A leading civil rights group wants Chicago to stop expanding its network of thousands of cameras covering the city because of privacy issues, First Amendment concerns and a lack of regulation, according to a report released Tuesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois called for a full review of the cameras — which number at least 10,000 and are at locations from skyscrapers to utility poles — saying city officials won’t release basic information like the exact number, cost and any incidents of misuse. […]
“Chicago’s camera network invades the freedom to be anonymous in public places, a key aspect of the fundamental American right to be left alone,” the report states. “Each of us then will wonder whether the government is watching and recording us when we walk into a psychiatrist’s office, a reproductive health care center, a political meeting, a theater performance, or a book store.”
On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union in a new report on Chicago’s cameras called for a moratorium on additional cameras. We are not so sure a moratorium is necessary, but we absolutely agree with the ACLU that new guidelines should be put into place to protect citizens against abuse from these powerful tools. […]
Mayor Daley long has championed the cameras as crime-fighting tools and has said he’d like to see one on every corner. The ACLU report casts doubt on their effectiveness and says the $60 million price tag would be better spent on hiring more police.
The ACLU is calling for restricting zooming, facial recognition and tracking to instances when crime is suspected; banning surveillance of homes or businesses; prohibiting the retention of images unless criminal activity is suspected; banning the unwarranted distribution of images; annually auditing the system and releasing the results of those audits; investigating all rules violations; disciplining transgressors and banning traffic photos if no violation is occurring.
* The Question: Are these reasonable demands by the ACLU? Do they want too much, or would you go even further? Explain.
*** UPDATE *** Unsurprisingly, Mayor Daley has rejected the ACLU’s demands…
If wealthier Chicagoans can enjoy the protection of private security cameras around their buildings, then other citizens should have that same type of protection on the streets in their neighborhoods, he said.
It isn’t practical to require probable cause before zooming in, following somebody’s movements with a camera or using facial recognition technology, Daley said, because that would require an OK from a judge.
“Ask a judge who’s sleeping tonight, at 2 o’clock in the morning, and say ‘Judge, we have probable cause, the person is walking down 22nd Street.’ By the time we get there the person’s already at Halsted Street,” Daley said.
“He’s rolled out a proposal which is $8.7 billion,” Radogno said. “It’s structured in a way that’s pretty significantly back loaded which means the payments will escalate after the first few years. That’s a problem.”
Next fiscal year’s bond payment will be $100 million. By Fiscal Year 15, the payment rises to $450 million. The income tax hike expires during the middle of that fiscal year, but money is allocated to the bond payment. By the next fiscal year, however, annual bond payments rise to $750 million and continue that way through FY 25. The payback schedule is on page 17 of the bill.
However, Leader Radogno doesn’t quite grasp the rest of it…
“Well it is borrowing and the fact of the matter is we will have, by their own estimates, probably about $7 billion in new revenue coming into the state from the tax increase,” Radogno said. “It seems to me that some of that revenue ought to be used to pay existing bills because frankly it would be less expensive to just pay those bills off using our Prompt Payment Act, even if we have penalties, than to borrow the way he’s proposed.”
You could use the new tax money to pay past due bills, but then you’d be creating more past due bills because the state couldn’t pay current vouchers. That’s the whole reason for the borrowing: Pay it off using a portion of the income tax over time. You could pay it down a little bit at a time without bonding, but it would be at least June of 2026 before it was all done with. That’s a heckuva long time to string out vendors and providers.
* Meanwhile, the tax amnesty program was projected to bring in $250 million for the state. The final total was $314 million. From a press release…
More than 78,000 taxpayers sent payments to the Illinois Department of Revenue during the state’s tax amnesty program that concluded last November. The program exceeded its budgetary goal, adding $314 million to the general revenue fund for FY 2011.
“This program’s success is good news as we work to stabilize state finances and to maintain vital public services,” Governor Pat Quinn said. “This much-needed revenue will help our state to meet its obligations and is another important step towards making Illinois fiscally sound.”
The FY 2011 budget estimated that tax amnesty would infuse $250 million into state government coffers during this fiscal year. The state received a total of $717 million in tax payments; $314 million went to the general revenue fund, with the balance going to local governments and the state’s income tax refunds. […]
In addition to the immediate cash infusion, tax amnesty broadened the tax base. Non-filers accounted for $12 million of state receipts, and will be easier for the state to track in future years. Additionally, improved tax tracking software and enhanced audit and collection capabilities will further assist the state in monitoring filers who came forward under amnesty for future compliance.
* Speaker Madigan unexpectedly showed up at the House Rules Committee yesterday. Not many reporters were there…
The powerful Southwest Side Democrat said lawmakers need to address a series of issues, including proposals for “new revenue for the capital program.” […]
Madigan ticked off a series of additional items that need to be addressed, ranging from reining in workers’ compensation costs for businesses to finding ways to cut spending. The speaker also said the state must find ways to finance the state unemployment insurance program, the insurance program for retired Downstate public school teachers and health insurance for community college teachers.
* Related…
* A Seer on Banks Raises a Furor on Bonds: “I’ve seen a copy of the report, and frankly, I’ve seen better papers from graduate students in finance,” said Richard P. Larkin, director of credit analysis at Herbert J. Sims & Company, a municipal bond broker and underwriter. “It’s ludicrous, reckless and irresponsible, and it’s being done without any regard for the consequences.”
* Quinn to feds: No thanks on any bankruptcy bailout: “We believe that the states have an obligation to pay their bills and to meet the demands they have put upon themselves,” [Brie Callahan, spokeswoman for the governor’s office] said. “We don’t want any federal assistance in terms of bankruptcy.”
* Child care advocates fight back against cuts nearing $100 million: “As we look at the budget hole that exists right now, every single dime of the solution is coming out of the Department of Human Services,” Whalen said. “And this means further cuts to developmental disabled, to the poorest of the poor, to basic human service needs, and of course it means drastic cuts to the child care program in our state… “And I think that it’s pretty amazing that when we look to make these terrible choices, we look first at those who have the least.”
* Appeals Court backs state casino tax: Previously, the Illinois Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of the tax after the casinos argued that it violated the U.S. Constitution’s “takings” clause. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of that decision in late 2009.
* Press Release: Governor Quinn Announces Second Round of Top Administration Appointments - Names Two Senior Advisors and Five Agency Heads [Fixed link]
* Illinois fiscal officers look beyond party lines
* Former Ill. comptroller Hynes gets new job with US government as observer to Ireland fund: Former Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes has a new job with the federal government. Hynes has been appointed as the U.S. government’s observer to the International Fund for Ireland. In his new job, Hynes will serve as the official observer at all meetings of the fund’s board of directors. The International Fund for Ireland is an independent organization with the aim of fostering peace in Northern Ireland and bordering countries. It’s financed, in part, by the U.S. government.
Tuesday, Feb 8, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
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* The Sun-Times takes a closer look at how Rahm Emanuel made his millions. ComEd was at the center of much of that cash…
Is there anything wrong with mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel making $18.5 million dollars as an investment banker in the 2 ½ years after he got out of the Clinton White House – much of it from Clinton donors?
“I defy you to tell me anybody you know who jumped out of government into a business for which he had no credentials or background, made $18.5 million in two years and then jumped back into government,” said Gery Chico, Emanuel’s rival for the mayor’s office. […]
That $8.2 billion merger created Exelon, parent company of Commonwealth Edison. The Obama White House tapped Exelon CEO John Rowe to lobby lawmakers to support the administration’s greenhouse gas-reducing legislation. Obama senior adviser David Axelrod has worked for Exelon.
“John Rowe and I had known each other, and when I came out of the White House, he called me and said, ‘We’re looking at doing a merger, would you guys be willing to be our banker?’ Wasserstein, Perella, we had expertise in that area,” Emanuel said.
The newly merged utility ended up laying off 3,350 workers, or 10 percent of its work force.
* Speaking of Exelon and ComEd, are rate hikes on the way? We’ve talked about this before, but could be…
Commonwealth Edison and other state utilities would be able to lock in profit margins above 10 percent under a bill to be introduced Tuesday in the General Assembly.
The legislation also proposes that rate hikes for consumers, which typically undergo an 11-month regulatory review, could be decided in as little as 45 days.
ComEd, which helped write the legislation, is pitching the regulatory changes as a better, more streamlined process that would allow utilities to reliably plan for capital investments aimed at modernizing the electrical grid. […]
“At the end of the day, it really is a recipe for automatic rate increases,” said David Kolata, CUB executive director. “It essentially guts our traditional regulatory framework that’s been in place for 100 years and replaces it with an automatic formula. This bill is not what we hoped it would be.” […]
Kolata said the watchdog group is cautiously optimistic about the potential of smart-grid technology to reduce costs for consumers. While he could not support the bill as written, he said he hoped to work with ComEd to improve it in a way that would protect consumers.
Something tells me not to expect Rahm Emanuel’s campaign to decry these proposed rate increases.
Attorneys for Rod Blagojevich filed a pretrial motion Tuesday seeking what they claimed was missing evidence in the impeached Illinois governor’s corruption trial, including records of a phone call between a Blagojevich aide and then White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
The motion claims the telephone conversation took place just a day before Blagojevich’s December 2008 arrest on charges that include allegations he sought to sell or trade the appointment to President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat for personal gain. The motion says details of that conversation could bolster a defense contention that Emanuel, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, was willing to help with a political deal in which Blagojevich would have named Illinois’ attorney general to the seat.
But the call between Emanuel and then Blagojevich chief of staff John Harris is not among hundreds of transcripts of secret FBI wiretaps recorded before Blagojevich’s arrest. The defense motion points only to circumstantial evidence that it even happened, including a reference in a White House transition-team report from after the arrest that said Emanuel had “about four” conversations with Harris. The defense was given records of only three conversations, according to the motion.
“The fourth and final phone call is the call that is mysteriously missing,” it adds. “Piecing together multiple documents after the first trial, Blagojevich uncovered the fact that the December 8th phone call … took place.”
As I’ve said many times before, by that late in the game I believe that Blagojevich was looking to create an alibi. He knew the feds had tapped his phones, so he started moving ahead with this fantasy of appointing Lisa Madigan to the Obama Senate seat to get the heat off his alleged attempts to auction the seat off.
The West Side alderman who chaired one of the committees seeking a “consensus” mayoral candidate for African-Americans told Fox Chicago News Monday that he will now endorse no one in the contest.
Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) also singled out for the first time what he believes was the biggest mistake made by the search committee: the decision to bar non-black candidates from appearing before the panel. […]
Burnett spoke to us hours after his longtime mentor, Secretary of State Jesse White, Illinois’s senior African-American politician, endorsed Rahm Emanuel for Chicago Mayor on Monday.
* School Sends Teachers To Vegas Resort On Taxpayers’ Dime
* Emanuel defends city worker ‘mindset’ ad: “Let me set something straight right now. Rahm Emanuel is sticking it to the working class of this city,” Gery Chico, mayoral candidate, said.
* Exelon switches over to LDI - Change made to reduce volatility in the portfolio and in the funded status
* Electrify Your Portfolio With Utilities: Exelon’s capital and cost structure are the most efficient in the industry. You can see their 69.5% gross margin flow into their attractive 15.6% profit margin. Exelon is more profitable and efficient then its peers because of the low costs of operating nuclear plants.
* Most of the attention has been focused on Mayor Daley’s failures during last week’s blizzard. But lots of Chicago aldermen have contested races this month and they’ve been scrambling to soothe constituents’ anger. Ald. Sandi Jackson is up against the daugher of Cook County Commissioner Bill Beavers. The day after the storm, Jackson did a robocall complaining about unfair snow removal priorities by the city. She also called for an inspector general investigation of the distribution of snow plows during the blizzard.
Yesterday, Jackson’s 7th Ward sanitation superintendent was essentially sacked…
Wendell Upton, the city’s 7th Ward sanitation superintendent, has been stripped of his responsibilities and reassigned to administrative duties for allegedly failing to adequately deliver snow removal to residents of the South Side ward.
Streets and Sanitation spokesman Matt Smith refused to specify just how Upton fell down on the job. He would only say that Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne made the decision and that incumbent Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th) concurred.
A temporary replacement for Upton will “continue to address the effects of the blizzard” until a permanent replacement is named, Smith said.
“The 7th Ward superintendent was removed from duty last week based on performance issues. His removal was a joint decision by Commissioner Byrne and Alderman Jackson,” Smith said.
Alderman George Cardenas (12th Ward) said he had spent $10,000 from his campaign account to hire private plows and considered it a smarter use of the money than sending political mail or buying doughnuts for volunteers.
“Not cheap, but it was worth it,” said Mr. Cardenas, who has represented the Southwest Side ward since 2003. “I never had to do that. Then again, storms like this don’t come every year.”
Alderman John Rice (36th) estimated that he had spent $4,000 to $5,000 out of his own pocket to employ 10 workers and put fuel in two of his personal trucks that he committed to snow removal. Mr. Rice said he had driven one of the trucks down snow-clogged side streets in his far Northwest Side ward.
Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, said her ward has not gotten as many city plows and other pieces of snow removal equipment as she was promised. So, like others, she’s turning to private contractors to clear away alleys.
“We can’t keep waiting for (the city),” Hairston said Saturday.
* Even candidates are getting into the act. From a press release…
During a weekend in which many people were preparing seven-layer bean dip and icing their beers for Super Bowl parties, aldermanic candidate Michael Fitzgerald Ward was busy clearing out snow drifts in 45th Ward alleys that had remained blocked since last week’s historic blizzard.
Ward and his campaign staff spent most of the day on Saturday and Sunday coordinating with more than a dozen hired snow-plow drivers, almost as many bobcat bulldozers, and a team of dump trucks to help “rescue” dozens of 45th Ward residents who had called Ward’s campaign office asking if he could help dig them out from the record snowfall piled on top of their cars and blocking their garages.
“I’ve had to remind people who are calling in that I’m not yet their alderman – I don’t work for the city and I can’t send any city crews to their block,” Ward said. Although not yet an alderman, Ward donated some of his campaign funds along with money from his own pocket to hire a fleet of professional snow-removal contractors to assist the city with its efforts in the 45th Ward.
* Medill Reports called every aldermanic office last Wednesday to see if they’d added special info about the weather emergency. Just a few had…
Everything OK in your area?
* Related…
* The precedent Chicago ignored: Twelve years ago, city workers heaped 65,000 sandbags into piles creating walls to prevent high winds from spilling Lake Michigan onto the Drive. They did this three days before the storm hit. Last week’s blizzard came with even earlier warnings.
* The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has held 1,000 workshops that have helped 50,000 people become citizens in the past six years. The group has also kept track of who has taken the oath and where they live. Click the pic for a larger version…
Kevin Lyons, state’s attorney for Peoria County, traveled to the state Capitol several times to testify against the [death penalty] abolition bill. He noted that if Quinn signs the legislation, he would also have to act in favor of the inmates now on death row.
“Fairness would demand that if the death penalty is abolished, those persons would surely have to have their sentences commuted by governor act to life without parole,” Lyons said. “Fairness would require it.”
The other way of looking at it would be a compromise. Keep the current convicts on death row while banning the penalty in the future. There’s no hard “requirement” here.
Illinois has one of the three most restrictive eavesdropping laws in the country, along with Maryland the Massachusetts. And Illinois police and prosecutors are not shy about using the law to punish the taping of arrests and interrogations.
The street artist, Charles Drew, actually intended to get arrested in an act of civil disobedience targeting a Chicago ordinance banning the sale of art on the street without a permit. That would have been a misdemeanor, but he ended up charged with a felony for arranging a tape of his arrest.
Tiwanda Moore, the 20-year-old stripper, went to police headquarters to complain about an officer she said had fondled her and left her his personal phone number. An officer receiving Moore’s complaint tried to dissuade her from pursuing it. She began recording the conversation with her cell phone. When officers discovered what she was doing, they charged her under the eavesdropping statute.
Moore was scheduled to go trial this week and Drew in April. Moore is relying on a exception to the eavesdropping law that allows a conversation to be recorded surreptitiously if a crime is about to be committed. She maintains that the officer’s effort to discourage her from filing a complaint was committing a crime.
The ACLU in Illinois went to court to challenge the state eavesdropping law as a violation of the First Amendment, but a Chicago judge threw out the suit last month. The ACLU is appealing.
From the National Press Photographers Association…
“Despite consistent court rulings protecting the First Amendment rights of both citizens and the media to take photographs in public places, and despite many law enforcement agencies spelling it out in their official policies, the officer on the street either doesn’t get the word or decides to act on his own in the name of ‘security’ or ‘terrorism laws,’ often citing rules that don’t exist and exerting authority that’s non-existent. And recently in some states police have started citing old wiretapping laws that have been on the books for decades as their excuse for ordering photographers to cease videotaping officers as they’re doing their jobs in public, either during traffic stops or street arrests or while interfering with photographers who are breaking no rules and who are posing no threats to safety.”
The Illinois Republican Party plans a statewide pre-primary straw poll ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
The party made the announcement Sunday night at an event marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan. The Illinois GOP says the straw poll will be Nov. 5 and measure the support of Republican presidential hopefuls.
“Congratulations to Mitt Romney, whose strong showing today indicates he has begun to put together a strong statewide organization,” state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna said in a statement released by the Romney campaign. “There’s no question that Illinois’ demographics closely match those of the United States and this could be an indication as to whom Illinois voters are leaning toward this coming February.”
John McCain won just 4.12 percent of that straw poll vote. Oops.
Then again, holding the vote in November rather than August might help.
Rahm Emanuel’s campaign says the Chicago mayoral candidate has earned an endorsement from Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.
Emanuel campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Monday morning that Emanuel would receive the endorsement from White. Emanuel has already received endorsements from the city’s two major daily newspapers, The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times.
For knowledgeable music fans, two things jump out from the list of donors to the campaign of mayoral frontrunner Rahm Emanuel. The first is the contributions from the two top executives at Ticketmaster/Live Nation, the monopolistic giant that has become the most reviled entity in the music business.
Executive chairman Irving Azoff, the notorious “Poison Dwarf” of the music industry and a man who’s been pushing concert ticket prices ever higher since he started as manager of the Eagles, gave the campaign $10,000. And CEO Michael Rapino, as ruthless a figure as the music business ever has produced, gave $5,000.
The second fact that leaps out is that no fewer than 15 employees at William Morris Endeavor, the Hollywood super-agency run by Ari Emanuel, have donated a total of $141,000 to his brother Rahm’s campaign. Not coincidentally, William Morris co-owns Lollapalooza, which has a tax-free sweetheart deal with the city of Chicago that keeps it in Grant Park through 2018.
Never nurturing to begin with, the waning days of the Daley administration have been a singularly dreadful time for the city’s relations with the music community. The dismantling of the Department of Cultural Affairs has cast uncertainty on the future of music programming at Millennium Park, and when the push to privatize the free summer music festivals resulted in a stellar proposal that could have created Chicago’s answers to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Milwaukee’s Summerfest, Daley abruptly reversed himself and arbitrarily rejected it.
*** UPDATE *** From the Emanuel campaign…
Given his brother’s position at WME and on the board of Live Nation, Rahm would ask the City Council to appoint an outside negotiator to handle any negotiations with these companies so that there wasn’t even a question of favoritism.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Meanwhile, Gery Chico’s campaign will receive the endorsement of several labor unions today. From a press release…
International Union of Operating Engineers
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 9
Sheet Metal Workers Local 73
Ironworkers Local 1
Laborers’ District Council of Chicago & Vicinity
Painters District Council #14
* The Sun-Times looks at candidate finances today. This passage about Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins kinda jumped out at me…
Watkins, a community activist, declined to answer questions about why she lives in a house that’s owned by a church whose leader is heavily bankrolling her mayoral run. Also, she has donated sizable chunks of her income to one or more charities that she declined to identify.
Imagine 39,000 government workers being paid to do nothing.
That’s what happened last Wednesday. And it reflects a pervasive and pernicious mindset within government — government serves its employees, not the taxpayers.
As we all know, Illinois got walloped with the mother of all blizzards last week. Many folks couldn’t make it into work. And that’s perfectly understandable. The snow was deep.
Private sector workers faced with this predicament generally were told to take a vacation day or go without pay. Not surprisingly, many chose to brave the snowdrifts rather than face a lighter paycheck.
But most state “workers” were told not to even bother trying to go to work. And they weren’t asked to sacrifice vacation days or personal leave days. Wednesday was just a gift from the governor.
* The Question: Should state employees have been forced to take a vacation/personal day last Wednesday? Explain.
The state’s Secretary of Human Services met with a group representing child care providers last Monday and gave them some bad news. Prepare for $100 million in cuts to child care programs, Secretary Michelle Saddler told the group.
According to a participant in the meeting, Saddler said the state could freeze intake of new clients, “dramatically” increase parental co-pays, cut rates to providers and eliminate child care for parents who are in school or employment-related training.
The meeting resulted in an urgent alert by Illinois Action for Children imploring supporters to immediately call the governor’s office.
The $100 million cut would be for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. That cut would equal about a third of the child care program’s remaining budget, which comes from both state and federal revenue sources.
After initially refusing to confirm that the Secretary of Human Services had warned activists about that impending $100 million cut to child care programs, the governor’s budget office finally shed some light on the matter later in the week.
The cuts are not “new” cuts, according to the budget office. Instead, a spokesperson claimed, these are cuts that were ordered last year and are just now being implemented.
So, in other words, the Quinn administration waited until after the election and after the state income tax hike was passed to implement huge cuts to a program for mostly poor, single-mother families. And because the administration waited so long, the cuts are now more than twice as deep as they would have been had they been executed at the start of the fiscal year in July.
But, of course, making those cuts last summer would have hurt Quinn with his core constituencies and he needed every possible vote he could get. Women, the poor, minorities and liberal voters would have been outraged by major cuts to child care programs, which help poor families get on their feet. Now, they all can be safely tossed overboard. The election is over.
Liberals and minorities in the House and Senate almost all voted for the income tax hike, believing that the worst cuts were behind them. The deed is done, so the cuts now can be announced.
David Ormsby, a public relations consultant, claimed last week that Saddler’s department is looking at perhaps $400 million in overall cuts — equal to 10 percent of her department’s entire budget.
But since the fiscal year is more than half over, a 10 percent budget cut to the department now would be equal to more than a 20 percent reduction in the department’s remaining outlays.
Quinn sharply criticized state Sen. Bill Brady on the campaign trail last year for proposing an across-the-board cut of 10 percent, but Quinn apparently is planning to double that amount in one of the departments which he has claimed he holds dear.
And to add insult to injury, Quinn is encouraging groups and businesses that have contracts with the Department of Human Services to lobby legislators for a long-term borrowing plan to pay off the state’s past-due bills. The state owes service providers billions of dollars because it didn’t have the cash to pay them on time until the tax hike passed. Many of those providers work in the human service field. So, now Quinn wants them to work to get the money they’re owed while he’s simultaneously eviscerating their funding.
The word “chutzpah” comes to mind.
The state didn’t have enough revenue to pay for the programs it had for the past few years. That’s why we were in such a hole. And everybody at the Statehouse knew that budget cuts would have to happen even after the income tax rate was increased.
But concealing cuts to child care — of all things — until after the election and after that tax hike vote is just downright shameful.
Some think Quinn is trying to create panic by announcing these cuts and then using that angst as leverage to find legislative votes for his borrowing plan. He’s done this sort of thing before, only to back off at the last minute. But using poor single moms as human shields would not be his finest hour, to say the least.
This whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.
* And the Quinn administration is actively lobbying vendors and human service providers to push for the governor’s borrowing bill…
The administration Friday began contacting 36,000 vendors owed money by the state, urging them to call on their lawmakers to support the borrowing bill. Employees in the administration and state agencies are calling each of the vendors, said Quinn spokeswoman Brie Callahan.
About 100 people were making the calls, including people on Quinn’s staff, legislative liaisons, government interns and regional staffers with the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
“This is a legislative issue,” Callahan said. “This is something the governor has said from the beginning we need to do. Our goal is to help educate vendors.”
Calls and e-mails also are going out to human-service providers asking them similarly to have their clients contact lawmakers, she said. The state also is getting in touch with umbrella organizations, such as the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce.
From the e-mail sent to human service providers that was signed by the governor…
Dear Friends,
This is a call to action. I am writing to ask you to support Senate Bill 3, a debt restructuring plan to pay Illinois’ bills.
As you know, for too long, the State of Illinois has failed to pay its bills - ‘balancing’ its books on the backs of its vendors, health care organizations, and social service agencies.
Not mentioned: They’re going to balance the books on the backs of providers again.
* Related…
* New Medicaid law: Needed reform or ‘Scrooge-like’?: Opponents of the state’s recently signed Medicaid reform law say it will kick thousands of children off public health insurance and hinder the state’s ability to convince low-income families to apply for coverage in the All Kids program. “It’s kind of Scrooge-like,” said Stephanie Altman, policy director of Chicago-based Health & Disability Advocates.
A state, municipal or private worker can get thousands of tax-free dollars through workers’ compensation based primarily on a doctor’s note. All that is needed is a report stating the claimant has a wrist condition known as carpal tunnel syndrome or cubital tunnel syndrome, which can affect the elbow.
Surgery or treatment of any kind is not required. A lawyer isn’t needed.
And the public won’t know anything about it until the money is on the way.
While diagnosis-only settlements pay less, they are part of a little known overall process that takes place primarily out of the public view involving uncontested workers’ compensation claims. According to a database provided by the commission, this procedure allowed approximately 95 percent of 3,500 private and public workers outside Chicago who did not hire lawyers to be given settlements last year without the usual lengthy administrative process, which can include a public hearing. The database did not include awards by any of the 15 arbitrators based in Chicago. There are 32 arbitrators statewide. […]
Of the 3,500 uncontested settlements handled this way in 2010, the News-Democrat found that 117 involved state workers whose total of $2.9 million in awards were paid from the tax supported general revenue fund. Of that amount, approximately $1.9 million involved carpal or cubital tunnel claims or other repetitive trauma injuries.
The number of people 65 or older in the Chicago area will soar 65% to 1.7 million by 2030, estimates William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
That’s less than the 78% increase expected nationally, thanks to immigration in Chicago. Still, about 1 in 6 people in the area will be 65 or older in 2030, compared with 1 in 9 today.
From 2020 to 2030, Illinois’ economy is expected to grow 1.4% annually, down from 2.4% this decade and 3% to 3.5% in the 1990s, when the boomers were in their prime, according to Moody’s Analytics Inc.
One reason: Growth in the labor force, necessary to increase output, will slow as boomers leave the workplace. Chicago’s labor growth will decline to 0.24% in 2020 from 1.03% this year, Moody’s estimates.
* Other stuff…
* Second site bows out of high school rodeo rotation
* Quinn: Auto jobs latest proof NJ isn’t better: “[In] New Jersey, I think the last auto production was about 2005 in the state,” the governor said. “The lights have been turned out over there. We’re doing very well in Illinois, with Mitsubishi, with Ford, with Chrysler, and with Navistar that makes trucks.”
* Reform groups hope for more ethics legislation in Illinois: Political scientist and UIS professor emeritus Kent Redfield said those reforms are unlikely to be addressed in the next General Assembly. “Right now, the overwhelming priority is the budget, and in some sense it sort of sucks the air out of everything else,” Redfield said.
