State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, chairman of the Romney effort in Illinois, was at the State Board of Elections Tuesday morning to file petitions for delegates and alternates – also a full slate of 54 — committed to Romney. Rutherford himself is among delegate candidates in the new 16th Congressional District.
Rick Santorum didn’t start circulating petitions until December 23rd, according to Jon Zahm.
* The Question: Which candidate are you supporting for president and why?
As usual, try your very best to avoid bumper sticker slogans and DC talking points in comments.
* Despite being born in Kankakee, living in Utah for a while and then Germany, Iroquois County is where I grew up. I was back there over the holidays and checked my “Around Me” app on my iPhone for something or another. The app also has a “Nearby” option that tells you a bit about where you happen to be at the moment. I clicked it and saw something that I never knew.
Iroquois County, population 29,718, has 26 townships. That’s just a little more than 1,000 people per township, on average. Milks Grove Township, where I grew up, has just 177 people. Here’s a township map…
Iroquois has 1,100 square miles, making it the third largest in Illinois. But it’s more farmland than people. They have 25 county board members there, again, about one for every thousand people, and ten school districts.
This is not some pro-government liberal bastion, either. Iroquois is one of the most rock-ribbed Republican counties you’ll ever find.
* I’ve always been partial to rural townships because I know that my former neck of the woods would’ve been shortchanged if the county took over everything, like roads, for instance. The resources would most likely go to the places with higher populations, like Watseka.
* The new “Budgeting for Results” law was supposed to provide us with more accurate budget projections from the governor’s office. One way of doing that was to require that the governor not use new revenue sources in his projections. But maybe the law also needs to be changed to force him to project expenditures using existing laws as well because his projection yesterday is basically a fantasy…
The long-term forecast for the Illinois budget looks gloomy, with less state money available and government services facing cuts, Gov. Pat Quinn’s office said Tuesday.
Quinn’s three-year projection shows state revenues climbing for two years and then dropping sharply when the state income tax increase expires. More federal money could make up the difference, but Illinois government would wind up with roughly the same amount to spend in 2015 that it has now: a little over $33 billion.
Meanwhile, expenses will keep climbing unless officials take action.
The state’s contribution to government pension systems is projected to grow 43 percent, to about $5.9 billion. Quinn’s forecast shows health care costs holding steady, but that assumes something happens in the next few years to control expenses. Without that, Medicaid costs could rise by hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Most everybody reported that the governor’s forecast was “gloomy,” and it is gloomy, but it deliberately obscures some real spending pressures, so it’s the rosiest gloomy report I’ve seen in a while. Medicaid and state employee/retiree health insurance has been rising exponentially for years. How he plans to hold that spending to zero growth for the next three years is a question that went unanswered yesterday. Here are budget director David Vaught’s thoughts…
“If we can get the rate of growth down, it will be a great victory.”
Yeah, OK, I agree. But totally flat growth for three years? The state will have to inflict serious pain to do that and it will require an enormous amount of political will.
* Vaught, however, also fired a warning shot at AFSCME…
“We’re in a squeeze,” said David Vaught, Quinn’s budget director. “The pension costs and the Medicaid costs are going up more than the rate of inflation and more than the revenue growth. That squeezes everything else out.”
Consequently, Vaught said, other areas of government have to look at 9 percent reductions to compensate.
“Most likely (employee headcount) will go down,” Vaught said. “I don’t see a lot of prospect in the collective bargaining that’s going to be under way for a lot of good news for the employees.”
Vaught said programs also are likely to be cut. The administration is required to file a three-year budget projection as part of the report. It shows a $350 million reduction next year in human service programs, listed on the report as “protecting the most vulnerable among us.”
“These will be painful cuts,” Vaught said. “You don’t cut 9 percent out of budgets that have already been cut just by finding a little extra here and there. It’s going to be real cuts that affect real people.”
The governor’s budget director, David Vaught, suggested it’s not so grim despite the “squeeze” but acknowledged, “we’re scrambling.”
“In cash terms, sure, we’re behind, and we need to catch up,” Vaught said.
But Vaught held out a silver lining: At this point, slightly more money is coming in than is going out. The problem, Vaught said, is a “hangover” of costs from the last budget that are slated to be paid before June 30. The state also has an older stack of bills worth more than $6 billion.
Quinn plans to renew his push to pay down that stack by borrowing the money, a move he has long argued would bolster the economy. But Republicans, whose votes are needed to pass the proposal, have opposed more borrowing.
* And I simply cannot understand why nobody reported the most important part of the governor’s forecast: Even with these cuts, Illinois will have an $818 million deficit in Fiscal Year 2015, when most of the tax hike expires. It’s right there in the report. Go look at it yourself.
* As mentioned below, Sen. John Cullerton held a press conference yesterday to announce that he was nominating Illinois Commerce Commission executive director Tim Anderson to be the new Secretary of the Senate. Reporters asked him several off-topic questions, including about the the National Transportation Safety Board’s urging of states to ban cellphone use while driving…
Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, who helped put Illinois’ first seatbelt law on the books in the early 1980s, said Tuesday he doesn’t disagree with a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation that states ban all cellphone use — including hands-free devices — while driving.
But he said he’s unsure Illinois lawmakers are yet ready to take that step.
“I don’t think there is the political support yet to pass that but I think it’s something that might be inevitable,” Cullerton told reporters. “It could be something down the line, but certainly not right away.”
It “might be inevitable” that Illinois eventually bans the use of cellular phones while people are in cars, Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, said Tuesday.
However, Cullerton said it won’t happen immediately. […]
“These are the kinds of things you take incrementally,” he said. “I’ve kind of gotten away from being the main sponsor. … I think that’s something which I’ll leave to the other senators.”
Senate President John Cullerton said Tuesday that he expects lawmakers to take another run at gambling expansion in 2012.
Cullerton took questions from reporters about his legislative agenda at the state Capitol, where he was asked if a gambling plan that included slot machines at Arlington Park and new casinos in Lake County, Chicago and elsewhere was dead.
“No, not at all,” Cullerton said.
The powerful Chicago Democrat said Sen. Terry Link of Waukegan and Rep. Lou Lang of Skokie will have to work with Gov. Pat Quinn to forge a compromise this year.
As I’ve pointed out time and time again over the years, no gaming bill can pass without the governor’s involvement. Quinn either cut himself out or was cut out by legislators during the spring session and that was a big mistake. Then again, Quinn was AWOL last spring on everything. Maybe now he’ll engage.
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget director talked pensions with Doug Finke…
Quinn is also working to convene a work group to discuss ways of controlling soaring pension costs. The state’s pension costs are expected to increase by $1 billion in the next budget.
There is heated disagreement about whether benefits for current employees can be reduced. But, Vaught said, many attorneys believe that annual cost-of-living increases for pensioners could be reduced without violating the state constitution.
He also said more money could be put into the system from someplace other than the state. That could include higher employee contributions or “more from the real employers of our K-12 educators.”
“Three quarters of pension payment is for employees that are not state employees,” Vaught said. “You have a different employer negotiating pay and benefits, but then the state picks up the pension.”
Not including pension bond costs, Illinois will spend over $1.1 billion to fund the State Employees Retirement System next fiscal year. But it will spend $2.7 billion on the Teachers Retirement System and another $1.4 billion on the State Universities Retirement System. Pushing some of those costs down to local school districts and universities would be quite painful for those guys, but could potentially free up a huge amount of cash for Illinois’ budget.
And as far as COLAs and making employees pay more into the system are concerned, let’s go to the Illinois Constitution…
Membership in any pension or retirement system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or
any agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.
* Meanwhile, Senate President John Cullerton said yesterday that he wants to look at different ways of getting pension costs under control…
Cullerton said the sort of reduction in pension benefits for current employees under the House bill is forbidden by the state constitution.
Cullerton, who also is eyeing changes in city of Chicago pensions, said he wants to work closely with unions to negotiate changes to the House plan. Cullerton suggested one path to a constitutional solution would be by following “basic contract law.”
“If there’s a reduction in the benefit, there has to be a corresponding consideration, and there has to be acceptance,” Cullerton said.
The Senate president’s comments come during an election year when runaway pension costs could be an issue used against candidates. It remains uncertain at best whether meaningful pension cost reforms could be negotiated in an election year. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has announced he would pull together a task force to look at solutions.
“We’re not going to be relying on the Quinn administration to come up with a pension proposal, but if they do, it’s all the better,” Cullerton said.
* My weekly syndicated newspaper column takes on a familiar topic…
I talked with former state Sen. Howie Carroll last week about state Rep. Bill Mitchell’s (R-Forsyth) proposal to kick Chicago and suburban Cook County out of Illinois.
Mitchell’s resolution has just a tiny number of co-sponsors, but he’s managed to get himself lots of statewide and national media coverage. He clearly appears to be enjoying his 15 minutes of fame, claiming that his region of the state is tired of paying for Chicago’s costly, liberal programs.
Carroll knows all too well about breaking the state in two because he sponsored just such a resolution back in 1981. Carroll, a Chicago Democrat, proposed to make Cook County a separate state. Newspaper accounts at the time said the resolution was introduced in the midst of heated fighting between Chicago-area and downstate legislators over funding for mass transit.
Carroll’s proposal flew out of the Senate on a voice vote. He claimed that once the state was divided in two, downstaters would finally realize that Cook County was paying a lot of their expenses.
Everybody thought Carroll had devised a fine joke — just another in the long line of shots that Chicago legislators were taking at downstaters and vice versa. State Sen. Roger Sommer (R-Morton) told United Press International that he could score points with the folks back home by voting for Carroll’s proposal.
“This is something my constituents have wanted for a long time,” Sommer said.
Carroll’s resolution soon zipped through the House as well. But then House Speaker George Ryan’s lawyers took a closer look and realized that Carroll had exactly followed the U.S. Constitution’s requirements for mandating a congressional vote on splitting an existing state into two.
Carroll wasn’t joking.
Speaker Ryan ordered one of his House members to file a “motion to reconsider” the next day to prevent the resolution from automatically being transmitted to Congress (governors have no say on resolutions). Without that action, Congress would’ve taken a vote on Carroll’s demand.
The debate at the heart of Carroll’s resolution still rages today. Many, if not most, downstaters assume that their taxes are subsidizing Chicago, and Chicagoans tend to have an outsized estimate of how much revenue they’re generating for the rest of Illinois.
A regional analysis of state expenditures versus state revenue hasn’t been done in many years. The General Assembly’s Legislative Research Unit has refused to conduct a new study because of the uproar created the last time it did.
That last report, in 1987, found that the suburbs (including suburban Cook) paid 46 percent of state taxes but got back just 27 percent of state spending.
Downstate was the biggest “tax eater,” paying 33 percent of the state’s taxes while benefiting from 47 percent of the state’s spending, according to the report. It also said Chicago paid 21 percent of the taxes and got 25 percent of the spending.
A few months ago, the highly respected Taxpayers Federation of Illinois published a study of state tax collections. Downstate paid 30 percent of all the personal income and state sales taxes collected in 2009, despite having 35 percent of the population.
Chicago and suburban Cook County paid 40 percent of the two taxes, while having 40.5 percent of the population. About even. And the suburban collar counties paid 30 percent of the two taxes, while having only 24 percent of the population.
Again, we see that the Chicago suburbs are paying an outsized load, while downstate isn’t holding up its end.
The taxpayers federation didn’t look at the corporate income tax. There are a lot more corporations in Chicago and the suburbs compared to downstate.
An official with the federation told me they hope to soon do a regional spending study. But it’s not looking good for downstate’s case. It simply doesn’t have the kind of money that exists in the Chicago area.
Downstate generated just 29 percent of the state’s personal income in 2009, while Cook County had almost 45 percent. And downstate roads, schools, etc. rely heavily on state assistance.
Mitchell and lots of other downstaters might still want to kick Cook County out of Illinois, but, whether they like it or not, taxes and (most likely) spending can’t be used as an excuse.
Illinois Lottery officials want to offer lottery tickets over the Internet by next spring, and they’re closer to their ambitions now that the federal government recently gave the OK for states to create and regulate in-state, online sales of lottery tickets and other gaming products.
Both the state and gambling critics agree selling lottery tickets online could be a financial boon for state coffers, but such a development could come at a hefty social cost, said Anita Bedell, the head of the anti-gambling group Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems.
“Well, it could be a boon … but at the expense of addicted gamblers,” Bedell said, adding that simple mouse clicks could prove too enticing for some gamblers.
“They could gamble on home computers, from the office, they could gamble on their cell phones, on their iPhones,” she said. “So, it’s making gambling too accessible.”
* The Question: Do you support or oppose allowing Illinoisans to purchase lottery tickets on the Internet? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. Thanks.
* So, last week Sears announced it would close 100-120 stores. The news prompted a media uproar in Illinois because the state had just given Sears some big tax incentives. Nevermind that the subsidy was designed to keep the headquarters in Illinois, not keep stores open.
Earlier [last] week, Gov. Pat Quinn said he hoped the state wouldn’t see many closures, given the large tax breaks the state just approved to lure the retail giant to keep its corporate base in Hoffman Estates.
“The governor had a good, long conversation with Sears CEO Lou D’Ambrosio [last week],” Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said Thursday. “And we’re pleased with today’s outcome.”
Does anyone else find it a bit odd that Sears originally said they were closing at least 100 stores and then produced a list of 79 stores slated for closure? I’m wondering whether Gov. Quinn merely forestalled the inevitable. If he did, that’s some temporary good news for those workers. I can’t argue with that. But this story may not be over.
* Meanwhile, the governor wants to get rid of something that he created when he signed the tax cut package into law…
Embedded in the legislation that gave tax breaks to Sears and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was a measure to allow individuals and businesses to challenge tax assessments by using a third person, rather than going directly to the Department of Revenue. This “tax tribunal” must be operating by 2013, under the law.
It’s something Gov. Pat Quinn says has no benefit to everyday homeowners, calling it “not No. 1 on my hit parade.”
“I can tell you I doubt very much a regular homeowner is going to be spending much time before a tax tribunal,” Quinn said. “This is more for big corporations with lots of lawyers and accountants and people in three-piece suits that spend their lives trying to keep the corporations from paying their taxes.”
The law calls for a so-called tax tribunal to be set up by 2013. Details are still to be worked out, but the idea is to give taxpayers, whether individuals and businesses, the chance to protest assessments to someone not answering to the Illinois Department of Revenue, which assesses taxes in the first place and currently has last word on appeals.
The move is a way for Illinois lawmakers to show business interests they are serious about tax reform and fairness, said Senate Revenue Committee Chairwoman Toi Hutchinson (D-Olympia Fields), who sponsored the bill.
Currently, an Illinois taxpayer who wants to challenge an assessment may file a protest — but through the Revenue Department. An administrative law judge, a position created in 1995, hears the case, but the final decision is made by the Revenue director. A taxpayer may bypass the administrative review and challenge the assessment in circuit court, but the person or business first must pay the tax into a protest fund.
“If you want to challenge a decision by the Revenue Department, you have to challenge the people who said you were wrong,” Hutchinson said. “We’re looking for more fairness.”
* So, instead of disavowing his previous statement or just letting sleeping dogs lie, Cardinal George doubled down last week…
Setting off a new round in his dispute with gay right activists, Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George has issued a statement defending his recent comparison of the gay rights movement to the Ku Klux Klan.
George’s initial comments came in connection with a controversy over whether next summer’s gay pride parade would interrupt morning services at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in the Lakeview neighborhood.
That dispute was resolved last week, but the cardinal’s KKK comparison – and his new explanation of those comments – have kept the controversy boiling.
“Organizers (of the pride parade) invited an obvious comparison to other groups who have historically attempted to stifle the religious freedom of the Catholic Church,” the cardinal said in a statement issued Tuesday. “One such organization is the Ku Klux Klan which, well into the 1940s, paraded through American cities not only to interfere with Catholic worship but also to demonstrate that Catholics stand outside of the American consensus. It is not a precedent anyone should want to emulate.”
A whole lot of politicians march in that parade every year. The Cardinal has just thrown down a very big gauntlet: If you march in that parade, you’re no better than a Klansman.
Wow. Just, wow.
* By the way, the decision to alter the parade route and move the start time up to 10 o’clock from noon was made in conjunction with the city, including the mayor’s office. That little factoid has been all but ignored by the media since this controversy broke.
Also, I’m told that an agreement to move the start time back to noon was hammered out with Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church (which objected to the new, earlier start time because it would inconvenience parishioners) two days before the Cardinal made his original KKK remarks.
Responding to the blowback, a diocesan spokeswoman said the remarks were taken out of context and suggested people listen to the entire interview. We did. They aren’t. George reiterated them on Wednesday, issuing a statement just when things might have been dying down.
* This topic has generated some heated comments in the past. But I want you to take a very deep breath before you comment today. Keep in mind that two wrongs do not make a right.
Medicaid payment delays of up to six months are causing fits for supportive living centers throughout Illinois, and some owners are worried they may have to close if the situation doesn’t improve soon. […]
The delay followed the end of the economic stimulus program, which sent more than $3 billion in additional federal Medicaid funds to Illinois over a 27-month period and required the state to pay Medicaid providers promptly. […]
One of every three Illinois hospitals is operating in the red, and officials at many of those hospitals say Medicaid delays add to their financial burden. […]
Nursing home industry spokeswoman Pat Comstock, executive director of the Health Care Council of Illinois, said a notice from state officials Friday indicates many nursing homes may receive checks in January for services rendered to Medicaid patients in July.
That’s good news, Comstock said, but there’s no guarantee that monthly checks — even for services provided six months earlier — will be sent in February and beyond. Nursing homes are owed a total of $800 million in Medicaid payments, she said.
Oy.
* Meanwhile, the House Speaker won’t even sign off on what a lot of people believe is a no-brainer budget cut…
Illinois does have a chance to consolidate two elective statewide offices that are occupied by incumbents who thoroughly support the idea. Springfield should seize the moment.
The offices are those of state comptroller and state treasurer. The central responsibilities of those offices — investing the state’s money and paying the bills — could easily be managed by just one.
The incumbents, Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka and Treasurer Dan Rutherford, say merging the offices could save $12 million a year by eliminating duplication. Topinka has held both jobs.
Earlier this year, legislation that would have paved the way for the merger was introduced in Springfield. It would have put the question to voters in a 2012 referendum. If the referendum passed, it would have created the new consolidated office of comptroller of the treasury starting in 2014. The legislation breezed through the Senate, but was blocked in the House by Speaker Michael Madigan.
The two separate offices were created by the 1970 Illinois Constitution in reaction to a 1950s scandal uncovered by the Chicago Daily News in which state Auditor Orville Hodge embezzled $6.15 million by altering and forging checks.
A spokesman said Madigan, a Democrat, believes the division of the offices, in which the treasurer invests the money and the comptroller writes the checks, remains a necessary precaution. Cynics might suggest that Madigan’s record indicates the only consolidation of power he’s ever shown interest in is his own.
Tax hikes, tollway rate increases, etc., etc. The Democrats had better start making some high profile budget cuts this year or they are gonna pay dearly come November.
* We have a lot of ground to cover today since I was off last week. While I figure out where to start, how about you tell us what you did over the holiday?
