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.
