* The Illinois Policy Institute will unveil its annual budget proposals today. I watched their preview video early this morning and noticed that the group’s plan includes pushing $800 million in state payments to the Teachers Retirement System off on local school districts. Chicago has its own teachers retirement system, but the state picks up the tab for suburban and downstate employers’ costs in TRS.
The idea of moving the costs down the governmental food chain was proposed last year by Senate President John Cullerton. Gov. Pat Quinn has since said it was an idea worth considering, as has House Speaker Michael Madigan. However, the proposal has run into a buzzsaw of opposition from suburban and downstate legislators, teachers unions, media and local pols.
* The group also wants to eliminate the Personal Property Replacement Tax, which would wipe out the Local Government Distributive Fund. The Illinois Policy Institute claims killing off the LGDF would “save” the state $1.6 billion, but it won’t really save the state any money at all. This is basically just a pass-through account. Brain freeze. Nevermind.
The group also favors cutting state employee paychecks by 10 percent, saying it would save $500 million.
* In other budget-related news, Attorney General Lisa Madigan is objecting to the governor’s proposed 9.4 percent cut to her appropriation. Madigan claims her office generated $908 million last year, 30 times its taxpayer funding. She’s also saying that it’s tough to retain lawyers on her payroll as it is…
“We’re bringing in revenue for the state. We want to continue bringing in revenue,” Madigan said. “I can’t do that if I don’t have lawyers.”
The office gets less money today from taxpayers than it did in 1998, she said. Her lawyers haven’t had raises since 2006. One-third of them have retired or left for better jobs, often with other state agencies, in just the past two years.
“Morale is terribly low in the office, and people are voting with their feet,” said Madigan, a Chicago Democrat. […]
Sen. Pamela Althoff, the top Republican on one of the Senate’s appropriations committees, pointed out that the attorney general’s budget was cut deeply several years ago and has never recovered. “She’s not even coming from a level playing field,” said Althoff, of McHenry.
The starting salary for an attorney in Madigan’s office is just $50,500. That’s really pathetic. Most of her folks work there because they want to do public service. But that emotion only lasts so long for most people. Eventually, you gotta pay your bills and feed your family.
* Secretary of State Jesse White issued his own warning yesterday…
Illinois’ license plate czar said he may have to close as many as five driver’s license facilities because of Gov. Pat Quinn’s call for deep spending cuts.
Secretary of State Jesse White told a House panel Wednesday that he may be able to avoid layoffs and closures under his budget plan, which calls for an overall 2 percent reduction in spending from the current fiscal year.
But, Gov. Pat Quinn has called on the state’s agency chiefs and constitutional officers to trim 9.4 percent in the budget that begins July 1. White said such a cut would be “devastating.”
“It would be tough to do business,” White said.
* Indeed, just one statewide officer proposed a 9.4 percent cut in line with the governor’s wishes, Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon. The rest argued for less…
Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka also outlined her budget plan to the committee, a proposal that calls for a 2 percent reduction from the current year.
“We’ve been cutting right along since day one,” Topinka said. “We’re down to what the office was in 1998.”
Topinka said headcount in her office will remain at 257, down from more than 300 10 years ago. The office will be negotiating new contracts with its unions, but Topinka warned employees not to get their hopes up.
“One of the things we will continue to put forward at this point is no raises,” Topinka said. “If we’re not taking in more than we’re spending, we have to stop it. Nobody is above it, which includes our managerial staff, our union staff, me. We’re all going to cut.”
Treasurer Dan Rutherford said his budget continues a 2 percent reduction that he requested in his current spending plan.
* Related…
* Press Release: Lawmakers vote to cut their own pay
* Budget battle begins between IL gov, lawmakers: Radogno warned that the $33.7 billion is not a spending cap. She urged the General Assembly to spend less than the projected revenue to start remedying the state’s longtime cash flow conundrum, something not even a 67 percent individual income tax increase has fixed.
* Lawmakers decide how much Illinois will have for budget
The Illinois Attorney General’s (AG) grumbling of funding cuts in her Office highlights the need for reform. One important reform should be the way the AG’s Office dedicates resources to its client state agencies.
Time and time again we see top state agency officials violating rules and laws while leaving the AG to defend their wrongdoing. Since the AG is the attorney for the state, the AG dedicates significant resources to bolster the unlawful actions of state agency directors.
Policy makers should enact reform for smarter more ethical uses of the AG’s resources. Among other things, these reforms could include charging-back agencies for legal services and reviewing cases to determine the merit of using state resources to enable agency director wrongdoing.
If the AG’s office was less burdened by supporting those entitled to break the law, then it would have more resources to work for the benefit of Illinois.
It’s kind of funny how the Illinois Policy Institute and its ilk are nominally non-partisan but come up with policy proposals that follow the Republican party line all the way.
None of what they propose has a chance of passing, but they get paid to criticize others rather than to solve problems as participants in a democratic process.
Why not just cut state employee’s pay 50 percent? That is just as likely to make it through the legislature.
* End of the line? - The governor wants to close Tamms
This is not about budget, it is about being the model for Social Justice, which is quite different than Criminal Justice.
What no one wants to mention is that it has made other institutions safer for other inmates as well as staff. There are inmates there who realise this, and dont want to go back to the old days of gangs running prisons, and their families are trying to find ways to stop them from being thrown back into other prisons. Also, what are they going to do with the aprox. one-half of the inmates who can not go back to Pontiac?
Two reactions to the predictable reactions by the statewide officeholders:
1) Purely anecdotal, but I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Secretary of State offices, both business services and even the DMV. Efficient, fast, organized, and even fairly friendly.
2) Lisa Madigan makes a good point that cutting revenue-producing activities may not be wise. But her habit of allocating funds she raise for specific purposes, rather than going into the state’s general fund as other states do, doesn’t help her cause.
The “push” of the TRS to downstate districts is simply a 9% cut to downstate education. If the state mandates the payments, and puts it on local districts that are tax capped, it is a per se cut.
Obviously Lisa Madigan omitted the millions of dollars in work comp cases paid out due to HER blatent incompetence in properly defending the cases.
They were fraud, words from her spokesman, not me. If they are fraud, they were paid due to the inompetence of the defense attorney. Cut her and fire here. We need an AG to protect the people, not the Speaker./
The AG has to spend time enforcing FOIA rules in the state as well. Perhaps a revenue stream could be created by fining/assessing fees against public bodies who routinely violate the FOIA rules.
Currently, there are no consequences to public bodies for concealing information from the public
Just glancing through the report, there are numerous problems with it. One of the biggest is the suggestion that the PTELL adjustment for GSA be removed. I agree that it could be modified, but why would the State assume a school district can levy a certain amount but they can’t because of the State imposed PTELL?
However, I don’t see their proposal to eliminate the Personal Property Replacement Tax. I just saw the elimination of LGDF which is the local share of the income tax.
==Does Madigan think she is entitled to more money in her budget because she brought in $908 million to the state?==
Yes. And it does make a fair bit of sense to me. I see nothing wrong at all with Lisa Madigan going after companies/individuals who do wrong and in the process, raising money via fines/court judgments for the state. It can both help the budget and deter other would-be outlaws. And figure if you have to cut 9% of your expenses, you might end up cutting some revenue-producing activities. I suppose Gov. Quinn and the GA could be more specific/micromanaging and force her to cut solely from AG functions that don’t raise revenue for the state’s general fund but I don’t know that they’d do that right.
It is a sleezy ploy by Proft and Tillman so their far-right candidates can assail their “establishment” opponents for not supporting the supposed spending cuts they propose.
They don’t care if any of this works or if it actually represents real cuts. They just want another blunt instrument for their little wind up candidates to froth at the mouth over.
This is actually part and parcel of the dysfunction within the Illinois GOP.
“Since the AG is the attorney for the state, the AG dedicates significant resources to bolster the unlawful actions of state agency directors.”
I agree that this is ridiculous, but the problem here is caused by the IL Constitution. Additionally, someone’s got to pay for defending the actions of executive branch agencies in court, and I don’t see how an accounting trick of moving the expense from the AG back to the executive branch saves the state money.
“Among other things, these reforms could include charging-back agencies for legal services and reviewing cases to determine the merit of using state resources to enable agency director wrongdoing.”
I don’t see how moving money from one state account to another helps at all with overall state budgetary issues.
“Perhaps a revenue stream could be created by fining/assessing fees against public bodies who routinely violate the FOIA rules.”
Uh, how exactly is this a revenue stream? This would be me trying to balance my family’s budget by taking the cost of my kids’ meals out of their allowance.
Its ironic that state department heads are complaining they are being cut to 2008 levels. Most human service providers would love to be getting 2008 levels. Many are recieving 46% less than 2008 funding to provide for greater needs than 2008. Please put human services back to 2008 levels!!!!
LGDF is funded by income taxes and is distributed only to municipalities and counties based on population. PPRT is distributed to all taxing districts that levied a personal property tax before it was abolished in proportion to how the taxing district collected compared to the entire state. (Except Cook County gets a set percentage, which is then distributed to the taxing districts within Cook.) School districts get PPRT but nothing from LGDF. Towns were upset that when the tax increase was passed, they didn’t receive any of the increase through LGDF.
@LB I think you’re confusing accounting trick with accountability. As it stands now, agency directors openly flout their own agency rules and the law. This is because there are no consequences for them. Maybe if they couldn’t just dump-off problems they cause, and had to make some allowances from their operations, they would focus more on following the rules.
Also it would clearly help the AG’s budget if they are reimbursed for defending executive agency heads who intentionally violate rules and break the law.
There needs to be a reason for the other public bodies to comply with the statutes, hence a fine. This should be money going directly to the AG’s budget.
If it is a State agency, then they have less to perform their mission, if it is any one of the 7000+ other taxing bodies in Illinois it comes from their revenue stream. It provides a reimbursement to the AG for wasting their time on stupid stuff
$50K is a low starting salary for an attorney. Consider the rigor of their curriculum and the expense to get a law degree. Kids coming out of college with a BS or BA in business often make over $40K working for say Dell in suburban Chicago. Teachers in suburban Chicago often start at $40K or higher especially in high school districts with a BS or BA, and it wouldn’t surprise me if those benefits are better than the Attorney Generals office.
When a small, sensible, bi-partisan pension reform is characterized as “sleezy”, “irrelevant”, “far-right”…what chance does the State have to get out of it’s financial mess?
1. Members of congress cut their salaries and still have $ to return to the treasury. I am not sure most people know or care what some of these offices do and I don’t see why they can’t take a haircut.
2. With madigan’s office, all we see right now are stories that lawyers can’t find jobs, that law school grads are taking jobs as barristas at starbucks, that they are suing their law schools because they misled them about employment prospects, I am sure there are plenty of lawyers that would take $50k a year working for a “hotshot” attorney general in the 5th biggest state in the country.
Eliminating the LGDF would be a “savings” for state government, but I assume they wouldn’t stop taking the tax revenue. They’d just keep it at the state level and let the local governments deal with the shortfall. Maybe in smaller counties this wouldn’t matter, but in both Cook and DuPage it’d be a HUGE chunk out of their annual budgets:
Cook would lose $522 million annually and DuPage would lose $99 million annually. I don’t know Cook’s overall budget, but DuPage is about $430 million, so the $99 million would represent over 20% of their revenue just evaporating over night.
I would think the ILGA LRU could do some analysis to confirm the AG office is in fact generating net revenue, compare it over say a 5 or 10 year timeline, and verify the net revenue is sustainable. And if that’s the case it makes no sense to cut.
So you are saying that because there are a number of lawyers that would kill to work for 50K for the Attorney General means that lawyer salaries are not an issue?
Correct me if I am wrong, but all lawyers are not created equal. Lawyers arent interchangable. Experience and talent matter. To tell them that it doesn’t matter by telling them they are worth no more than a kid fresh out of law school is not only insulting, but also significantly handicaps the office from carrying out its functions.
Reading the AG’s press release, it confirms that the AG got a lot of money by suing banks which have been bailed out and defacto owned by the Federal Government.
I am all for taking more money in Illinois from the Federal Government, but this seems quite a bit like moving money from one pocket to another and calling it revenue.
Similarly, with the takings from the Pharmaceuticals…the everyday customer is going to pay more anyway to make up the difference.
Does not sound like a good long term strategy to sue entities with a less than arm’s length relationship to the Government.
You are right Shore, their student loan debt is not the taxpayers concern. However, I would hope, retaining talented attorneys is. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe that taxpayers do not value the work of the assistant attorneys general or any other state agency attorneys.
As stated in the link, the $50,287 doesn’t include locality pay. Is there locality pay for the areas where the AG attorneys are located.
Also I probably should have use the words overall compensation as that includes salary and benefits, etc. And consider the comments above. “Her lawyers haven’t had raises since 2006. One-third of them have retired or left for better jobs, often with other state agencies, in just the past two years.”
anon you’re right, but where does it end. the $35k a year la for congressman x that took out $60k in loans to get a public policy degree. the social worker that did the same thing. it goes on and on.
mark-obama’s speech writer-a 29 year old makes $172k a year-more than governor quinn. it’s just part of government.
Video - “Why does Madigan think she is immune from the budget cuts that are sweeping the state? Because she is ‘profitable’?”
If he returns $30 to general treasury for every $1 she gets, then every dollor cut from her budget cuts $30 extra dollars from the state revenues. That is a good argument for not cutting (or even increasing) her budget even when others are being cut.
=== Madigan’s office operated in 2011 with an appropriation from the state’s general revenue fund of $30,705,700 – the lowest level of funding from the state’s general revenue fund since 1997. ===
Page 163 of the Governor’s 2013 Operating Budget Book shows a 2011 General Revenue Fund Enacted Appropriation of $32,593,200.
Has a large portion (6%) of the office’s GRF budget somehow vanished into thin air?
Shore, the difference between a DOJ Honors Attorney position (one of the most competitive, prestigious, and highly-sought after positions nationwide) and an entry level position at the IL AG’s office is enormous. DOJ Honors attorneys work for a few years at a low rate of pay and then write their own tickets in the private legal world, moving to top firms in almost any market.
- $50,287 = attorney starting salary at the Department of Justice
- These attorneys rapidly gain a great deal of experience. This often translates into much higher salaries in the private sector fairly quickly, a factor many consider when accepting these positions.
- Those who stay in the public sector benefit from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. That averages out to another $10K or so per year, sometimes more.
- $27,000 = starting salary in 1999. $50,500 dramatically outpaces inflation since then, and compares favorably to similar starting positions in a multitude of states including Florida.
does anyone care that the computer system at the Comptroller’s Office is incredibly archaic and dysfunctional for tracking outstanding bills and reporting state expenditures?
Sometimes money has to be spent, and cost avoidance is not in the public interest. A one time appropriation for such computer system modernization is not an annual budget issue.
It amazes me the number of people who are constantly complaining about public sector salaries. If you think $50K is adequate for a lawyer then you are not living in the real world. Why is it that public sector workers are somehow expected to be treated less favorably than the private sector. I’m not suggesting public sector lawyers make $500K, but something well north of $50K would not be unwarranted.
Also, I can’t even take the IPI seriously when they suggest that government workers take a 10% pay cut. And don’t give me the whole taxpayer argument. Government employees are taxpayers too. They pay the exact same income taxes as everyone else. Additionally, with the calls to increase the pension contributions from government workers, the cuts would likely end up being far more than 10%. Some would say be happy you have a job. Enough already with the attacks on public employees.
If are there are 2 kinds of people that taxpayers have zero sympathy for right now it’s people named madigan and springfield lawyers who work for people named madigan.
Yeah! The government is full of incompetents who would never make it in the private sector! We have zero sympathy for them! We need to slash their salaries way below what they would make in the private sector to, uh, attract more competent, uh, hold on, I’ll get back to you.
“Government employees are taxpayers too. They pay the exact same income taxes as everyone else”
No they don’t.
Government and school district employees do not pay Illinois income tax on retirement income, and can retire around age 55, while the rest of us have 12 years or so left in our time at work.
So for 12 years or so, there is a pretty big difference in the tax structure of people who live off the taxpayers and pay no taxes and the people who live off their private income and pay taxes.
Today I think I should post under “Anyone Read?” …
To reiterate, when Blagojevich was cutting agencies under his control X %, the Comptroller’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office were cut X+ %. Rather than argue back and forth, take a gander at this … http://www.auditor.illinois.gov/Audit-Reports/Performance-Special-Multi/Performance-Audits/2011%20Releases/11-State-Fin-Rpt-Sys-Mgmt-digest.pdf
Illinois is consistently one of the LAST states to produce the Annual Financial Report. This is caused by the half baked software upgrade Comptroller Didrickson was forced to settle for in 1996. The Feds are none to happy and unless we pay upfront, discretionary federal money may be in peril.
- Joe Joe made it go - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 3:55 pm:
==Um, dude, no retirement income is taxed in this state, public or private. Get a clue.==
He’s not suggesting otherwise. He’s saying that public sector workers retire earlier than their private sector counterparts and therefore for a significant number of years, state retirees are NOT paying income taxes while people in the private sector who are the same age are.
$50,000 for a starting lawyer? With no prospects for a raise? That’s pathetic. We really must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to get kids to sign up for that. No wonder why people think public employees are incompetent…
(And yeah, there may be people who think that sounds like a lot of money, but chances are they don’t have 7 years of advanced schooling under their belt)
Some people apparently haven’t checked the starting salary for private sector attorneys lately in Chicago and Illinois.
I’ll give you a hint. $50,000 with full benefits, great experience and public service would appeal to many starting attorney right now. Individuals like:
The Kent, DePaul and John Marshall alumni who filed suit against their law schools last month - http://bit.ly/xTa6×1
Or the new attorneys who do a quick search of monster.com and find the Chicago attorney postings offering “Compensation: 45,000 to 50,000 USD annual” for attorneys with “2+ yrs of experience (or equivalent) in general corporate/ commercial/ transactional area”.
re: Secretary of State, how much does emissions testing cost the state for residents in the Chicagoland area? Illinois said in 2008 that it was $10/car:
You just proved my point with your own attack on public sector workers. There’s not an average public sector worker (notice I said average and not the outliers that people always use as their examples) that is retiring at 55 making huge amounts of money. At most they are making 75% of what they used to make.
Also, as the government worker haters love to say so often the private sector workers have complete control over their retirements (supposedly) through 401K programs and the like. You can retire at least at age 59 if you want also and live tax free also.
If anyone is worried about budget cuts causing the AG’s office to continue deteriorating to the point where it can’t bring in the revenue anymore, they should go check out the Department of Revenue — that will give them something to really worry about.
The problem at the AG’s office isn’t that new attorneys make $50k, it’s that experienced attorneys are making $50k. People are right, new lawyers will work cheap. But even new lawyers become adults and want to live without roommates, own cars, and even raise children. Right now, those new lawyers know that if they want to make more money, they have to leave the AG’s office.
This creates two problems. First, just about every attorney at the office is actively looking for a job that pays better. Thus every meeting with opposing counsel becomes a job interview, every meeting with other state, city or county agencies too.
Second, if only new attorneys work at the office, the quality of legal services the office provides necessarily goes down. Some of the work is highly specialized. The very attorneys who two years ago represented the state are highly, highly incentivized to switch over to the other side.
Nobody starts at the AG’s Office expecting to get rich, but most would like to be middle class at some point in their lives. $50k minus loan payments won’t do it, at least in Chicago.
Anonymous @ 12:23 am makes a good point -
“The problem at the AG’s office isn’t that new attorneys make $50k, it’s that experienced attorneys are making $50k.”
I don’t know that they stay stuck at $50k, but I do know that they don’t get much in the way of raises, and definitely no raises for the last few years. Having that beginning attorney making $50k while gaining some valuable experience may make some sense. BUT,from my many years of dealing with AAGs, it is clear that many rise above most in ability. AG Madigan needs to keep these people - we citizens of Illinois need to keep these people working for us. The pay structure at the AG’s Office is shameful. Look it up for yourself on the State’s transparency web pages. Just using the AG’s Office as a “farm system” for private sector firms is a real waste.
- Joe Joe made it go - Friday, Mar 9, 12 @ 1:56 pm:
==You just proved my point with your own attack on public sector workers.==
I didn’t “attack” anyone. I said that Rich’s attack on JP was silly because he was attacking a straw man. But I guess correcting the record with an honest account of what people are saying is “an attack on public sector workers” these days. Anything that isn’t all-out worship of the AFSME gods must be an attack.
- Honestly - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 9:49 am:
The Illinois Attorney General’s (AG) grumbling of funding cuts in her Office highlights the need for reform. One important reform should be the way the AG’s Office dedicates resources to its client state agencies.
Time and time again we see top state agency officials violating rules and laws while leaving the AG to defend their wrongdoing. Since the AG is the attorney for the state, the AG dedicates significant resources to bolster the unlawful actions of state agency directors.
Policy makers should enact reform for smarter more ethical uses of the AG’s resources. Among other things, these reforms could include charging-back agencies for legal services and reviewing cases to determine the merit of using state resources to enable agency director wrongdoing.
If the AG’s office was less burdened by supporting those entitled to break the law, then it would have more resources to work for the benefit of Illinois.
- Video - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 9:50 am:
“Madigan claims her office generated $908 million last year, ”
Sounds like she is doing just fine with the resources she already has….
- DuPage Dave - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 9:50 am:
It’s kind of funny how the Illinois Policy Institute and its ilk are nominally non-partisan but come up with policy proposals that follow the Republican party line all the way.
None of what they propose has a chance of passing, but they get paid to criticize others rather than to solve problems as participants in a democratic process.
Why not just cut state employee’s pay 50 percent? That is just as likely to make it through the legislature.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 9:51 am:
===Sounds like she is doing just fine with the resources she already has…. ===
That money goes into GRF, not her budget.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 9:52 am:
Stuff rolls downhill. Here it comes suburban and downstate school districts.
- SO IL M - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 9:59 am:
* End of the line? - The governor wants to close Tamms
This is not about budget, it is about being the model for Social Justice, which is quite different than Criminal Justice.
What no one wants to mention is that it has made other institutions safer for other inmates as well as staff. There are inmates there who realise this, and dont want to go back to the old days of gangs running prisons, and their families are trying to find ways to stop them from being thrown back into other prisons. Also, what are they going to do with the aprox. one-half of the inmates who can not go back to Pontiac?
- Video - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:00 am:
== That money goes into GRF, not her budget. ==
Correct. She was able to bag $908 million for the state on her current budget.
- Canoby - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:02 am:
Does Madigan think she is entitled to more money in her budget because she brought in $908 million to the state?
I think Lisa Madigan is confusing civil service with the public sector.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:05 am:
===Correct. She was able to bag $908 million for the state on her current budget. ===
And Quinn wants to cut that budget by 9.2 percent.
- Colossus - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:07 am:
Video -
On her current budget, not one with 9.4% less. You’re arguing that she’s doing fine with what she has, not that the new amount is preferable.
Sounds to me like money spent on the AG yields good returns. Isn’t this what Budgeting for Results is supposed to confirm for us?
- Robert - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:09 am:
Two reactions to the predictable reactions by the statewide officeholders:
1) Purely anecdotal, but I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Secretary of State offices, both business services and even the DMV. Efficient, fast, organized, and even fairly friendly.
2) Lisa Madigan makes a good point that cutting revenue-producing activities may not be wise. But her habit of allocating funds she raise for specific purposes, rather than going into the state’s general fund as other states do, doesn’t help her cause.
- Video - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:10 am:
Why does Madigan think she is immune from the budget cuts that are sweeping the state? Because she is ‘profitable’?
Things are tough all over.
- the Patriot - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:22 am:
The “push” of the TRS to downstate districts is simply a 9% cut to downstate education. If the state mandates the payments, and puts it on local districts that are tax capped, it is a per se cut.
Obviously Lisa Madigan omitted the millions of dollars in work comp cases paid out due to HER blatent incompetence in properly defending the cases.
They were fraud, words from her spokesman, not me. If they are fraud, they were paid due to the inompetence of the defense attorney. Cut her and fire here. We need an AG to protect the people, not the Speaker./
- Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:23 am:
The AG has to spend time enforcing FOIA rules in the state as well. Perhaps a revenue stream could be created by fining/assessing fees against public bodies who routinely violate the FOIA rules.
Currently, there are no consequences to public bodies for concealing information from the public
- just sayin' - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:26 am:
The IPI is as irrelevant as the House Republicans for whom they shill.
- Random - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:36 am:
Just glancing through the report, there are numerous problems with it. One of the biggest is the suggestion that the PTELL adjustment for GSA be removed. I agree that it could be modified, but why would the State assume a school district can levy a certain amount but they can’t because of the State imposed PTELL?
However, I don’t see their proposal to eliminate the Personal Property Replacement Tax. I just saw the elimination of LGDF which is the local share of the income tax.
- Mark - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:36 am:
The $908M is net or gross?
- Robert - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:43 am:
==Does Madigan think she is entitled to more money in her budget because she brought in $908 million to the state?==
Yes. And it does make a fair bit of sense to me. I see nothing wrong at all with Lisa Madigan going after companies/individuals who do wrong and in the process, raising money via fines/court judgments for the state. It can both help the budget and deter other would-be outlaws. And figure if you have to cut 9% of your expenses, you might end up cutting some revenue-producing activities. I suppose Gov. Quinn and the GA could be more specific/micromanaging and force her to cut solely from AG functions that don’t raise revenue for the state’s general fund but I don’t know that they’d do that right.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:45 am:
===I just saw the elimination of LGDF which is the local share of the income tax. ===
Funded by the PPRT.
- Adam Smith - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:52 am:
Let’s all see this for what it is.
It is a sleezy ploy by Proft and Tillman so their far-right candidates can assail their “establishment” opponents for not supporting the supposed spending cuts they propose.
They don’t care if any of this works or if it actually represents real cuts. They just want another blunt instrument for their little wind up candidates to froth at the mouth over.
This is actually part and parcel of the dysfunction within the Illinois GOP.
- mark walker - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 10:54 am:
IPI confirms how Conservative some Democratic proposals are.
- lincoln's beard - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:03 am:
“Since the AG is the attorney for the state, the AG dedicates significant resources to bolster the unlawful actions of state agency directors.”
I agree that this is ridiculous, but the problem here is caused by the IL Constitution. Additionally, someone’s got to pay for defending the actions of executive branch agencies in court, and I don’t see how an accounting trick of moving the expense from the AG back to the executive branch saves the state money.
“Among other things, these reforms could include charging-back agencies for legal services and reviewing cases to determine the merit of using state resources to enable agency director wrongdoing.”
I don’t see how moving money from one state account to another helps at all with overall state budgetary issues.
“Perhaps a revenue stream could be created by fining/assessing fees against public bodies who routinely violate the FOIA rules.”
Uh, how exactly is this a revenue stream? This would be me trying to balance my family’s budget by taking the cost of my kids’ meals out of their allowance.
- DGD - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:04 am:
===Eventually, you gotta pay your bills and feed your family.===
Not to mention paying off their crushing student loans.
- INDEPENDENT - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:12 am:
Its ironic that state department heads are complaining they are being cut to 2008 levels. Most human service providers would love to be getting 2008 levels. Many are recieving 46% less than 2008 funding to provide for greater needs than 2008. Please put human services back to 2008 levels!!!!
- Anonymous - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:14 am:
50k sounds pretty good to me for starting. There are a lot of people in central Illinois that make a lot less.
- Random - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:15 am:
LGDF is funded by income taxes and is distributed only to municipalities and counties based on population. PPRT is distributed to all taxing districts that levied a personal property tax before it was abolished in proportion to how the taxing district collected compared to the entire state. (Except Cook County gets a set percentage, which is then distributed to the taxing districts within Cook.) School districts get PPRT but nothing from LGDF. Towns were upset that when the tax increase was passed, they didn’t receive any of the increase through LGDF.
- Honestly - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:19 am:
@LB I think you’re confusing accounting trick with accountability. As it stands now, agency directors openly flout their own agency rules and the law. This is because there are no consequences for them. Maybe if they couldn’t just dump-off problems they cause, and had to make some allowances from their operations, they would focus more on following the rules.
Also it would clearly help the AG’s budget if they are reimbursed for defending executive agency heads who intentionally violate rules and break the law.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:21 am:
===There are a lot of people in central Illinois that make a lot less. ===
How many central Illinois lawyers make that kind of money?
- Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:24 am:
“Uh, how exactly is this a revenue stream?”
There needs to be a reason for the other public bodies to comply with the statutes, hence a fine. This should be money going directly to the AG’s budget.
If it is a State agency, then they have less to perform their mission, if it is any one of the 7000+ other taxing bodies in Illinois it comes from their revenue stream. It provides a reimbursement to the AG for wasting their time on stupid stuff
- Anon - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:24 am:
“50k sounds pretty good to me for starting. There are a lot of people in central Illinois that make a lot less.”
Do those same people have $100k - $150k of student loan debt?
- Anon - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:27 am:
Not to mention that these people who start at 50k stay at 50k because they arent getting raises because of budgetary issues.
- Mark - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:34 am:
$50K is a low starting salary for an attorney. Consider the rigor of their curriculum and the expense to get a law degree. Kids coming out of college with a BS or BA in business often make over $40K working for say Dell in suburban Chicago. Teachers in suburban Chicago often start at $40K or higher especially in high school districts with a BS or BA, and it wouldn’t surprise me if those benefits are better than the Attorney Generals office.
- JP - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:36 am:
When a small, sensible, bi-partisan pension reform is characterized as “sleezy”, “irrelevant”, “far-right”…what chance does the State have to get out of it’s financial mess?
JBP
- Shore - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:37 am:
1. Members of congress cut their salaries and still have $ to return to the treasury. I am not sure most people know or care what some of these offices do and I don’t see why they can’t take a haircut.
2. With madigan’s office, all we see right now are stories that lawyers can’t find jobs, that law school grads are taking jobs as barristas at starbucks, that they are suing their law schools because they misled them about employment prospects, I am sure there are plenty of lawyers that would take $50k a year working for a “hotshot” attorney general in the 5th biggest state in the country.
- John Galt - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:41 am:
Eliminating the LGDF would be a “savings” for state government, but I assume they wouldn’t stop taking the tax revenue. They’d just keep it at the state level and let the local governments deal with the shortfall. Maybe in smaller counties this wouldn’t matter, but in both Cook and DuPage it’d be a HUGE chunk out of their annual budgets:
Cook would lose $522 million annually and DuPage would lose $99 million annually. I don’t know Cook’s overall budget, but DuPage is about $430 million, so the $99 million would represent over 20% of their revenue just evaporating over night.
- Mark - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:48 am:
Here is the Illinois Attorney General press release about the $908 million.
March 7, 2012
ATTORNEY GENERAL MADIGAN COLLECTS MORE THAN $900 MILLION IN STATE REVENUE IN 2011
Attorney General’s office generated nearly $30 for every tax dollar spent
http://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/pressroom/2012_03/20120307.html
I would think the ILGA LRU could do some analysis to confirm the AG office is in fact generating net revenue, compare it over say a 5 or 10 year timeline, and verify the net revenue is sustainable. And if that’s the case it makes no sense to cut.
- Anon - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 11:52 am:
Shore,
So you are saying that because there are a number of lawyers that would kill to work for 50K for the Attorney General means that lawyer salaries are not an issue?
Correct me if I am wrong, but all lawyers are not created equal. Lawyers arent interchangable. Experience and talent matter. To tell them that it doesn’t matter by telling them they are worth no more than a kid fresh out of law school is not only insulting, but also significantly handicaps the office from carrying out its functions.
- Shore - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:14 pm:
Their law school debt is not the taxpayers concern.
The salary she pays is the same that the department of justice pays 1st year kids out of law school.
http://www.justice.gov/careers/legal/entry-salary.html
- JP - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:15 pm:
Reading the AG’s press release, it confirms that the AG got a lot of money by suing banks which have been bailed out and defacto owned by the Federal Government.
I am all for taking more money in Illinois from the Federal Government, but this seems quite a bit like moving money from one pocket to another and calling it revenue.
Similarly, with the takings from the Pharmaceuticals…the everyday customer is going to pay more anyway to make up the difference.
Does not sound like a good long term strategy to sue entities with a less than arm’s length relationship to the Government.
JBP
- Mark - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:17 pm:
So we are paying gym teachers with a bachelors degree the same as attorneys.
- Anon - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:26 pm:
You are right Shore, their student loan debt is not the taxpayers concern. However, I would hope, retaining talented attorneys is. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe that taxpayers do not value the work of the assistant attorneys general or any other state agency attorneys.
- Mark - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:32 pm:
As stated in the link, the $50,287 doesn’t include locality pay. Is there locality pay for the areas where the AG attorneys are located.
Also I probably should have use the words overall compensation as that includes salary and benefits, etc. And consider the comments above. “Her lawyers haven’t had raises since 2006. One-third of them have retired or left for better jobs, often with other state agencies, in just the past two years.”
- Shore - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:37 pm:
anon you’re right, but where does it end. the $35k a year la for congressman x that took out $60k in loans to get a public policy degree. the social worker that did the same thing. it goes on and on.
mark-obama’s speech writer-a 29 year old makes $172k a year-more than governor quinn. it’s just part of government.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/blogs/the-gaggle/2009/07/01/who-gets-paid-what-in-the-obama-white-house.html
- Mark - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:39 pm:
There are a lot more gym teachers than Obama speach writers.
- titan - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:52 pm:
Video - “Why does Madigan think she is immune from the budget cuts that are sweeping the state? Because she is ‘profitable’?”
If he returns $30 to general treasury for every $1 she gets, then every dollor cut from her budget cuts $30 extra dollars from the state revenues. That is a good argument for not cutting (or even increasing) her budget even when others are being cut.
- Harry Caray - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 12:57 pm:
Something is off in the AG’s Press Release:
=== Madigan’s office operated in 2011 with an appropriation from the state’s general revenue fund of $30,705,700 – the lowest level of funding from the state’s general revenue fund since 1997. ===
Page 163 of the Governor’s 2013 Operating Budget Book shows a 2011 General Revenue Fund Enacted Appropriation of $32,593,200.
Has a large portion (6%) of the office’s GRF budget somehow vanished into thin air?
Or are my overly large glasses fogging up?
- lincoln's beard - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 1:11 pm:
Shore, the difference between a DOJ Honors Attorney position (one of the most competitive, prestigious, and highly-sought after positions nationwide) and an entry level position at the IL AG’s office is enormous. DOJ Honors attorneys work for a few years at a low rate of pay and then write their own tickets in the private legal world, moving to top firms in almost any market.
- Harry Caray - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 1:35 pm:
Regarding salaries, don’t forget:
- $50,287 = attorney starting salary at the Department of Justice
- These attorneys rapidly gain a great deal of experience. This often translates into much higher salaries in the private sector fairly quickly, a factor many consider when accepting these positions.
- Those who stay in the public sector benefit from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. That averages out to another $10K or so per year, sometimes more.
- $27,000 = starting salary in 1999. $50,500 dramatically outpaces inflation since then, and compares favorably to similar starting positions in a multitude of states including Florida.
- Capital View - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 1:45 pm:
does anyone care that the computer system at the Comptroller’s Office is incredibly archaic and dysfunctional for tracking outstanding bills and reporting state expenditures?
Sometimes money has to be spent, and cost avoidance is not in the public interest. A one time appropriation for such computer system modernization is not an annual budget issue.
- Demoralized - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 1:53 pm:
It amazes me the number of people who are constantly complaining about public sector salaries. If you think $50K is adequate for a lawyer then you are not living in the real world. Why is it that public sector workers are somehow expected to be treated less favorably than the private sector. I’m not suggesting public sector lawyers make $500K, but something well north of $50K would not be unwarranted.
Also, I can’t even take the IPI seriously when they suggest that government workers take a 10% pay cut. And don’t give me the whole taxpayer argument. Government employees are taxpayers too. They pay the exact same income taxes as everyone else. Additionally, with the calls to increase the pension contributions from government workers, the cuts would likely end up being far more than 10%. Some would say be happy you have a job. Enough already with the attacks on public employees.
- Shore - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 2:03 pm:
If are there are 2 kinds of people that taxpayers have zero sympathy for right now it’s people named madigan and springfield lawyers who work for people named madigan.
- lincoln's beard - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 2:48 pm:
Yeah! The government is full of incompetents who would never make it in the private sector! We have zero sympathy for them! We need to slash their salaries way below what they would make in the private sector to, uh, attract more competent, uh, hold on, I’ll get back to you.
- JP - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 3:08 pm:
Dm,
“Government employees are taxpayers too. They pay the exact same income taxes as everyone else”
No they don’t.
Government and school district employees do not pay Illinois income tax on retirement income, and can retire around age 55, while the rest of us have 12 years or so left in our time at work.
So for 12 years or so, there is a pretty big difference in the tax structure of people who live off the taxpayers and pay no taxes and the people who live off their private income and pay taxes.
JBP
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 3:15 pm:
===Government and school district employees do not pay Illinois income tax on retirement income===
Um, dude, no retirement income is taxed in this state, public or private. Get a clue.
- Anyone Remember? - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 3:23 pm:
Today I think I should post under “Anyone Read?” …
To reiterate, when Blagojevich was cutting agencies under his control X %, the Comptroller’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office were cut X+ %. Rather than argue back and forth, take a gander at this …
http://www.auditor.illinois.gov/Audit-Reports/Performance-Special-Multi/Performance-Audits/2011%20Releases/11-State-Fin-Rpt-Sys-Mgmt-digest.pdf
Illinois is consistently one of the LAST states to produce the Annual Financial Report. This is caused by the half baked software upgrade Comptroller Didrickson was forced to settle for in 1996. The Feds are none to happy and unless we pay upfront, discretionary federal money may be in peril.
- Joe Joe made it go - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 3:55 pm:
==Um, dude, no retirement income is taxed in this state, public or private. Get a clue.==
He’s not suggesting otherwise. He’s saying that public sector workers retire earlier than their private sector counterparts and therefore for a significant number of years, state retirees are NOT paying income taxes while people in the private sector who are the same age are.
- Danny - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 4:44 pm:
$50,000 for a starting lawyer? With no prospects for a raise? That’s pathetic. We really must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to get kids to sign up for that. No wonder why people think public employees are incompetent…
(And yeah, there may be people who think that sounds like a lot of money, but chances are they don’t have 7 years of advanced schooling under their belt)
- Harry Caray - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 5:28 pm:
=== That’s pathetic. ===
Some people apparently haven’t checked the starting salary for private sector attorneys lately in Chicago and Illinois.
I’ll give you a hint. $50,000 with full benefits, great experience and public service would appeal to many starting attorney right now. Individuals like:
The Kent, DePaul and John Marshall alumni who filed suit against their law schools last month - http://bit.ly/xTa6×1
Or the new attorneys who do a quick search of monster.com and find the Chicago attorney postings offering “Compensation: 45,000 to 50,000 USD annual” for attorneys with “2+ yrs of experience (or equivalent) in general corporate/ commercial/ transactional area”.
But hey, those are just details, right?
- Harry Caray - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 5:39 pm:
To be clear: Attorneys should be making more than $50,500.
It simply isn’t the real world right now.
For every 1 person pitying the starting salary in the Attorney General’s office, there are 5 attorneys who would gladly take that job.
Wonder what the average salary in the office is???
- Danny - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 5:46 pm:
I don’t know why you posted a picture of Megan Fox, but it certainly doesn’t make you look credible
- Stuff happens - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 6:16 pm:
re: Secretary of State, how much does emissions testing cost the state for residents in the Chicagoland area? Illinois said in 2008 that it was $10/car:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/29594594.html
I wonder if they could suspend those for two years (since testing is good for two years) instead of shutting down license facilities.
- Demoralized - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 8:08 pm:
Joe Joe:
You just proved my point with your own attack on public sector workers. There’s not an average public sector worker (notice I said average and not the outliers that people always use as their examples) that is retiring at 55 making huge amounts of money. At most they are making 75% of what they used to make.
Also, as the government worker haters love to say so often the private sector workers have complete control over their retirements (supposedly) through 401K programs and the like. You can retire at least at age 59 if you want also and live tax free also.
So get over it.
- anonymice - Thursday, Mar 8, 12 @ 8:27 pm:
If anyone is worried about budget cuts causing the AG’s office to continue deteriorating to the point where it can’t bring in the revenue anymore, they should go check out the Department of Revenue — that will give them something to really worry about.
- Anonymous - Friday, Mar 9, 12 @ 12:23 am:
The problem at the AG’s office isn’t that new attorneys make $50k, it’s that experienced attorneys are making $50k. People are right, new lawyers will work cheap. But even new lawyers become adults and want to live without roommates, own cars, and even raise children. Right now, those new lawyers know that if they want to make more money, they have to leave the AG’s office.
This creates two problems. First, just about every attorney at the office is actively looking for a job that pays better. Thus every meeting with opposing counsel becomes a job interview, every meeting with other state, city or county agencies too.
Second, if only new attorneys work at the office, the quality of legal services the office provides necessarily goes down. Some of the work is highly specialized. The very attorneys who two years ago represented the state are highly, highly incentivized to switch over to the other side.
Nobody starts at the AG’s Office expecting to get rich, but most would like to be middle class at some point in their lives. $50k minus loan payments won’t do it, at least in Chicago.
- Bird Dog - Friday, Mar 9, 12 @ 7:38 am:
Anonymous @ 12:23 am makes a good point -
“The problem at the AG’s office isn’t that new attorneys make $50k, it’s that experienced attorneys are making $50k.”
I don’t know that they stay stuck at $50k, but I do know that they don’t get much in the way of raises, and definitely no raises for the last few years. Having that beginning attorney making $50k while gaining some valuable experience may make some sense. BUT,from my many years of dealing with AAGs, it is clear that many rise above most in ability. AG Madigan needs to keep these people - we citizens of Illinois need to keep these people working for us. The pay structure at the AG’s Office is shameful. Look it up for yourself on the State’s transparency web pages. Just using the AG’s Office as a “farm system” for private sector firms is a real waste.
- Joe Joe made it go - Friday, Mar 9, 12 @ 1:56 pm:
==You just proved my point with your own attack on public sector workers.==
I didn’t “attack” anyone. I said that Rich’s attack on JP was silly because he was attacking a straw man. But I guess correcting the record with an honest account of what people are saying is “an attack on public sector workers” these days. Anything that isn’t all-out worship of the AFSME gods must be an attack.