcy,” Daley said: “Yeah, well, yeah, just in the sense that it comes to financial crisis, you don’t want to get to that. What we’re saying there are solutions prior to that.”
The problem with the reform bill, according to Daley, is the steep increase in mandated municipal contributions to pension funds, beginning in 2015. The bill further mandates that those contributions be paid for via the property tax.
Actually, the bill itself does not mandate that the contributions be paid for via the property tax.
I just got off the phone with Sen. Terry Link, one of the chief sponsors, who says that some staff experts are saying that existing law may actually mandate this be paid for by property taxes. If so, Link says he and the Senate President would be willing to include language in the trailer bill to change this requirement. The trailer bill will also move that 2015 start date to probably 2020.
Maybe now things can quiet down a bit, but don’t hold your breath.
* I don’t spend much time at the Capitol when the General Assembly isn’t in session, but when they returned to town after the election I noticed lots of paint peeling off the walls inside the 3rd Floor dome. Apparently, it’s going to cost the state big bucks to fix…
Fixing peeling paint inside the Capitol dome is going to cost the state more than $137,000. […]
The peeling paint was discovered last summer on part of the interior dome above the Capitol’s third floor. The paint, which is peeling in about a half-dozen spots, is easily visible to the naked eye.
Although the area where the paint is peeling appears to be constructed of stone blocks, it is actually plaster painted to look like stone. […]
Paint on that part of the dome has been subject to peeling before, the last time in 2005. State officials believe high heat and humidity in that part of the building caused the paint to peel. The entire dome acts as a sort of natural chimney in the building.
They’re using a different paint now, so maybe this won’t happen again. I sure hope not. It looks very bad, and the cost is just huge.
* The prison underwear shortage isn’t necessarily the state budget’s fault, but it’s pretty darned weird and it’s causing problems and forcing the state to pay more money…
State prison officials have averted a potential crisis behind bars: A shortage of undies for inmates.
As part of a supply problem rooted in a global surge in cotton prices, the company hired to supply the material for boxer shorts worn by prisoners refused to deliver because it couldn’t make money on its contract.
Facing the prospect of having inmates with no skivvies, state officials this week hired another company to supply the cloth. The new contract is worth $183,800, which is an estimated $50,000 more than what the state had originally planned to spend, according to documents.
An official at the Florida-based company that pulled out of its contract says Illinois isn’t alone.
Robin Resnick, vice president of sales for J, Weinstein & Sons, said the firm has told other states where it does business that the rapid rise in cotton prices means they won’t deliver at prices agreed to in previous years.
* Best Statehouse lobbyist - Contract (the “hired guns” in the building)
* Best Statehouse lobbyist - In-house (Business/corporate, labor, major association, etc.)
* Best Statehouse lobbyist - Do-gooder
* Best Statehouse “insider”
I broke the lobsters up into categories at your request. As always, remember that I look at intensity of the responses a whole lot more than I look at actual vote tallies. So, explain your votes or your favorites may not win.
Also, please do your best to nominate people in all four categories. Thanks.
* Yesterday’s commenters were so adamantly and numerically in favor of Shaw Decremer for best legislative campaign staffer that it was a pretty easy decision on my part. Decremer works for House Democratic staff…
Best legislative campaign staffer has to be Shaw Decremer - pulling Mike Smith from the brink in ‘06, McAsey in ‘08 blew out Hassert, and Mussman against the wave in ‘10. Everyone else is a pretender to the throne. Best=wins. Show me anyone else with that track record in seriously competitive races.
More…
He often tells DPI and those “above him” to take a hike when he feels they are moving in the wrong direction. He is, without a doubt, the best campaign manager in Illinois.
Decremer also had a lot to do with the House Dems’ other suburban wins. He’s the hands-down winner. Honorable mention goes to Heather Weir Vaught, who worked with Decremer on the Michelle Mussman campaign.
* Best staffer for the constitutional and congressional campaigns goes to Eric Elk, who ran the Kirk for Senate effort. Eric was one of my personal choices, but others chimed in as well…
He steered the Kirk campaign to victory in spite of some serious crises within the campaign. Yes, Alexi was less than perfect, but Elk won a top tier US Senate race in a blue state with a favorite son president. Elk managed the money well, managed the candidate as well as anyone could, assembled a devoted staff and laughed the whole time.
Mary Morrissey, who ran Lisa Madigan’s campaign, gets the honorable mention. Mary won a gimme race, but commenters love her and admire her abilities.
* Opinion was somewhat divided on best campaign spokesperson, but I’m giving it to Aaron Chambers because he helped win a campaign that many thought was a dead duck…
Justice Kilbride got the Tribune endorsement and Crain’s wrote an editorial calling Justpac’s attacks a stain on the business community. That those two publications went for Kilbride is nothing less than amazing. It’s not a coincidence Chambers was the spokesperson.
Honorable mention goes to Patty Schuh. Bill Brady didn’t win, but commenters rightly pointed out that Patty was instrumental at honing his message.
* And even though he’s won it before, Steve Brown was the almost universal choice of commenters yesterday…
He’s ubiquitous and has the institutional knowledge and discipline to stay perfectly on message. Beyond that, though, he’s exceptionally quotable and while that’s one of the more desirable traits in a spokesman, it’s one that more and more spokesfolk are lacking.
Adam Smith’s comment suggests that we may have to just give him a permanent award…
Steve Brown will win this award for best gov’t spokesperson until further notice.
Ashley Cross at Gov. Quinn’s office wins honorable mention for this single nomination…
The woman declared war on Wisconsin - you can’t beat that with a stick.
Criticized repeatedly for stacking the public payroll with family members, Joe Berrios has hired his son and sister to work for him as he takes the reins of the Cook County assessor’s office.
Berrios, who was sworn in as assessor Monday after winning a rough-and-tumble election, hired son Joseph “Joey’’ Berrios as a $48,000-a-year residential analyst and sister Carmen Cruz as director of taxpayer services at a salary of $86,000. Their salaries will remain unchanged from when they both worked for Berrios when he served on the Cook County Board of Review, which hears property tax appeals.
“They’ve got experience, and I’m hiring people with experience,’’ Berrios told the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday.
Berrios said he wants competent people he can trust working in his administration.
“I trust them,’’ he said. “It is what it is.’’
It’s true that Berrios was “criticized repeatedly” for nepotism. But he won anyway, so he apparently figures he has a mandate. His daughter already works at the assessor’s office, by the way, so that’s three family members on the payroll.
* On to more serious matters. About half of all human services agencies have been forced to lay off staff because of late state payments, according to a new survey…
According to the study conducted by Illinois Collaboration on Youth and others, more than half of agencies responding, 53%, have reduced hours or levels of service and 41% reported increasing waiting lists.
Just about half, 49%, laid off staff — an average of 13% of workers, the study found.
This as the state faces a cumulative budget hole approaching $14 billion.
“Illinois residents who need help have been on the chopping block at budget time for many years. Now we see the results: fewer children in child care; fewer after-school programs for teens; less help for people to get and keep jobs, and less assistance for those with mental illness . . . and the elderly,” said Judith Gethner, director of another sponsor, Illinois Partners for Human Service [Emphasis added]
* And Voices for Illinois Children has more bad news…
More than 2,600 children have lost preschool opportunities this fall as dozens of programs have closed under the pressure of long-delayed payments from the state, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.
The state government remains one of the greatest drags on the state’s economy.
Wednesday, Dec 8, 2010 - Posted by Capitol Fax Blog Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
On November 28, the State Journal Register editorialized in support of Tenaska’s Taylorville Energy Center, Illinois should take clean-coal lead. Below are key excerpts:
“As the Tenaska foes’ hyperbole has escalated in recent months, however, so has our skepticism of the critics and the STOP Coalition’s underlying purpose. At the heart of the opposition is Exelon Corp., the Chicago-based power-generating and distribution conglomerate. As old coal plants shut down and power gets more scarce, Exelon — operator of nuclear plants — stands to benefit.”
“Passage of the bill by the General Assembly would allow construction on the plant to begin. Its failure, we believe, would strike a fatal blow not just for the Taylorville plant, but for any potential future development of clean-coal technology in this state. If Tenaska’s effort fails, we can’t imagine any clean-coal company attempting to do business in Illinois.”
“As lawmakers debate this bill, we urge them to keep that in mind.”
“They also must remember that every figure quoted by opponents of Tenaska is a worst-of-the-worst-case scenario…It also assumes power won’t get more expensive as new environmental laws force old coal plants to shut down…”
The Taylorville Project last week agreed to absorb two-thirds of the cost of capital cost overruns and two-thirds of the cost of carbon sequestration cost overruns — meaning these costs, if incurred, can’t be passed along to customers.
“We hope lawmakers see through the hyperbolic spin against this project and vote to bring jobs to central Illinois and put Illinois among the leaders in clean-coal technology.”
In a radio ad airing on Chicago hip-hop station WGCI, Annette Nance-Holt, mother of slain Chicago Public Schools student Blair Holt, endorses Emanuel.
In May of 2007, a 16-year-old gang member opened fire on a CTA bus. Blair, also 16, dove in front of a classmate to shield her from the gunfire and was killed.
Annette Nance-Holt, a Chicago Fire Department captain, and the boy’s father Ronald Holt, a Chicago police officer, have been committed to stopping gun violence in Chicago’s communities since their son was slain.
“Soon, Chicago will choose a new mayor,” Nance-Holt says in the ad. “I want someone with a strong record of fighting crime and gun violence. As President Clinton’s point man on crime, Rahm Emanuel put 100,000 more police officers on the streets, including hundreds more here in Chicago.”
The ad also uses a quote from Barack Obama. Rate it…
* Emanuel is sticking closely to the script, letting his paid media do the talking and staying away from events that could get him off-message. He’s becoming the Bill Brady of Chicago…
Something’s missing from Chicago’s mayoral candidate forums: Rahm Emanuel.
On at least three nights next week — Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — just about all of the major candidates for mayor, except the former White House chief of staff, have agreed to sit side-by-side at community forums and take questions from voters or panelists.
But Emanuel is taking a pass, as he has done with other forums this week and last.
“I don’t think he’ll do any of them,” Emanuel spokesman Ben Labolt said of next week’s forums. “He’s been speaking to voters directly where they live and work every day of the week.”
* But reporters did manage to get some news out of him yesterday when Emanuel held a press conference about boosting teacher training…
Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel would not commit to sending his children to public schools if elected Chicago mayor. Fellow candidate James Meeks wasn’t faulting him for that, but opponent Gery Chico talked about “leading by example.”
Emanuel said Tuesday what school his children attend was a decision his family would make. His comments came after he proposed increasing teacher training academies. He said he wasn’t saying he wouldn’t send his three children to Chicago Public Schools.
State Sen. James T. Meeks, who has made equitable school financing a hallmark of his political career, did not send his children to public schools. He sent his children, who are now adults, to parochial high schools.
“I don’t want a school system the mayor of Chicago is ashamed to send his own kids to,” Meeks said, while adding that he wouldn’t fault Emanuel for not doing so. “We should have quality schools everyone wants to send their kids to.”
Meeks has also been a major advocate of school vouchers, which would allow parents to send their children to private schools.
Mayoral contender Gery Chico attended Chicago public schools, and his children graduated from Northside College Prep and Von Steuben high schools. Northside was built during Chico’s tenure as school board president, and some critics accused him of pushing for the high-performing school near his home for personal reasons.
* Every time John Kass writes about Rahm Emanuel’s residency he claims he thinks Emanuel should be allowed on the ballot. Then he always adds a falsehood about the law or about history in an attempt to prove that Emanuel probably isn’t a Chicago resident or can’t legally prove he is entitled to ballot access. Kass claimed Emanuel couldn’t have possibly voted absentee because he’d been purged from the voter rolls - except that Emanuel wasn’t purged and all he had to do was sign an affidavit that came with his absentee ballot to legally vote. He claimed that Paul Vallas was kept from running for governor in 2006 because he was ruled a non-resident - without informing his readers that Vallas registered to vote in Philadelphia and had sold his Chicago home.
Right now, the story involves the residency drama. All that jabbering and shrieking this week at the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners plays into Rahm’s hands. There’s more to come Monday.
This week, some in the hearing room wore “Indict Rahm” buttons and yelled and yelled and yelled.
“The days of running this board as a racketeering-influenced conspiracy organization are OVER!!!!” shouted one man. […]
And so it went, the caterwauling and finger-pointing and everybody demanding to be able to question witnesses. It exasperated Burt Odelson, the election lawyer who put together what is considered to be the most credible challenge to Emanuel’s residency. […]
Well, Burt, you might want to move on, but Queen Sister and her friends want their media face time. And the Daley-friendly (and therefore Rahm-friendly) city elections board has folded them all together.
Yeah. That Daley-friendly and Rahm-friendly city elections board is all to blame for consolidating those cases. There absolutely must be something going on. But this is the response I received today from the city’s board of elections…
The board [consolidated the complaints] to prevent witnesses from being called (and issuing subpoenas to those witnesses) for 30 separate appearances to testify on the same issues. Such consolidation is common.
We also consolidate record exams (aka “binder checks”) when the same candidate is facing multiple and related objections over signatures on his or her petition.
In the Emanuel cases, all of the objections center on residency. Many of the objections are quite literally fill-in-the-blank photocopies of each other.
Kass also forgot to mention the background of the hearing officer appointed by the board. From the Illinois Review…
A Cook County Republican, former president of United Republican Fund, former candidate for Cook County Board, and former Reagan Administration appointee, attorney Joseph Morris will act as presiding officer over challenges to Rahm Emanuel’s bid for Chicago mayor Monday at 11:00 am.
So, yet another conspiracy theory is undone by simple facts.
* Is it me, or did the State Journal-Register just publish an anti-Semitic letter to the editor which was ostensibly about how people don’t care when they offend Christians…
In the halls of schools and government institutions, no one will object to the profane use of Christ’s name (think Rahm Israel Emanuel).
Think: Israel.
Sheesh.
* Roundup…
* Mayor hopeful Chico gets backing of Ald. George Cardenas
* I have no idea why the media has completely ignored the governor’s offer of early retirement for the state police which I wrote about last Friday, but the Tribune editorial board picked up on it today…
To be eligible for Quinn’s offer, troopers need to be 50 years old with 25 years of service, or 55 years old with 20 years of service. They can use accumulated time-off credits to help satisfy their years-of-service requirements. And, on their last day of work in 2010, they’ll receive 6 percent cost-of-living raises that are scheduled for calendar 2011.
Age 50? Think about that. Some of these retirees may spend the entire second halves of their lives — the next 50 or more years — drawing pensions from Illinois taxpayers. And while we have you: Has anyone offered you a 6 percent cost-of-living increase? In this time of low inflation? We didn’t think so.
The governor’s office told us Tuesday that many of these senior troopers were expected to retire as soon as they received their cost-of-living raises next year. Makes sense: Sticking around for those raises would feather their pension calculations with the highest possible final salary. Under this deal, the retirees don’t have to work at all next year — and they get the juicier pension benefits pronto. In return, the state saves money by offloading these high salaries: If 70 percent of the eligible troopers accept Quinn’s offer, the state expects to save about $500,000 in payroll expense.
If that were the end of it, Quinn’s offer might make sense. But the governor’s office couldn’t provide one crucial number: What will the troopers’ early arrival cost the state pension system? Taxpayers are on the hook for that, too, just as they are for the budget. We’ll bet the governor lunch at any place of his choosing that he’s shifting way more than $500,000 in burdens from his budget to the failing, flailing pension system.
They’d probably lose that bet. Since most were retiring anyway, the additional cost of the retirees for the next six months won’t total anywhere near $500,000. Still, it’s a cost shift. And one can only wonder if the governor has any more of these plans up his sleeve.
…Adding… Or not. From a reader…
If 80 troopers retire (the state expects 70 to 90) and each collects a mere $1,000 per month for six months, that’s $480,000. And these folks will collect far more than $1,000 a month. Their total pension payments for the first half of 2011 will
substantially exceed $500,000.
…On second thought… Unless their pension payments exceed their salaries (highly unlikely), then that reader analysis is off.
* In other budget news, things may be easing somewhat, but they’re still bad…
Even after cutting a combined $84 billion at the start of this fiscal year, 15 states face persistent deficits that must be closed over the next six months. Meanwhile, 35 states project deficits in the next fiscal year, which begins in July 2011.
Arizona sold the capitol building? Wow…
Arizona is another perennial budget disaster. Lawmakers have gone to extremes to try to close that state’s persistent budget deficit, selling the state Capitol building and cutting state payments for organ transplants. The latter move is likely to be reversed; some patients died once the transplants were halted.
And, of course, there’s Illinois…
The state in the worst shape is Illinois, which faces a deficit this year of a staggering 47% of its entire budget, about $13 billion. A sense of despair has settled over the state capital of Springfield, where various desperate measures, including a major expansion of gambling, have been kicked around.
The task has been daunting: Lawmakers expect to have closed multi-year budget gaps exceeding $530 billion by the time the effects of the recession dissipate. And despite recent revenue improvements, more gaps loom as states confront the phase out of federal stimulus funds, expiring tax increases and growing spending pressures.
Three weeks ago, one of the state’s largest social services provider almost ran out of money. It was saved by a multi-million dollar government infusion, but this was no bailout; Illinois was merely paying off part of what it owes Lutheran Social Services of Illinois.
“We were facing not being able to make payroll for almost 2,000 people,” said the Rev. Denver Bitner, the group’s president. “It’s an up and down kind of affair, and it’s resulted in our needing to borrow substantially from credit lines and reserves, and cuts in programs.”
The group, which runs dozens of programs serving vulnerable Illinoisans — children, the elderly, those recovering from addiction — has been left with IOUs from the state ranging from $5 million to $13 million over the past two years. The debt hangs over the head of Bitner, as vendors that supply LSSI’s foster homes, recovery centers and old age assistance programs demand payment.
Just a week before Thanksgiving, LSSI exhausted $9 million from its reserves and standing credit line. It was only able to pull back from the brink after the state borrowed money to begin paying down its unpaid bills.
The good news is that the comptroller’s office say the state will pay off last fiscal year’s late bills in the coming days. The bad news is there’s $5 billion in unpaid bills from the current fiscal year.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is still showing no signs of support towards a bill to expand gambling. The bill approved by the Senate last week could add 5 new casinos, including one in Chicago. But Quinn said he doesn’t think the bill will get through the House of Representatives.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” he said. “It’s pretty top heavy. Illinois’ not going to be the Midwest venue for gambling second only to Las Vegas.”
* Related…
* Higher Ed Commission recommends performance-based funding: One controversial, yet key reform is a funding shift based on performance instead of enrollment. Performance-based funding creates incentives for institutions to boost performance because the more success they exhibit in meeting state goals, the more funding they receive, the commission states. “The fact is we have state colleges that have been historically performing at very poor levels in terms of graduation and retention rates,” said state Rep. Fred Crespo, a Hoffman Estates Democrat serving as the commission’s House speaker appointee. “That to me is not acceptable when you consider every college is being funded by state dollars.”
* Ill. casino plan could amp up gambling competition: Existing Illinois casinos, which have seen their business fall off by nearly one-third over the past couple of years, are fighting the idea vigorously. “This monumental expansion is like saying, ‘Homes have lost 32 percent of their value and the number of people buying homes is at an historic low, so let’s build more homes until we have three times the number we need,’” Tom Swoik, executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, said at a recent legislative hearing.
* Emanuel: Gambling not a “panacea” for budget woes
* As always, keep in mind that I look far more at intensity than at the quantity of votes, so make sure to explain your reasoning or your favorite could lose…
* Best campaign staffer - state legislative
* Best campaign staffer - constitutional office or congressional
* Best campaign spokesperson
* Best government spokesperson
* Yesterday’s winner for best political bar goes to The Globe. It was the clear favorite…
Hands down, the globe. Best bartenders, who actually do get to know your name (and drink) if you go in there enough. They have a piano, so it’s not uncommon to walk in and hear Danny Burke on the piano with some poor woman he conned into singing along with him. Lots of legislators hang out there, so I’ve been able to get work done at 11:00 at night.
* Best political restaurant was won hands-down by Saputo’s. It helps that the man who runs the place is also running for mayor of Springfield…
Politicos of all stripes and the owner/operator will soon be the next Mayor of Springfield. Where else will be you be able to get served by the Mayor?
* Best Springfield hotel is the Statehouse Inn…
Best, most modern rooms, so close to the Capitol you never have to move your car, free computers, the bar is convenient, best free breakfast, tons of legislators stay here. No equivocations here.
