* Yeah, I know it’s only Thursday, but the GA is gone for the week and I have to go out of town tonight and didn’t think I’d be able to post tomorrow. I’ll be back Monday. Not much happened Thursday anyway, except for the Senate passing the legislative scholarship ban. And this…
Chicago Teacher’s Union President Karen Lewis and other union leaders were reportedly in Springfield, Illinois Wednesday meeting with Senate President John Cullerton and Speaker of the House Michael Madigan in what’s been called a long meeting, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Lawmakers wanted an update on how negotiations with the City of Chicago are going. They’ve expressed concerned a teacher’s strike may happen.
Sources tell Ward Room that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is working furiously behind the scenes and would like to amend the new SB7 bill - as the teachers union sees it - changing the rules at mid stream on a strike authorization vote.
Emanuel reportedly wants the rules to be more specific, and lawmakers wanted to hear directly from the union.
* I’ve known Owen Irwin most of his life. He’s Tom Irwin’s son. Tom is, of course, Springfield’s legendary singer-songwriter and the music writer for the Illinois Times. He’s also one of my oldest Springfield friends.
A month or so ago, Owen asked if I could meet for dinner and get some advice about his future. He graduated summa cum laude from Bradley University with a degree in Economics. He’s since been doing some day-trading, but lately he decided he really wanted to try his hand at politics.
So, we talked for a long time about various options and jobs he could apply for. Finally, it occurred to me that maybe what Owen needed to do first was see if he even liked real politics up close and personal. So I asked if he’d care to intern for me in May. He said he’d love to and he started Wednesday afternoon. Within a half an hour he’d met Speaker Madigan and Leader Cross and then attended a big reception at the governor’s mansion. He says he had a great time. I believe him.
* Now that I have an intern again, we’re going to revive “Morning Shorts” next week sometime. You’ll also be seeing him around the Statehouse. Be kind, please. He’s not only my intern, he’s one of the best guitarists in town. Here he is on the left. Check out the windmill, man…
The kid can play.
* Owen sat in with his dad Wednesday night at the Butternut Hut. I asked him yesterday if he’d be cool with doing that every Wednesday evening during May and he said he would. So, depending on the session schedule and Owen’s availability, we may have a weekly late night gathering for Capitol Fax types this month. Bonus!
A new wrinkle in Illinois’ budget crisis unfolded Wednesday when Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration said it has begun to delay payments to more than 40,000 child-care providers.
The move could threaten the fragile budgets of many providers and the family finances of more than 85,000 low-income parents who receive state-subsidized child-care services.
The delays could mean no more subsidy payments to many child-care providers until July 1, said Januari Smith, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Human Services.
“We don’t have the money,” she said. “We’re very well aware of the burden this will put on working families.”
* The response from Keith Kelleher, President of SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana, which represents more than 35,000 home child care providers…
It’s hard to solve a state budget crisis by putting people out of work. Unfortunately, that’s precisely the predicament Illinois could put itself in, now that state officials have warned child care providers that they may not be paid for three months.
In the wake of yesterday’s announcement that the state has exhausted nearly all of its child care funding three months before the end of the fiscal year – leaving a $73 million shortfall that could incapacitate child care program for the foreseeable future – lawmakers should pass a supplemental appropriation to recover the money, before our already high unemployment rolls start to swell.
More than 35,000 home child care providers could see their businesses crippled by the funding shortage. These are not large commercial enterprises. They are small, independent providers who are already wrestling with fragile finances and simply cannot withstand a delay in their state payments. If they are forced to disrupt service, there will be a ripple effect of unemployment for the 85,000 working families who rely on the child care program to hold down a job and contribute the state’s ailing economy.
Let’s remember that the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) is key source of economic development, providing these 85,000 low-income families with a safe, secure learning environment for their children every day that allows them to go to work. If we allow funding for this program to dry up, we cripple the capacity for these parents to remain employed, which will only exacerbate the state’s budget woes both in the short and long run.
Even worse, the funding delay represent the first blow in a one-two punch that could cause the child care program in Illinois to collapse altogether. Governor Quinn has proposed $85 million in cuts to CCAP in his FY 2013 budget. These reductions would reduce access to the program at a time when the state should be redoubling efforts to help people stay on the job and rebuild our economy.
We urge lawmakers to not only pass a supplemental appropriation to plug the CCAP funding gap in the current fiscal year, but to restore the money that the Governor has threaten to purge from next year’s budget. Failing to do so will cost us even more in the future.
CHICAGO - The office of Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) today released the following statement at the request of Senator Kirk’s family:
“We are happy to say that after suffering a stroke in January, Mark has progressed to the point where he can move home with his family.He will continue to work on his recovery as an out-patient at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. He has begun a rigorous walking study program to further his mobility and independence while maintaining his schedule with staff.”
“We are grateful for the wonderful doctors and personnel at the RIC for their care of Mark, and to the residents of Illinois who have given him privacy and time to heal. We also thank everyone who has shared their prayers and wishes for his return to the U.S. Senate as soon as possible.”
Gov. Pat Quinn should be commended for his detailed proposal addressing Illinois’ pension crisis. Unfortunately, the proposal’s fine print prevents real reform and even lays the groundwork for substantially higher property taxes for all of us.
Mr. Quinn’s plan starts out strong, identifying logical reforms to address cost-of-living adjustments, retirement age and employee contributions. He then negates his own reforms, however, by offering all workers the option to avoid the changes if they agree to other, minor benefit adjustments the state needs to implement, anyway. The reason for this central flaw is Senate Democrats’ ongoing canard that any benefit changes are prohibited by the state constitution unless agreed to by union bosses.
So the only way the governor’s plan works is if workers voluntarily and irrationally elect to reduce their own benefits. Good luck with that.
The plan omits other vital reforms as well. More than 60 percent of pension liabilities are owed to current retirees. By leaving those benefits untouched, the plan is limited to tinkering on the edges. Most disappointing is that the plan does not include a 401(k) component and therefore continues to rely on the antiquated and unstable defined benefit structure for all teachers and workers.
* Levine is identified in the piece as “a senior pension adviser to House Minority Leader Tom Cross.” I asked Cross’ spokesperson today whether her boss agrees with his “senior pension adviser.” Her response…
He is an advisor to Tom on pension issues, we don’t agree with him on all of his points in his piece, but he is right on COLAs, increased contributions, and the pension cost shift.
* Let’s look at some of Levine’s proposals that Leader Cross apparently disagrees with. And it’s a good thing that Cross did distance himself from this stuff, because he’d be flooded with angry complaints if he actually agreed with him…
if they agree to other, minor benefit adjustments the state needs to implement, anyway
“Minor benefit changes”? Um, dude, telling state workers that their pensions won’t reflect any future pay increases is not a “minor” benefit adjustment. Also, taking away all of their government subsidy for their health insurance ain’t exactly “minor,” either.
ongoing canard that any benefit changes are prohibited by the state constitution unless agreed to by union bosses.
Actually, no. Nobody has ever said that. Newspapers have reported it, but they were unclear on the concept. These are individual, not collective, contract rights.
So the only way the governor’s plan works is if workers voluntarily and irrationally elect to reduce their own benefits
The can either elect to reduce their own benefits or get their benefits reduced drastically if they have to pay hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance and don’t get to count future pay increases.
More than 60 percent of pension liabilities are owed to current retirees. By leaving those benefits untouched, the plan is limited to tinkering on the edges.
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.
And, finally…
Most disappointing is that the plan does not include a 401(k) component
So, you want the state to start paying into Social Security now?
State lawmakers are poised to finally ban an oft-abused free college tuition program that’s drawn the scrutiny of federal prosecutors, a push that comes as a new scholarship program is being offered as a bargaining chip to win votes for a long-stalled proposal to build a Downstate power plant.
Those involved say the two issues are unrelated and not the result of the kind of political horse-trading that typically takes place in the General Assembly. But the timing has not gone unnoticed at the Capitol. […]
But even as one scholarship program may be going down, a new one is being offered as a way to attract support from lawmakers for a multibillion-dollar power plant Tenaska wants to build near Taylorville in central Illinois. The Nebraska-based energy company has reached an agreement with African-American and Latino lawmakers to put $1.5 million a year toward scholarships that would be awarded to disadvantaged youth throughout Illinois, according Bart Ford, a Tenaska vice president. […]
Tenaska’s scholarship proposal has grown to $1.5 million a year and $45 million over 30 years.
OK, the Trib makes it appear that the two issues are connected by saying that the “timing” of the Tenaska scholarship plan is somehow curious.
However, according to the Tenaska folks, the $1 million per year scholarship plan was first created in 2010. Back in October of 2011, Crain’s reported that there was a formal agreement on that particular plan with the Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce.
Tenaska says it reached another agreement with the Hispanic American Construction Industry Association which expanded the plan to $1.5 million with a total investment of $45 million. According to the Tenaska folks, the agreement with HACIA was reached on December 12 of last year.
The HACAI agreement is here. The extra cash is outlined in the policy statement.
It’s tough to see how the timing is so curious here since this program is apparently several months old.
Also, according to the Tenaska folks, “the recipients of the scholarships will be chosen by a board of individuals chosen by Tenaska, HACIA and the IL Black Chamber of Commerce.” Legislators will not be eligible to serve on that panel. They might be able to influence the panel, of course, but they won’t actuallyt be on it.
* Related and a roundup…
* Cullerton reverses support for legislative scholarships
* Legislative scholarship perk could end in Illinois
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s statement: This is welcome news today – we are very encouraged by the Senate President’s move to abolish the legislative scholarship program. This is the right thing for deserving students who need financial assistance to attend college and the right thing for taxpayers who deserve better than the status quo. Governor Quinn has repeatedly pushed to abolish this often abused program and strongly believes there is no way to mend it. As the governor has said many times, scholarships – paid for by Illinois taxpayers- should be awarded only to those with merit who are in true financial need. Members of the House have already voted to end the legislative scholarship program, and we urge the Senate to pass this legislation swiftly.
* Aquifer bill faces more amendments, moves to different committee
* DCFS Data Reveals Confirmed Illinois Child Abuse, Neglect Projected to Drop 27% Since 2008
Thursday, May 3, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
We are pleased to announce an exciting and important milestone for ComEd’s transformation of the electrical system serving northern Illinois. We have submitted our plan to the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) for the installation of smart meters across our service territory. Here are the highlights:
• The deployment plan will occur over a 10-year period and introduce more than four million smart meters in all.
• ComEd will install approximately 130,000 smart meters in 2012 in the following communities: Berkeley, Brookfield, Cicero, Elmwood Park, Forest View, Franklin Park, Harwood Heights, La Grange Park, Lyons, Norridge, North Riverside, Northlake, River Grove, Riverside, Rosemont, Schiller Park, Stickney, Stone Park and Westchester. Installation will continue in areas served by the Maywood operating center, where most of the meters were installed for ComEd’s AMI Pilot Program.
• Beginning next year, we plan to install approximately 400,000 smart meters annually through completion of the program in 2021.
• Our plan was developed in consultation with Governor Quinn’s Smart Grid Advisory Council and we’ve met with numerous community groups and stakeholders to discuss the plan.
We are proud of the collaboration and coordination that went into this plan and we are excited about the benefits smart meters will bring, including fewer and shorter outages, an improved customer experience, more opportunities for customers to control their energy consumption and save money.
Thursday, May 3, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
The hospital community understands that the General Assembly has very difficult decisions to make this month, including on Medicaid. But it is important to remember that 2.8 million Illinoisans rely on Medicaid for their health care. More than one-third of all children in Illinois depend on the program, as well as hundreds of thousands of others such as the disabled, elderly and newly unemployed.
It is critical that legislators and health care providers work together on Medicaid reforms that are thoughtful and well-planned. Yes, reforms need to happen; we need to implement ways to make the Medicaid program as cost effective as possible with the best outcomes. But we need to be careful not to make rash decisions that result in unintended consequences and that harm patients.
The Illinois Hospital Association has provided the Governor and General Assembly with our Medicaid Savings Alternatives proposal – with real solutions instead of a $350 million (8%) rate cut to hospitals. (See http://tinyurl.com/6t8doaw)
True Medicaid reform does not happen through blunt cuts or a math exercise. Illinois hospitals are committed to partnering with the General Assembly to ensure that Illinoisans get the quality health care they need.
Teachers are supposed to pay almost 9.5 percent of paychecks into their own retirement accounts. But two-thirds of all public school teachers in the state don’t contribute anywhere near, and many contribute nothing at all, according to a report set for release Thursday by the Illinois Policy Institute, a government watchdog.
When a school district “picks up” the contribution, the money still comes from the teacher’s total compensation package. The “pick up” is in reality only a difference of when the district deducts the contribution from the teacher’s salary – either before taxes are deducted or after taxes are deducted. Teacher unions for years have negotiated this point with school boards as part of overall salary and benefit packages for teachers. There is an income tax savings for teachers if the contribution is deducted pretax.
In practical terms, no teacher writes TRS a check every month and mails it, so no teacher in Illinois directly “pays” TRS. All contributions from every teacher in every school district are deducted from paychecks by the school districts and sent to TRS in one lump sum. Member contributions to TRS in fiscal year 2011 totaled $909.6 million.
The IPI conclusion that taxpayers are paying “extra” for the pick-up rings false because, in the end, taxpayers pay for everything in a school district, including all teacher salaries. There is no “extra” $400 million.
If you carry the IPI’s conclusion about TRS contributions to other examples you’ll realize that everyone who participates in Social Security hasn’t paid their share of federal Social Security taxes because their employer is paying the tax for them. No one writes a check to Social Security when they get paid. The FICA tax is deducted from the paycheck. It’s the same thing for TRS contributions. One of the reasons Illinois teachers don’t contribute to Social Security or get a Social Security benefit is because they make the same type of paycheck contribution to TRS.
Teachers negotiate that pension pickup in their contracts, almost always in exchange for wage concessions. Things usually even out, but lower wages mean lower costs to the pension system in the long run. The Policy Institute claim is just plain silly.
While many questions remain about the future of Illinois teacher pensions, hundreds of people attending a forum Wednesday were told to get politically active if they want to keep what they have.
“Contact them (Gov. Pat Quinn and state lawmakers), call, email, write a letter. Get on a bus and go to Springfield. Be engaged with legislators all along. Describe your personal stories,” Teachers Retirement System Executive Director Dick Ingram told about 400 teachers, retirees and members of the public at a town hall-style meeting at Normal Community High school.
An Illinois Senate committee on Wednesday rejected a measure that would force local government to pick up the tab when it gives an ex-lawmaker a big paycheck to fatten his pension.
The bill passed the House on a 110-0 vote in March. The legislation sought to require cities, villages or other governments employing a former lawmaker for short periods of time to pay for the additional pension expenses that go with the new job, said House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego, who sponsored the bill in his chamber.
* Years ago, Illinois had one person who acted as both state comptroller and treasurer. That person got busted embezzling funds, and so the Constitution was changed to split the office into two entities. Speaker Madigan has always pointed to that history as his reason to block a constitutional amendment to combine the two offices, which supporters say would save $12 million a year. Madigan now has a new reason…
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s spokesman [yesterday] defended his opposition to a plan that would merge the Illinois comptroller and treasurer’s offices, by pointing at Dixon—the small northern Illinois town where the single fiscal officer now stands accused of embezzling some $53 million.
“If that doesn’t give them pause, I don’t know what will,” spokesman Steve Brown said of proponents who want to merge the two state offices. […]
Such a change would require a state constitutional amendment. But the Madigan-controlled committee process has kept the measure bottled up, against fervent Republican pressure to let it out for a vote.
“It’s simply tyranny,” the sponsor, Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Addison, said in angry floor debate [yesterday].
Madigan and other opponents say there’s no proof the merger would save money. More than that, they say, having separate offices for collecting, investing and dispersing state money ensures checks and balances, reducing the likelihood of fiscal shenanigans by any one office or officeholder.
A bill requiring local governments to post financial information could help to expose and prevent fraud, supporters of the measure say.
The Illinois Policy Institute, state Sen. Dan Duffy, R-Lake Barrington, and other lawmakers are pushing Senate Bill 3392, which would require local governments to post their budgets, audits and expenditures. The institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank that supports free markets.
The proposal comes after federal charges were filed against Dixon comptroller Rita Crundwell, who is accused of taking $53 million from taxpayers.
The Illinois Policy Institute looked at 130 local governments, and measured them based on transparency.
“After seeing how little public information is available on Dixon’s website, it’s no surprise that the alleged theft went under the radar for so long,” said Brian Costin, director of government reform for the institute.
Crundwell became comptroller of Dixon, a town of about 16,000 people, in 1983. Some seven years later, court documents said, Dixon began funneling city funds into personal bank accounts, using the money to buy a horse farm, several cars and a $2.1 million motor home.
* The SJ-R has a report on a bill which passed the House Executive Committee yesterday that ostensibly ends government subsidies for state retiree health insurance, but does still allow CMS to set premium levels…
House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the state spends $876 million on retiree health insurance. He said 78,000 state retirees pay no premiums for their health insurance, something that costs nearly $7,400 per person.
“The goal is not to eliminate health-care coverage, but to make it sustainable,” Cross said. “If you want to have health-care coverage, I think the reality is people are going to have to pay something for it. You can’t provide it at no cost.” […]
Under the bill, the Department of Central Management Services would determine the level of premium payments retirees need to make. Cross plans to add an amendment stipulating that the payments be equal for all retirees, whether state workers or lawmakers, although he also said premiums could be indexed to a retiree’s pension.
“If someone is making $20,000, they should pay a different amount than someone making $100,000,” he said.
This will almost undoubtedly have to be a bipartisan roll call, so if Cross wants changes, he’ll probably get them.
Madigan said that he does not consider the bill to be linked with negotiations about pension reform. Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed that employees be given the choice of keeping their subsidized health care benefits while seeing a reduction in their pension benefits or footing the bill for their health care while keeping their current benefits.
“[SB1313 is] a significant step, and a step we clearly ought to take if, for no other reason, for no other reason, to set the tone for the budget making for the next 30 days,” Madigan said. He said he is backing the bill, in part, because of a request from Quinn’s office. Quinn ducked the news media after a public appearance in Springfield today, and as of press time, his office had not replied to questions about the legislation.
The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31, the public union that represents most of the state state’s workforce, said the legislation interferes with the collective bargaining process now under way. AFSCME Council 31 and Quinn are negotiating a new contract; the current one expires this summer.
The AFSCME Council 31 Legislative Director Joanna Webb-Gauvin said retiree health benefits have been viewed as compensation.
“This has always been a part of the collective bargaining process and we’re in opposition because we feel that process is being violated,” Webb-Gauvin said.
Beyond having an unfunded pension liability of $83 million, the state also has $54 billion in unfunded retiree health care liabilities, according to the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-of-center think tank.
* Gov. Pat Quinn spoke yesterday to a couple of business groups and had this to say about the urgency of fixing the state’s pension and Medicaid problems and the need to get it done during the spring legislative session…
Quinn said spending on pensions and Medicaid will cripple the state’s ability to fund education and capital needs, and he sought to drive home the urgency of the problem.
“I said (there are) 29 days or so until the end of the legislative session,” Quinn said. “Well, it’s 58 days if you don’t sleep, and I don’t plan to sleep.”
The governor previously said about the pension problem: “I know that I was put on earth to get this done.” So, I suppose when you’ve discovered your life’s main mission, you don’t sleep until you accomplish it.
