* Earlier today, I told you that David Hoffman had endorsed Rahm Emanuel. Now comes this e-mail from Forrest Claypool…
Thank you for standing with me this past election in my independent bid for Cook County Assessor. I was humbled to have received such generous support from so many people tired of the status quo.
I want to tell you today about a promising campaign for mayor of Chicago. I’ve known Rahm Emanuel for more than 30 years. We’ve worked together, along with David Axelrod, on campaigns here in Illinois, including Paul Simon and Barack Obama, and I’ve seen first hand his sound judgment, integrity, and commitment to addressing the major challenges of the day. I admire his tenacity and his ability to deliver results to his constituents.
* Meanwhile, if you want to see how Chicago makes it so hard to run a small business, just read this story about a controversial hot dog stand which promotes the fact that it’s staffed by ex-cons. I don’t really care about this particular business. Seems like a bizarre advertising gimmick if you ask me. But, whatever, the case, check this out…
So far, [Ald. Robert Fioretti] hasn’t let Andrews have a permit for a sign to hang outside. A sign frame swings empty over the hot dog stand. […]
A spokesman for Fioretti says he is still waiting for three city departments to weigh in regarding the sign.
Think about that for a second. Not only does the alderman have to approve your sign, but so do three city departments (if, I assume, the alderman wants to slow-walk something).
* After House Speaker Michael Madigan said this week that he wanted to start looking at legislation to reduce pension benefits, Senate President John Cullerton told reporters that he opposed the idea…
Illinois Senate President John Cullerton on Wednesday tossed cold water on the idea of reducing future pension benefits for current state workers, but House Speaker Michael Madigan appeared to forge ahead anyway.
“We’ve asked our staff to do research on it,” Cullerton, D-Chicago, said in an interview. “I’m pretty clear that it would be unconstitutional.”
However, Cullerton left open the possibility of the Senate considering a bill that comes over from the House.
“We’re not going to initiate a bill in the Senate,” he said. “I’d vote against the bill in the Senate. If the House passes a bill and the speaker wants it to be called … we’ll certainly talk.”
Perhaps a more difficult question is whether it is fair. From a state employee’s standpoint, absolutely not. The employees have held up their end of the deal all along. The underfunding has come from the state skipping payments into the system.
From a private sector standpoint, however, it’s hard to argue fairness. Employees in the private sector have seen defined-benefit pensions end and employer matches of their 401(k) contributions discontinued. They’ve suffered under an economy that was nearly killed — through no fault of their own — by careless Wall Street daredevils who, by and large, have gone unpunished.
After failing to confirm top gubernatorial appointees in the previous legislative session, lawmakers are now looking to tighten Senate rules to prevent a string of government employees from working without proper authorization.
A Senate panel on Wednesday approved Senate Bill 1, which bars future holdover appointees and acting appointees from serving without confirmation after 30 days. Temporary appointees will be allowed to serve until the next meeting of the Senate.
Holdover appointees are those who have finished their term, but continue to serve until someone new has been nominated.
The bill passed the Senate this morning on a unanimous roll call.
Advance Illinois executive director Robin Steans said progress is being made in some areas.
“There’s been a high level of agreement that it is time for performance to play a role (in staffing),” Steans said. “The devil is very much in the details. Are they going to do that in a way that’s really serious and meaningful, or is it more of a fig leaf? That’s what the negotiations are about now.”
Lightford said talks are focusing on how to bring performance evaluations into staffing matters rather than rely solely on seniority.
“I think we should look at it this way: Seniority should count, but to what degree? What part does performance count?” she said.
Couple that with issues about who should conduct performance evaluations — a school principal or a panel of the teacher’s peers.
“There’s a lot of moving parts to it,” Lightford said. “We’re trying to set up a system where personnel evaluations are impactful, they matter. Just because you’ve been a teacher for 10, 15, 20 years doesn’t mean you are OK if your performance in a lot of other areas is not up to par.”
* Senate President Cullerton talked with reporters about several of the above issues yesterday. Listen…
* Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday was last weekend. Illinois doesn’t do a whole lot to promote his Illinois ties. We have a tollway named after him. And there are some sites in Tampico and Dixon, plus a Ronald Reagan Trail.
* The Question: Should Illinois do more to promote Reagan’s Illinois roots? And if so, what? If not, why?
…Adding… The Senate began debating a resolution commemorating Reagan today at 10:11 am. Watch or listen here.
* David Hoffman had almost a cult following among reformers during his primary race against Alexi Giannoulias. So, I’m assuming the heads of many of those same reform-minded types are exploding right about now…
David Hoffman, who often infuriated retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley as City Hall’s inspector general, said Thursday that he endorsed Rahm Emanuel to succeed Daley. […]
“He has the potential to be quite independent of the political power structure, perhaps more so than some of the other candidates,” Hoffman told the Chicago News Cooperative on Thursday. “He is very smart. I think he has great potential.”
She is the black candidate, but she is not the best candidate.
Her campaign has not gotten off the ground. There simply is no buzz. Black women have come together to provide voice and reason to her candidacy, but she has failed to promote a positive message, or present her solutions to the city’s problems
Oof.
* As well all know by now, Emanuel has taken a lot of heat for his service tax proposal. He’s attempting to turn the issue to his favor with a new mailer…
The campaign flyer features a Photoshopped image of rival Gery Chico in front of a limousine. The mailer takes Chico to task for criticizing Emanuel’s sales tax plan.
“Gery Chico wants you to pay more and let the rich to pay nothing,” the flyer being mailed out to Chicago voters says.
Chico hasn’t proposed hiking any taxes, but he does oppose Emanuel’s plan which would lower the overall sales tax rate by a quarter point by imposing a new service tax on “luxury” items for the “rich.” So, by Emanuel’s logic, Chico favors the wealthy and is against the hard-working middle class. Mailers can be so fun, can’t they?
* All six mayoral candidates debated for the first time yesterday. I didn’t watch it because I was otherwise occupied. Apparently, there wasn’t much substance because the focus of most of the stories was over the fantasy issue of slave reparations…
With less than two weeks to go before Election Day, the candidates for Chicago mayor veered Wednesday from debating city issues to talking about whether they support reparations for descendants of slaves.
They all supported the notion of reparations but had different ideas about what reparations were, gave no details about who would pay them or where the money might come from at the forum sponsored by the Chicago Defender, the city’s historic black newspaper.
They might as well have discussed whether unicorns existed. This, apparently, was not a major topic of debate…
The City of Chicago and related local governments like the Chicago Park District collectively under-funded their worker pension plans by $5.1 billion in the past decade, according to a new report by the Civic Federation.
As a result, the retirement plans now have as little as 36.5% of the assets needed to pay promised benefits, the taxpayer watchdog group says.
Oy.
* And the Tribune has a new poll out which shows Chicagoans thought the city’s response to last week’s blizzard was OK by them…
Nearly three-quarters of the Chicagoans surveyed — 73 percent — gave the city an overall passing grade for how it handled the storm.
In fact, when it came to the storm’s most conspicuous consequence — the hundreds of vehicles snowbound along Lake Shore Drive — respondents were more likely to blame the stranded drivers than the city.
Overall, Chicagoans said they were satisfied with how the city removed snow from their neighborhoods, with 59 percent saying it was cleared as well as could be expected, compared to 38 percent saying it wasn’t up to par. North Siders believed the city did a better job clearing their neighborhood streets than did South Siders.
African-American residents were the most critical of snow removal in their neighborhoods, with those in areas that had a majority of black residents saying snow removal was not as good as they expected.
* Mayoral debate gets heated when slave reparations come up
* New police superintendent, more cops on street at top of new Chicago mayor’s crime list - All 4 top contenders say they won’t renew Jody Weis’ contract
* New report details scope of public pension shortfalls - Deficit now equal to more than $11,000 per Chicago resident
* I have no doubt that eventually Indiana, Wisconsin, New Jersey or some other state will lure away a large Illinois business. Some states are putting on a full-court press, so I just can’t see how Illinois can convince all of those companies to stay put. But, I suppose we can savor the occasional victory while we can, if it is indeed a victory…
Under siege by New Jersey’s attempts to lure businesses from Illinois and bruised by the Chicago Bears’ loss to the Green Bay Packers, Gov. Pat Quinn went on the offensive and reeled in a maker of high-speed passenger trains that had set up shop in Wisconsin, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Wednesday.
“The governor (of Illinois) just was able to attract Talgo, which is a train manufacturing company from Wisconsin, to come to Illinois to manufacture train sets, which is quite a coup,” LaHood said in Washington.
Asked for details, federal and state officials hedged their answers while not quite retracting what LaHood said.
“There is no agreement, to our knowledge,'’ said a U.S. Department of Transportation spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity. “To the best of our knowledge, they are still working on it.'’
* Wisconsin has a tiny wind power base, so even if we do take one of these away, it probably won’t be huge…
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s revival of the state’s former “Escape to Wisconsin” slogan to invite businesses to escape rising taxes in Illinois has led to some blowback from south of the border.
In response to Walker’s wind energy regulations proposed Jan. 11, the Illinois Wind Energy Association is inviting wind power developers to “Escape to Illinois.”
Walker’s proposed legislation would require wind turbines to be constructed with a 1,800-foot setback from neighboring property lines, a mandate IWEA’s executive director Kevin Borgia said “would effectively ban wind development from the Badger State,” in a press release.
Kmart is among seven companies that have warned the state this month that they are planning closings or mass layoffs. Kmarts in Franklin Park, Ill., and Washington, Ill., will close, the company said, putting 144 employees out of work.
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Opportunity requires employers to provide 60 days notice of plant closures or mass layoffs. The law applies to businesses with 75 or more full-time workers.
Gold Standard Baking, Inc. will close a commercial bakery at 250 N. Washtenaw Ave. in Chicago, cutting 73 jobs by the end of March. 67 workers are expected to be laid off by the end of February at Itasca-based C. D. Listening Bar Inc., which sells DVDs, CDs, books and video games online at DeepDiscount.com.
AGI North America, LLC, a paperboard box manufacturing company in Jacksonville, is closing at the end of March, putting 70 employees out of work. Gray Interplant Systems, Inc. – a warehousing and storage company in Peoria and Mossville – is planning mass layoffs for the first two weeks in April, affecting 167 workers. And Doumak, which manufactures chocolate confectionaries in Bensenville, is planning temporary layoffs affecting 60 workers while new equipment is installed at the facility in March.
Gov. Quinn is right to boast about the numbers of jobs created here in the past couple of years. But he rarely talks about the mind-boggling number of jobs lost here since the start of the recession.
* Related…
* Daley, airline chiefs fail to agree on O’Hare - High-level Washington meeting ends without a deal
* Daley to return to China: A mayoral spokesperson says Daley will meet with business leaders interested in making public and private investments in Chicago. He also hopes to help local companies interested in the fast growing Chinese marketplace. This would be Daley’s fifth trip to China in recent years.
* Casinos might appeal cash-sharing case to Supreme Court
* Press Release: Governor Quinn Announces Manufacturing Company to Expand in Illinois - State Incentive Package Allows Elmhurst-Based The Chamberlain Group to Create Up to 100 New Jobs
Over the years, the Jesse White Tumblers have trained 13,000 young athletes and, according to White, “Only 105 of them have gotten into trouble with the law.” Tumblers who go on to college get $2,500-to-$25,000 grants to help defray the cost of tuition.
Pretty darned amazing when you think about it. Actually, you don’t even need to think about it. It’s an astounding record.
The Illinois General Assembly was sworn in less than a month ago but, as of Tuesday morning, 150 bills have been introduced in the Senate and a whopping 1,151 bills have been introduced in the House.
Almost none of them have anything to do with the subject that on which state should be focusing — cutting costs.
*** UPDATE *** Well, here’s one. From a press release…
State Senator Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge) is sponsoring legislation that will cut the Senate Democratic Caucus spending by 5 percent.
The state spends about $473 million a year on health care for retired state employees, [Department of Healthcare and Family Services Director Julie Hamos] said. Very few of them pay any share of that cost, according to Hamos.
About 84,000 retirees enjoy the benefit, including all retired judges and legislators, plus all state workers who retired before Jan. 1, 1998, and those who retired after Jan. 1, 1998, with 20 or more years of service.
Only 6,900 of the 84,000 people in the system pay a premium, according to Julie Hamos, director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. Contributions from those retirees brought in $11.9 million for fiscal year 2010 — well short of the $473 million in costs Hamos said the state encountered that year.
However, there are factors contributing to the disparity between contributions and costs beyond the relatively small number of people paying into the system.
For example, the state currently makes up the approximately $550 per retiree difference for those retirees not eligible for Medicare. Also, dependents of retirees paid only $40 million of the $150 million it cost to insure them in FY10.
State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka will be getting a taste of her own medicine, so to speak, on Monday.
Almost 25 years after her legislation eliminating lawmakers and others from jury duty exemptions was passed, Topinka has been called to serve on Monday, Feb. 14 at the Markham Courthouse in South suburban Cook County.
* I’ve been wondering lately how I could better integrate social media into this site. My business model strongly discourages any off-site stuff. But seeing these numbers prompts me to ask you for some ideas…
Touting the auto as the ultimate mobile device, Ford marketing chief Jim Farley outlined the automaker’s social media strategy to open the media preview of the 2011 Chicago Auto Show on Wednesday.
“With 500 million people on Facebook, we can reach more potential customers in a more personal way,” Farley said of the company’s continued move to new media. Its latest efforts are centered on the Focus, which arrives at dealerships next month, and the Chicago-built Explorer.
Three metro-east lawmakers sponsored a bill Wednesday in the Illinois House directing the auditor general to investigate hundreds of workers’ compensation claims by employees at the Menard Correctional Center, as well as claims filed by state arbitrators.
House [Resolution] 52 was introduced by state Reps. Tom Holbrook, D-Belleville; Dwight Kay, R-Glen Carbon; Dan Reitz, D-Steeleville, and others.
“We need an independent auditor to look at these things to restore confidence in the system,” Holbrook said.
The action came after the Belleville News-Democrat reported Tuesday that an arbitrator for the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, Jennifer Teague, of Shiloh, attempted to keep secret a public hearing for former Illinois State Trooper Matt Mitchell, who filed a workers’ comp claim for injuries he received in a high-speed head-on collision that killed two Collinsville sisters in 2007.
The attorney for the family of Kelli and Jessica Uhl, says they are ‘outraged’ by allegations that the arbitrator in former State Trooper Matt Mitchell’s workers’ compensation case tried to hold his hearing “on the sly with no press.”
Tom Keefe says the report in the Belleville News Democrat, that arbitrator Jennifer Teague changed the date, time and place of the hearing without notification, is like salt in the family’s wounds, “This just seems like a nightmare and they just can’t wake up from it. They have been consistently betrayed by people who have sworn oaths to protect them.”
Combine this crazy case with the fact that so many arbitrators have filed their own workers’ comp claims, and you’ve got a situation where too many of these arbitrators appear to be in the tank with the plaintiffs bar.
* And here’s a Belleville News-Democrat story I missed. A single workers’ comp hearing site in the tiny southern Illinois town of Whittington had 312 WC cases involving state workers on its January docket. That’s one out of every four of the site’s 1,310 cases. The BN-D compared that to other hearing sites…
By comparison, the Springfield hearing office, located in an urban area where more than 17,400 state workers are employed, listed 207 cases for January that involve state workers, or about one in five of 967 cases. Most of these employees say they were injured mainly by slipping and falling, over exertion, backs sprains and leg injuries.
In Chicago where 15 state arbitrators are assigned to separate hearing rooms in a single office building, a total of 5,037 cases were docketed for January. These cases involved four arbitrators but only 81 cases involved state workers, or about 2 percent.
At two hearing sites in Joliet where 2,574 cases were scheduled for January, 85 involved state workers or about 3 percent. Joliet is located relatively close to two large, maximum security state prisons, the Stateville and Pontiac correctional centers, where more than 1,200 state workers are employed.
A computer printout obtained by the News-Democrat through the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission showed that since Jan. 1, 2008, the combined repetitive trauma injury settlements to workers at these prisons totaled just 18 settled claims, a fraction of the total at Menard. The data showed that repetitive trauma settlements were made to four Stateville prison workers and to 14 at Pontiac.
In the past three years, $30.6 million was awarded to about 725 state employees in settlements who filed workmen’s compensation claims for repetitive trauma injuries caused by typing or unlocking prison cells.
An additional $4.3 million was paid to all state claimants who missed work while recuperating from doctor-ordered time off or corrective surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome.
And about one in three of these taxpayer dollars went directly to guards and other employees at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester, according to a News-Democrat investigation.
* Jim Tobin of the National Taxpayers United Illinois apparently despises Abraham Lincoln with a passion. And since Lincoln’s birthday is coming up, Tobin has been sending out tirades against the former President. Here’s some of Part 2, which was sent out today…
Lincoln’s real priority was not the slaves but the collection of revenue. He knew that a low-tax independent South would attract far more European trade to its relatively duty free ports like Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans, and that goods could easily be smuggled from there across the long border the U.S. would share with the Confederacy. Lincoln’s mercantilist plans would be foiled, and Lincoln was a true mercantilist. He believed in increasing a nation’s wealth by government regulation of all of the nation’s commercial interests. […]
Rather than wish Lincoln a Happy Birthday, perhaps we can celebrate the birth of William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773). Having died only a month into his first term as President, Harrison did not live long enough to do nearly as much damage as Lincoln.
Look, Lincoln was no saint or demigod. But to flat-out say that he fought a spectacularly bloody civil war to preserve tax receipts is so far beyond the pale that the pale can’t be seen.
Was Lincoln a great emancipator? Lincoln’s words in the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation tell
us his goal. Slaves were freed only in “States and parts of States…in rebellion against the United
States…”
Anybody with half a brain knows that Lincoln could not legally, on his own, free the slaves in states which weren’t in rebellion. To do that required a constitutional amendment, which was subsequently passed.
Tobin gets a lot of local media coverage for his frequent anti-tax crusades throughout the state. Maybe now some reporters and editors will see what the guy is really like. I mean, that crack about Harrison is truly appalling.
* Rahm goes for the gold with a new TV ad featuring President Obama. Rate it…
* Transcript…
President Obama: We could not have accomplished what we’ve accomplished without Rahm’s leadership.
His advice has always been candid, his opinions have always been insightful, his commitment to his job has always been heartfelt, borne of a passionate desire to move this country forward and lift up the lives of the middle class and people who are struggling to get there.
We are all very excited for Rahm as he takes on a new challenge for which he is extraordinarily well qualified.
Public employee union leaders who took offense at Rahm Emanuel‘s new campaign commercial are hoping to air a rebuttal, but they may be having trouble raising the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to buy time on broadcast channels.
…Adding More… The Chico campaign responds to the ABC7 poll showing a huge lead for Emanuel…
That ABC poll does not jive with every other campaign’s internal polls which we all disclosed has Gery in the 20s and Rahm in 40s. Our own poll taken just days earlier has Rahm at 46 overall, Gery at 23 and Braun and Del Valle at 7. Also, In our poll we were clearly in first with Latino voters. . .so there is just no way that Emanuel is in first with this voting block with not one but two credible Latino candidates. . .one who has the support of Luis Gutierrez!
* Meanwhile, House Speaker Michael Madigan gave a brief interview to an Illinois Statehouse News reporter late this morning. Worth a watch…
* Sen. Ed Maloney has introduced legislation requiring homeschooling parents to register their kids with the Illinois State Board of Education. The Right is not amused…
“There are virtually no regulations on homeschools. No curriculum, no periodic checks on their progress. Regional superintendents tell me they have no way of knowing whether a home-taught student is truant or not,” he said. “We want more accountability.” […]
“He says he wants to just register us, then says we don’t have curriculum requirements,” the mother of four said. “Some of our curriculum is religious. Should a public school system be able to accept or reject that?” […]
Homeschooling parents are passionate about their freedoms and responsibilities toward their children’s education. They are committed to the task and ask only to be left alone, nothing more. And all the time they are paying property taxes to subsidize government schools. […]
Homeschooling parents are required to obey Illinois’ compulsory school attendance law that says every Illinois child ages 7 through 17 must attend a school that teaches the branches of education comparable to those taught in the public school system. The law also says those subjects must be taught in the English language.
* The Question: Do you think homeschooled kids should have to register with the state to make sure basic education standards are being met? Explain.
Mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel addressed the subject of the “missing” tape with some of the same language he has used for months to describe his conversations with Rod Blagojevich.
He hearkened back to a two-year-old report by then-President-elect Obama’s transition team that concluded there were “about four” conversations between Emanuel and Blagojevich Chief-of-Staff John Harris, but “nothing inappropriate or any deal-making.”
“It also noted that I was asked at the time by the President’s transition (team) to provide a list of four names for the U.S. Senate: Tammy Duckworth, Jan Schakowsky, Dan Hynes and Congressman Jesse Jackson [Jr.],” Emanuel recalled, noting that there was a separate conversation about Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
Trial testimony indicated that Blagojevich and his team considered this list a “BS list.”
“I provided that list. Then, there was a question — The governor’s representative said, `What’s in it for us.’ And I responded, `You’ll get thanks and appreciation‚ [but nothing more]. You also know how the [former] governor responded to the word, `appreciation.’ That’s been detailed over two years ago in the report.”
Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers say there may be a “missing tape” of Emanuel talking to a top Blagojevich aide the day before Blagojevich’s arrest. How about just saying if he talked to the guy or not and what was said, if there was such a conversation? No. Instead, a long soliloquy about nothing.
Speaking at Threadless, the successful and popular West Side T-shirt company, Emanuel said he would initiate changes to Mayor Richard Daley’s final budget to realize $75 million worth of savings.
“I will order a government-wide spending freeze and to ask every department head to review all operations and produce a plan for their dept within 60 days to cut city spending by at least $75 million,” said Emanuel.
But the city’s budget deficit is expected to range between $500 and $600 million. Emanuel offered few specific details, instead pointing to ideas illustrated on his website, on how he would manage that.
That’s it? That’s the big budget speech chock full of details that his aides have been promising for weeks? Seriously?
The Sun-Times tried to gently prod Emanuel today to offer up some specifics. I wouldn’t bet on it ever happening…
Rahm Emanuel walked to the edge of a cliff on Tuesday but refused to jump.
That won’t do.
…Adding… Emanuel’s campaign points to his website, which includes this graph…
A Tribune/WGN poll conducted Jan. 15-19 showed city taxpayers prefer service cuts to tax hikes. And in the wake of a despised parking-meter lease, they strongly oppose selling off more city assets that could raise billions in the short term.
No response percentages, not explanation of the questions asked, nothing. They provide a bit more detail later in the piece…
Nearly half of likely Chicago voters favor city service cuts over higher taxes and fees, according to the recent Tribune poll. Less than 1 in 3 want higher taxes and fees, the poll found.
So, less than half want service cuts and fewer than a third want tax hikes. Sounds like they want neither.
Taste of Chicago can reverse huge losses without charging an admission fee — and even turn a profit — by focusing exclusively on food, Mayor Daley said Tuesday.
“What we’re trying to do is make the Taste of Chicago get back to … the Taste of Chicago — not all the other things around it. We’re trying to get it back to what it was originally. It’s a Taste of Chicago. That’s what we’re trying to rebuild without costing you or taxpayers more money,” Daley said.
“Originally, we never had an admission fee. … The cost [escalated]. All the musicials got so costly that they put money into the musicals forgetting it’s Taste of Chicago. It’s not a music fest.”
Pressed on whether the Taste would be food alone, without any music, Daley said, “Yes. That’s what you do because it was always free. It will always be free.”
1. Taste of Chicago is not, in fact, free; one must purchase not inexpensive tickets if one is going to do anything other than smell the food (or, in the past, listen to the music).
2. Taste of Chicago has not always been about food—in fact, with its start as Chicagofest, it primarily was a music festival, and the music has been at least as important a part of the festivities as the food for the last 25 years.
* ‘Chicago Code’ is silent with debut ratings: “The Chicago Code” was beaten by “Two and a Half Men” (15.13 million viewers) and “The Bachelor” (9.97 million), although it bested “The Cape” (4.56 million) and “Gossip Girl” (1.63 million).
* Rumsfeld wanted Iraq to do things the ‘Chicago way’: “In parts of Chicago where officials threatened the mayor’s authority, potholes were left untended and other services were neglected,” the Winnetka native writes. “In areas where local officials cooperated with the mayor, Daley brought the services of the city government to bear and was generous in his patronage. “My point was that instead of giving Karzai the freedom to throw around the weight of the U.S. military, he should learn to use patronage … to get the local Afghan warlords, governors, and cabinet officials in line.”
* How (and why) those Rogers Park high schoolers made their anti-Rahm/pro-Miguel video
* New jury rule in Blago trial: In the filing, Zagel cited “incidents occurring after jurors names were released” and so he has ordered in the next trial that the names of anonymous jurors will be “publicly released eight hours after the verdict is returned.”
* City overstates furlough savings, inspector general says - Officials failed to account for shortfall in pension contributions from its employees: Under the agreement, city workers were not required to make more than $11 million in pension contributions for the furlough days even though they continued to accrue benefits. The city, meanwhile, gave itself a pass on another $13.5 million in payments for its share of pension contributions for the furlough days, according to the report. That means city pension funds were shortchanged more than $24 million over the three-year period, at a time when the pension funds had reached historic shortfalls that threaten the retirement security of thousands of police officers, firefighters, teachers and other municipal employees.
* ComEd’s legislative proposal to raise rates ostensibly to pay for its $2.6 billion grid modernization program is not receiving rave reviews from CUB…
The rate hikes, which would take effect in 2011, would guarantee double-digit profit margins for ComEd during the next decade, enabling the company to overhaul existing cable, replace 130,000 poles per year and upgrade substations with digital micro-processor relays, among other things.
But the state’s top utility watchdog said the legislation would effectively do an end run around the Illinois Commerce Commission, which has had the traditional task of signing off on utility rate hikes.
“Under the guise of saying they want to modernize the grid, which could be a good thing if done right, what they’re really proposing to do is gut the regulatory system that’s been in place about 100 years and replace it with one that’s got far less oversight of rates and lead to rate increases year after year,” said David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board.
And Speaker Madigan wasn’t sure whether the plan will survive…
House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), who traditionally has not been a staunch legislative ally of the powerful Chicago-based utility, told reporters the company’s package would be considered by the Legislature but he wouldn’t predict its outcome.
“I know that they are not happy with the response that they’ve been getting out of the Commerce Commission. And so they want to go to the Legislature and try and get a section in the statute that would give them more of a guarantee that they will be reimbursed for improvements to the power lines,” the speaker said.
Keep in mind that ComEd’s parent company Exelon fought hard against a “clean coal” electricity plant in Taylorville because it said the rate increase would kill thousands of jobs. But this new ComEd plan is supposed to raise rates and create jobs.
A clean-coal gasification plant slated for Southern Illinois could be reduced to coal dust if Gov. Pat Quinn fails to sign off on the project by March 14.
Proponents are urging Quinn to OK the measure, which is predicted to create 1,500 construction jobs and 700 permanent positions in the coal industry. But a consumer advocacy group Quinn founded years ago while working as a consumer rights crusader is running strong opposition to the bill, claiming that Illinois citizens will pay for the jobs with higher heating bills.
“We’re looking at a ticking time bomb for gas bills,” said David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, the group asking Quinn to place an amendatory veto on the legislation — a move that would kill the bill, sending a message to the Legislature that clean coal’s cost burden cannot fall on consumers.
* Other, somewhat random stuff…
* Rich Take From Poor as U.S. Subsidy Law Funds Luxury Hotels: The landmark Blackstone Hotel in downtown Chicago, which has hosted 12 U.S. presidents, opened in 2008 after a two-year, $116 million renovation. Inside the Beaux Arts structure, built in 1910, buffed marble staircases greet guests spending up to $699 a night for rooms with views of Lake Michigan. What’s surprising isn’t the opulent makeover: It’s how the project was financed. The work was subsidized by a federal development program intended to help poor communities.
* UI’s financial status better, but cuts still possible
* Back in 2007, Illinois State Trooper Matt Mitchell slammed into an oncoming car while Mitchell was driving 126 miles per hour. He pled guilty to reckless homicide and resigned, but he has since filed a workers’ compensation claim for crash-related injuries.
The Belleville News-Democrat has uncovered evidence that suggested a state workers’ compensation arbitrator worked with Mitchell’s lawyer to hold the workers’ comp hearing in secret. And an assistant attorney general was also allegedly in on the scam…
A state workers’ compensation arbitrator who will decide whether former Illinois State Trooper Matt Mitchell should be compensated for his injuries wanted to keep the public hearing secret, according to e-mails between the arbitrator, Mitchell’s lawyer and an assistant attorney general, who represents taxpayers.
“We are going to do it on the sly with no press,” wrote Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission arbitrator Jennifer Teague in an e-mail to her court reporter. Thousands of Teague’s e-mails were obtained by the Belleville News-Democrat under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
Ann Spillane, chief of staff for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, said, “It is completely unacceptable for there to be any discussion to minimize press coverage or to thwart the public’s effort to attend a public hearing.” […]
“There is nothing I can do to keep them (News-Democrat reporters) out of a public hearing, but will be more than willing to do a special setting and an unknown place and time!” Teague wrote to Mitchell’s lawyer, Kerry O’Sullivan, on Oct. 18.
Teague is one of 8 of the state’s 32 workers’ compensation arbitrators who have filed workers’ comp claims. The attorney general’s office has referred the matter regarding the assistant attorney general to its ethics officer.
“I need you to get some dates together for me (when) you are available in December to report the Mitchell trial in Collinsville. We are going to try and do it on the sly with no press.”
From Teague to O’Sullivan at 2:09 p.m. on Nov. 8:
“Hey, on a side note, my schedule is filling, and I’d like to get the Mitchell thing on the books as quietly as possible. Your thoughts?”
I think we’ve reached the point where somebody needs to either name a special prosecutor or invite in the FBI to look at this Workers’ Comp Commission mess.
* The SJ-R editorial board is growing weary with Republicans over the debate on the governor’s proposed borrowing bill, which would be used to pay off past-due state debt. The bill requires a three-fifths majority in both chambers, so GOP votes are necessary to pass it. So far, the Republicans have just talked in generalities about what they want in trade, and the SJ-R is right to be impatiently tapping its foot…
We’d also be more supportive of Republican opposition if we could tie it to a specific demand. But we’re getting various signals from the Republican camp, from a call to address the “structural deficit” to a demand for reform of the state’s workers’ compensation system to more budget cuts.
The Medicaid and pension reforms passed in the last session were major steps toward fixing the structural deficit. From where we stand, those measures appear to be just the start. If there are specific budget cuts to make, let’s hear them.
We are on record as favoring workers’ comp reform, and we believe the exposure of an outrageous tally of workers’ comp payouts for repetitive stress injuries at Menard Correctional Center — uncovered in a series of stories by the Belleville News-Democrat — makes such a movement inevitable.
But we don’t think this is the bill to hold hostage for nebulous demands for spending cuts or a workers’ comp concession. Illinois’ expensive and confounding workers’ compensation system may be a hardship for business in Illinois, but so is waiting months for payment from the state.
If Republicans want economic stimulus for Illinois, they should pay the businesses, schools, hospitals and others that have been waiting patiently for their money for months. Leave the debt-holding to the professionals.
If the GOP wants budget cuts, let’s see ‘em. If they want workers comp reform - and aren’t actually hiding behind a generic call for reform while privately fretting what the reforms would do to their allies at the Illinois State Medical Society - then let’s see ‘em. That three-fifths requirement for passing the borrowing bill puts the GOP at the table as a full partner. It’s time they started playing some cards.
* By the way, the governor’s budget office has done the math for how long it would take to get the state’s payment cycle down to 60 days without the borrowing bill: Ten years…
“If the policy decision were made just on the math, the policy decision were made that rather than borrow $8.75 billion, the idea was to take the tax increase revenue and pay down this backlog of bills, whether it’s 12 months or 18 months … couldn’t that be done?” [Sen. Matt Murphy] asked.
Not without “decimating” state government, Weems said. But he conceded that it was possible if one were just looking at the raw numbers. To maintain state services like education and health care, and pay down the backlog, it would take about 10 years, according to [Malcolm Weems, associate director of Gov. Pat Quinn’s Office of Management and Budget].
He said that paying off vendors quickly helps the state get the best deals it can from its contractors.
“What we’re finding is we have vendors that choose to cancel contracts, and they want to re-bid them because they are going to ask for a higher rate,” Weems said. “We have some vendors that don’t want to participate, and they don’t want to answer any of our solicitations at all. They don’t want to enter into a new contract with the state. We’ve had some bigger vendors who have tried to get us to agree in the contract to pay in advance.”
Again, if the Republicans want to be honest brokers, they’ll offer up some actual plans. If they just want to score points, well, they’ll continue doing what they have been doing, which is nothing.
* However, it would also help if the governor’s office would start being upfront with the General Assembly about what’s really going on with the current fiscal year’s budget. The state’s budget director failed to show up for an important committee hearing yesterday, so one of his assistants was drawn and quartered for effect. But he also dug his own holes…
When asked whether funding for human services could be cut during the last four months of the current budget year, Weems responded: “There has been no decision on any of that.”
Would Quinn propose human service cuts for the upcoming budget? “There is a wide array of different scenarios we are discussing,” he replied.
Could the governor back up his claim of cutting spending by $3 billion in past years? “I can give you some examples of cuts,” Weems said, offering about $250 million worth.
1) There have most certainly been discussions of cuts to Human Services’ budget. Period.
2) Budget cutting scenarios? Really? That’s not what the department directors are saying. And if they are doing scenarios, aren’t those “discussions”? If so, see point 1.
3) Don’t tout $3 billion in cuts if you can only tally $250 million.
House Speaker Michael Madigan hinted Tuesday that more changes are possible to state employee pension and retiree health benefits — including the constitutionally sticky possibility that future retirement benefits for existing employees could be reduced.
On their first full day back since a blizzard canceled last week’s legislative session, members of the Illinois House spent more than an hour bickering over changes in the chamber’s rules. As that debate ended, Madigan, D-Chicago, gave a rare speech ticking off the politically poisonous choices House members will have to make in “the next three to four to five months.”
Those choices could include reducing future pension benefits for state employees, he said.
“We’re all familiar with the inadequate funding of the state pension systems,” Madigan said. “Again, tough decision-making, telling people you’re not going to get everything you thought you were going to get, telling people you may have to pay in more. Not easy stuff. So we all better get ready for it.”
“You’ve already changed it going forward,” Madigan said of the pension changes for new hires. “But now we are working on bills that would change it midstream. A state worker would be told, ‘All right, you have a state benefit package up to today. Starting tomorrow, it’s going to be a different deal.’”
Afterwards, Madigan spokesman Steve Brown cautioned not to portray his boss as “an advocate” for such an approach but that he is merely saying there “is going to be a discussion, and we’ll see where that discussion takes us.”
Brown would not divulge details of any legislative package the speaker may be considering.
Reality or more posturing? It’s posturing until we see an actual bill.
* Meanwhile, watching the Cook County budget fight play out reminds me of how budget cuts often play out in Springfield. First, somebody in the upper levels releases a doomsday plan that cuts vital services and doesn’t touch non-essentials. State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is playing a very old tune…
“A 10 percent reduction for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office cuts deeply — deeply — into vital services that the people of this county cannot do without,” Alvarez told county commissioners during the start of the budget hearing.
Court reporters who record grand jury proceedings, victim-witness “specialists” who aid and help crime victims navigate the justice system and 58 assistant state’s attorney’s would be shown the door, she said. […]
Preckwinkle said her staff offered suggestions on cuts, including support staff, but never directed her to cut assistant state’s attorneys.
“She has chosen to propose cuts that involve significant layoffs of lawyers — that’s not the only way in which she could reach her goal of 10 percent,” Preckwinkle said.
* Related…
* Both parties in state Senate hand out raises: At the same time they were fighting an income tax hike and calling on Democrats to cut the state budget, Republicans in the Illinois Senate handed out raises to top aides and other staffers worth an average of 4.9 percent
* Obama Plans to Rescue States With UI Debt Burdens: President Obama is proposing to ride to the rescue of states that have borrowed billions of dollars from the federal government to continue paying unemployment benefits during the economic downturn. His plan would give the states a two-year breather before automatic tax increases would hit employers, and before states would have to start paying interest on the loans.
* Budget squeeze could make HIV treatment costlier, rarer: Thousands of low-income Illinoisans who have the AIDS virus could find themselves with fewer choices for life-sustaining medicines and more hurdles to get treatment, as the state continues to grapple with an unprecedented budget crunch amid increased demand and high drug prices. Illinois has reduced the number of medications available to patients or has capped how much can be spent on the drugs through a state assistance program. Officials also have added layers to the process of how to sign up for — and stay enrolled in — the state-run AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which pays for medicines for poor and low-income Americans.
* Metro-east lawmaker pushes for pension system audit: “The pension systems keep saying everything is OK. Either they don’t know it’s not OK, or they don’t want us to know what the whole truth is.”
* Economist presents money solutions to Illinois lawmakers
