* 4:30 pm - I’ve been distracted by other things, but the Illinois Supreme Court’s press office called a while ago to say that the Court will issue an opinion in the capital bill case on Monday morning. The Trib has a short piece on it as well…
The Illinois Supreme Court will release a decision Monday on the legality of a 2009 law that raised liquor taxes and legalized video poker around the state, the high court said today.
Supreme Court spokesman Joseph Tybor said the decision is expected to be filed by 9 a.m. The decision could strike down or uphold the wide-ranging legislation meant to raise billions of dollars for construction projects.
A state appellate court ruled in January that lawmakers didn’t properly assemble the pieces of a deal that legalized video poker for bars, restaurants and truck stops and raised taxes on candy, beauty products, liquor and license plate stickers.
This is the first time I can recall that the Supremes have announced a decision release this far in advance.
In response to Gov. Quinn’s Friday afternoon announcement canceling scheduled pay increases for some 30,000 employees of 14 state agencies, the largest union representing employees in those agencies is seeking a ruling from an independent arbitrator to enforce the terms of its collective bargaining agreement with the state of Illinois.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 contends that by rescinding a negotiated pay increase, the Governor has violated the union’s contract.
In January 2010, Edwin Benn served as a mediator to resolve the union’s grievances and litigation over layoffs threatened by Quinn. The resulting grievance resolution—which provided for tens of millions of dollars in cost-savings, wage deferrals and a voluntary furlough program, as well as a bar against state employee layoffs—gave Benn the authority to resolve disputes regarding its implementation. He retained that jurisdiction under the terms of a subsequent agreement which again modified the wage provisions of the union contract.
Following the AFSCME request, Benn convened a preliminary conference. Today he issued a scheduling order directing both the state and union to submit briefs on the matter by July 16. Benn could then rule on the question or schedule a further evidentiary hearing. The arbitrator’s ruling may be appealed in state court.
“By refusing to pay state employees in accordance with the contract, Governor Quinn has violated an agreement that was fairly bargained and legally binding,” AFSCME executive director Henry Bayer said. “This is about integrity. What is the value of the governor’s word if he can break it? What is the value of a contract if it can be ignored? Bringing this matter before the arbitrator is our union’s first step in seeing that the contract is upheld and integrity is restored.”
Union attorneys continue to review other legal options. Seeking an arbitrator’s ruling does not preclude AFSCME from filing suit in state or federal court.
“Frontline employees do the real work of state government,” Bayer said. “They care for the disabled, protect children from abuse and neglect, risk their lives in state prisons and provide countless other vital public services in every Illinois community every day. They deserve to be paid fairly, to be treated with respect, and to know that their employer, the governor, will keep his commitments. AFSCME will do everything possible to hold Pat Quinn to his word.”
In addition, AFSCME announced that state employees at worksites throughout Illinois will hold informational pickets on Tuesday, July 12, to raise awareness of the vital work they do on the frontlines of state government.
Equality Illinois, the state’s oldest and largest LGBT advocacy organization, announced today that during June, the first month that civil unions were available to couples in Illinois, 1,618 total civil union licenses were issued throughout the state. Of the state’s 102 counties, 83 counties reported issuing at least one or more licenses.
* Approximate number of indigent burials in Illinois every year: 10,000.
* Number of annuitants from the State Employees Retirement System who are on the National Taxpayers United’s “Top 100″ annual pension recipients in Illinois: Zero.
* Amount of campaign contributions that Illinois Supreme Court Justice Mary Jane Theis claims to have raised for her reelection campaign in just over a month: $300,000.
* Illinois’ ranking in the annual Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation study of adult obesity: 23rd. Last year’s ranking: 28th. More…
Ten years ago, no state had an obesity rate above 24 percent, and now 43 states have higher obesity rates than the state that was the highest in 2000.
* Number of states that ban all drivers from using hand-held cell phones: 8, plus Washington, DC.
* Under current state law, probability that a horse owned by the Queen of England could compete at an Illinois track without Her Majesty’s fingerprints on file: Zero.
* Percentage drop in attendance at this year’s Taste of Chicago compared to last year’s: 11. Number of major nationally known bands and spectacular fireworks displays at Grant Park during this year’s festivities: 0.
David O. Rudd, 56, of Springfield died at 4:55 a.m. on Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at Memorial Medical Center. He was born March 4, 1955 in Elmhurst, IL to John Owen and Pauline Lumina Pelletier Rudd and they preceded him in death.
He married Gayla S. Smith on July 14, 1984 and she survives. Also surviving are two sisters-in-law, Kendra (Allen) Millard of Shelton, WA and Nancy (Mark) Heard of Sesser, IL; a brother-in-law, Ron Smith of West Frankfort, IL; mother-in-law, Eileen Smith of West Frankfort, IL; several nieces and nephews and his Bouvier, Kozmo.
David lived in Springfield for the past 27 years. He received a BA in Political Science in May of 1977 from SIU Carbondale and a JD from SIUC School of Law in May of 1980.
He was employed by Gallatin-River Communications as a Lobbyist and Attorney and formerly worked at the Illinois Commerce Commission.
He was a member of the Island Bay Yacht Club, Illinois Telecommunications Association, Illinois Bar Association and was a Registered Lobbyist. He enjoyed sailing and boating, traveling and was a great cook.
A Private Memorial Service will be held at a later date.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Animal Protective League.
* Well, here’s some good news for a change. The legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability is reporting that state sales tax receipts grew 8.3 percent during the past fiscal year.
…Adding… Take out all the tax amnesty proceeds, and the result is 6 percent growth. However, it’s not a sure bet that none of those proceeds would’ve been realized, and June over June receipts grew 8.2 percent and May over May growth was 7.6 percent.
Unlike the income tax, the General Assembly didn’t increase sales tax rates, so that’s a pretty darned good showing. Overall, state revenues grew $3.4 billion in the last fiscal year. Most of that was from the tax hikes, but some was from economic growth…
“Obviously the tax changes enacted halfway through the fiscal year played the key role in the increase, as did the tax amnesty program which occurred in the fall,” said a COGFA analysis. “The magnitude of the effect of those items often served to mask the underlying improvement in the economic sources that was happening simultaneously with the tax changes.
“While impossible to dissect and assign values to each, it was clear from receipting performance that revenues were recovering from last year’s dismal showing which saw receipts plunge over $2 billion.”
* By comparison, as of May, Indiana’s sales tax receipts were growing at just a 4.9 percent annual rate - meaning our revenue growth was almost 70 percent higher [22 percent sans all tax amnesty proceeds]. Illinois’ personal income tax receipts grew by 30.4 percent last fiscal year. But factor out the tax hike and Illinois income tax receipts also appear to be growing at a higher rate than Indiana’s 17.3 percent.
While not the be-all, end-all analysis, it doesn’t appear that Illinois is falling behind its Hoosier neighbor just yet, despite the tax hike.
COGFA is now working on fiscal year 2012 revenue projections, which may be down from the estimates made four months ago, [Jim Muschinske, revenue manager for COGFA] said.
“The General Assembly cut and then the governor cut again,” he said. “So we’re trying to get a handle on what that means in terms of federal sources. But it’s going to be hundreds of millions less than what was anticipated in the March period. You’re looking at probably between $400 million and $500 million less federal money.”
COGFA’s original estimate was $1 billion higher than the House’s revenue estimate. If Muschinske is correct, that estimate will be cut in half, meaning less money to pay off old bills and patch any other budget holes.
* As subscribers read this morning, Gov. Pat Quinn is asking the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules to approve an emergency rule that implements his plan to scrap union worker pay raises…
Vicki Thomas, executive director of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, said the panel has a number of options, including one that could block the governor’s move. “Yes. They could stop it,” Thomas said Wednesday. […]
State Sen. John Jones, R-Mount Vernon, who also is a member of the panel, said he doesn’t support the governor’s decision. “I would be inclined to go against the governor,” Jones said. “I don’t know how you can go against the contract like that.” […]
Righter said the governor needs to explain why he thinks he is legally allowed to cancel the raises, given the state’s collective bargaining agreement with AFSCME. “Clearly, there are a lot of unanswered questions out there,” Righter said.
* These are all union pay raises, by the way. We’re not just talking about the 2 percent raise that was supposed to take effect July 1 under the contract…
* Meanwhile, the SJ-R reminded readers of how the governor blasted Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker earlier this year over his own dealings with public employee unions…
“In Illinois, we always believed in working together as a team and not kicking somebody in the shins,” Quinn said in February as he welcomed Wisconsin Democratic senators who had fled to Illinois to stop Walker’s move.
To be clear, we can’t exactly say our hearts go out to the 30,000 union employees who won’t receive raises that total 5.25 percent over the next seven months.
At a time when their non-union colleagues have gone years without raises, this was an exceedingly sweet deal. It also ignores the financial reality in which most private sector employees now live.
But Quinn signed off on it back in September, then accepted AFSCME’s endorsement in the November election.
He needs to live up to the agreement or bring the unions back into discussions to change it.
* And remember this classic from February? Quinn was on MSNBC and said those who don’t believe in giving unions a “voice at the table” ought to “soak their heads”…
Thursday, Jul 7, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
On June 21 powerful storms, including two tornadoes, struck ComEd’s service territory knocking out power to 440,000 customers.
ComEd’s call center responded to nearly 600,000 calls and Web site traffic was at an all-time high as customers reported their outages and checked to find out when power would be restored.
With more than 800 crews, working around the clock ComEd restored service to 90 percent of customers within the first 48 hours. Within three days, the company had restored power to virtually all customers, with some individual, isolated outages lingering into Saturday.
Power outages are more than just an inconvenience; they lower productivity of the region’s economy and cost money.
But what if smart grid technology had been in place?
o ComEd would have known customers were out of power without them having to call us.
o Technology would have pinpointed outages allowing us to dispatch crews more quickly to restore service.
o Digital automation would have rerouted power meaning fewer customers would have been seen outages, and
o Thousands of customers may have never experienced an outage.
Why wait to modernize our electric grid? The time to act is now.
Twenty-nine state workers have felt the wrath of the Illinois Executive Ethics Commission since the little-known board’s inception seven years ago.
For violating the ethics code, those workers were fined a combined $28,350 by the commission.
Meanwhile, the efforts of the nine-member board cost taxpayers $338,139 a year in salaries for the appointees — or more than $2 million so far. The members also receive reimbursements for expenses they incur.
The 29 fines, ranging between $100 for forwarding politically tinged emails and $5,000 for soliciting political donations on the job, are a fraction of the more than 1,000 complaints a year brought to the attention of the executive inspector general.
The Executive Inspector’s office has had its troubles. Having investigators tail a state employee into Springfield taverns after working hours was perhaps one of the more egregious abuses of the system I’ve ever seen. Investigating a gubernatorial chief of staff for almost a year over three very minor campaign-related e-mails was freaking ridiculous.
So, after 7 years and at least $2 million spent, all they have to show for their work is 29 fines at an average of $977? That’s an average of about 4 fines a year, at a cost to the state - for just the IG’s board - of about $85K per violation.
Considering all the time and effort they put into some of their more publicized investigations, there’s little doubt that the IG has thoroughly investigated the violation reports. But, if more than a thousand complaints are filed every year and an average of just four people a year are fined, that leads me to believe that the ethics reporting system is being abused, or at least misused by those who are claiming violations.
But even more than that, it’s tough to conclude otherwise that state workers are, overall, pretty darned ethical.
The son of Illinois’ former state parks director is resigning after investigators determined he slept on the job and abused his state cellphone, but Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration let him stay on the payroll long enough for his pension to vest, records released Tuesday showed.
The case involves Scott Flood of Belleville, who held a supervisory role at the Department of Natural Resources. He’s the 49-year-old son of Sam Flood, the agency’s former director and a longtime Democratic leader on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River near St. Louis.
The younger Flood’s attorney said Tuesday that his client negotiated the terms of his departure from state government in the wake of details in an investigative report that he maintains are inaccurate or out of context.
Executive Inspector General Ricardo Meza said investigators determined Scott Flood violated numerous policies. Among other things, he came into work late and left early and used his state cellphone for more than 370 personal calls, investigators found.
* Meanwhile, I’m not quite sure I get the logic on this criticism of Mayor Emanuel’s decision to cap lobbyist gifts to city employees at $50…
The $50 limit means a lobbyist can’t treat a city worker to the courtside Bulls tickets said worker would never be able to afford on a government salary. Instead, they’ll have to sit in the upper deck. Emanuel, you may have noticed, always sits courtside.
The limit also means a lobbyist can’t dine with a city worker at MK Chicago restaurant, where Emanuel recently attended a fundraiser for President Obama. The Spring Tasting Menu is $54. Perhaps MK can solve that problem by offering 10 percent off with a City of Chicago pay stub. Otherwise, there’ll be a lot more lobbying done at Phil’s Kastle Hamburgers on the East Side.
Really, these new “ethics” rules are no different than Emanuel’s offering higher salaries to top Chicago Public Schools administrators while stiffing teachers on their annual pay raise.
With a campus of around 20,000 people at any given time, Great Lakes Naval Station is a huge collection of young people in northern Lake County.
And now, anti-gambling activists are arguing that a proposed casino in Lake County would be a bad influence on the young sailors nearby, pointing to research that says young people are more prone to gambling addiction.
But…
Supporters of the plan, though, say the argument is a red herring. Many of the recruits at Great Lakes aren’t old enough to legally get into an Illinois casino and aren’t even allowed off the Naval property while in boot camp. […]
The rest, he said, are adults who can be trusted to make responsible decisions about gambling.
