AP picks up pension story
Friday, Aug 23, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* No hat tip from the AP, but they were able to get the same pension reform outline that I obtained earlier today for subscribers.
This is not a done deal, by any means. There is no consensus as of yet on the pension reform conference committee. It’s a list of items that conference committee members have agreed to forward to the actuaries.
I’m also assuming that the Chicago Tribune will hate it. Why? Because despite lowering retirement income, the plan reduces employee contributions by a percentage point. The Tribune and Ty Fahner have been screaming for higher worker contributions for a long time now. So, why lower them? The concept of “consideration” is one reason. Give them something in return for taking other things away. Also, you gotta throw the unions some sort of bone if you’re gonna actually pass a bill.
Anyway, the AP’s take…
A bipartisan panel tasked with solving Illinois’ multibillion-dollar pension crisis is considering a framework that would save the state about $145 billion over 30 years, largely by ending automatic 3 percent cost-of-living increases for retirees. […]
It calls for setting retirees’ annual cost-of-living increases at half the rate of inflation, though it would set both floors and caps — which were not included in the outline — for what the rate would be. That formula would likely equate to smaller adjustments than the current 3 percent increases, compounded annually.
Employees would contribute 1 percent less to their own retirement, according to the document. But their annual pension benefit would be based on their salary over their career, rather than on the higher amount they’re making right before they retire.
It would reduce the state’s nearly $100 billion unfunded pension liability by about $18.1 billion and fully fund the retirement systems within 30 years.
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Your Friday bill-signing dump
Friday, Aug 23, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the governor’s office…
Governor Quinn Takes Bill Action
***Friday, August 23, 2013***
CHICAGO – Governor Pat Quinn today took action on the following bills:
Bill No.: SB 1194
An Act Concerning: Insurance
Allows the certification of navigators, in-person counselors, and certified application counselors to enroll individuals in the Health Insurance Exchange.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1197
An Act Concerning: Regulation
Ensures that prospective residents of nursing homes are properly informed about asset and income disclosure requirements.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1430
An Action Concerning: Local Government
Authorizes a county board to borrow money from a bank or other financial institution for corporate purposes provided that the money is repaid within two years.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1458
An Act Concerning: Utilities
Provides an expedited process to resolve pipeline safety concerns at the Illinois Commerce Commission.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1568
An Act Concerning: Employees
Allows the Department of Labor to establish an administrative procedure to adjudicate claims of any amount.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2014
Bill No.: SB 1598
An Act Concerning: State Government
Changes the requirements for data collection upon arrest or booking.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2015
Bill No.: SB 1609
An Act Concerning: Criminal Law
Adds threatening a human service provider to the charge of threatening a human service provider; makes such a threat a Class 3 felony for a first offense and a Class 1 felony for second and subsequent offenses.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2014
Bill No.: SB 1640
An Act Concerning: State Government
Creates the Multiple Sclerosis Task Force in the Illinois Department of Public Health to identify and address the unmet needs of persons with multiple sclerosis.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1655
An Act Concerning: Regulation
Clarifies procedures for an individual holding an active license as a managing broker license to be issued a broker’s license in exchange and revises manner in which a brokerage agreement can be terminated.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1686
An Act Concerning: Civil Law
Clarifies that the unfitness of a parent can be alleged after a nine-month period of failure to make reasonable efforts to correct conditions that were the basis of the removal of a child from the home.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2014
Bill No.: SB 1791
An Act Concerning: Education
Makes Illinois Student Assistance Commission the administrator of the Golden Apple Scholars of Illinois Program and consolidates it with the Future Teacher Corps Program.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1801
An Act Concerning: Revenue
Clarifies the aircraft refurbishment exemption from the state sales tax.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1830
An Act Concerning: Government
Clarifies the duties of the Illinois Labor Relations Board.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2014
Bill No.: SB 1844
An Act Concerning: Courts
Allows minors to be placed in adult detention facilities if they are 18 years-old or older and the court takes into consideration their delinquent or criminal history.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1862
An Act Concerning: Criminal Law
Provides funding for Metropolitan Enforcement Groups in accordance with the Intergovernmental Drug Laws Enforcement Act.
Action: Signed
Effective: July 1, 2013
Bill No.: SB 1872
An Act Concerning: Criminal Law
Eliminates felony enhancements for the offense of prostitution.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1940
An Action Concerning: Transportation
Requires proof of insurance in order to receive vehicle registration.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2014
Bill No.: SB 2101
An Act Concerning: Regulation
Requires mobile home park licensee or owner who has actual knowledge that one of the homes has been used for the manufacture of methamphetamine to disclose that information to potential buyer of mobile home.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2014
Bill No.: SB 2184
An Act Concerning: Safety
Allows the Illinois Department of Labor to respond more quickly to public safety hazards associated with fair or carnival amusement rides and brings state oversight procedures in line with national standards for amusement ride safety programs.
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 2226
An Act Concerning: Safety
Limits disposal of asphalt shingles in landfills in order to boost recycling.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2014
Bill No.: SB 2255
An Act Concerning: Regulation
Allows the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to locally certify coal mine electricians.
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2014
See anything you want to discuss in more detail on Monday?
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Question of the day
Friday, Aug 23, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* George Ryan was in Springfield the other day and stayed at Tony Leone’s place near the Statehouse…
Ryan lost weight and dealt with infected teeth in prison. His dental problems were initially compounded by financial troubles, Leone said.
“When I first saw him I was kind of set back,” Leone said of Ryan’s appearance. “But he had to wait for his Social Security check (to have his teeth fixed).”
Stripped of his pension, Leone said Ryan is “trying to think what he’s going to be doing in the future. He’s got to make some money.”
He said Ryan is working on a memoir that they have discussed during recent visits.
“We have talked when I went up there two times about our recollections of incidents with people. Some are really funny,” Leone said.
* Ryan was released from home confinement in early July. His Springfield activities also included a bit of tourism…
The 79-year-old Republican made a stop at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, where his name remains on the cornerstone despite his conviction on corruption charges and subsequent time in federal prison. […]
Ryan, who is credited with providing the political muscle to get the Lincoln museum and library built, was accompanied on his visit by his children, grandchildren and nieces and nephews.
In addition to viewing the exhibits, the entourage stopped at the cornerstone to pose for pictures, Leone said.
“George was really feeling good when he went back home,” Leone said.
* The Question: What one word best describes your feelings about former Gov. George Ryan these days? Keep it to one word, please. Thanks.
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Today’s quote
Friday, Aug 23, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Bill Daley…
In the Quad Cites for the first time since announcing his candidacy, Daley, the former Commerce Secretary and Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama, said, in this race, at least, he’s an outsider.
“I’ve been around politics and government, but not for the past 12 years, like Governor Quinn has been” he told News 8
I’m still not convinced that this “Daley the outsider” schtick is gonna work. He’s a Daley, for crying out loud. Everybody with even half a brain knows that name and what it means. So, how do you convince voters that a prominent member of the Daley family is an outsider?
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About that new Rauner PAC
Friday, Aug 23, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* An expenditure made by a ballot initiative committee “in concert with” a candidate’s committee is considered a contribution by state law, and candidate committees are barred from accepting contributions from ballot initiative committees, so that’s a real legal problem for Bruce Rauner’s new term limits PAC…
How does Bruce Rauner the candidate for governor manage not to coordinate with Bruce Rauner the SuperPac chair?
“If he can find a way to not coordinate with himself, that’s a neat trick,” says David Morrison, Deputy Director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Morrison said unlike campaign committees supporting individual candidates, there are no contribution limits on ballot initiative committees because they are typically isolated from candidates.
Except in this case, Bruce Rauner is a candidate in a heated, four-way gubernatorial election. Yet he also filed organization papers as chair of the Committee for Legislative Reform and Term Limits, a SuperPAC. The committee’s aim, according to Rauner’s campaign spokesman Mike Schrimpf, is to put a question on the November 2014 ballot that would place term limits on Illinois politicians. The details will be announced in upcoming weeks but in an interview on Thursday, Schrimpf described it as a good government initiative. […]
There is plenty of potential for problems with this set up, says Morrison, who added that he was still studying the issue. Rauner, who is in a four-way primary battle for the GOP gubernatorial nod, has had no problem raising money and tapping friends to donate to him. But there’s a limit on how much Rauner — as well as those friends — can pony up. Rauner has poured $249,000 of his own fortune into his race. That’s just shy of the $250,000 threshold that would take off the limit cap — for both Rauner and his opponents.
So working through a separate committee would potentially reap financial benefits for Rauner.
Morrison noted that Rauner could tap the SuperPAC funds for TV commercials in which he could appear (within a certain time period before the primary and general election). Rauner could not ask for a vote for governor if the SuperPAC were footing the bill. But that wouldn’t stop him from winning name recognition. The SuperPAC money could be used for polling data, voting data and other resources needed for a ballot initiative that a candidate’s campaign committee would also take interest.
Contributions aren’t capped to ballot initiative committees, which is quite convenient for Rauner, who is just about at the cap for candidate committees.
* I talked with ICPR’s Morrison this afternoon and he pointed to a similar thing that occurred in California during the Gray Davis recall push. The elections board out there ruled that the recall was a ballot initiative, so contributions to it weren’t capped. So, Arnold Schwarzenegger set up a ballot initiative committee, raised gobs of money and appeared in tons of TV ads announcing that he was voting “Yes” on the recall.
Discuss.
…Adding… The Sun-Times story identifies this Rauner fund as a “Super PAC.” It ain’t. Different sort of PAC, different rules.
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Renters now protected from foreclosures
Friday, Aug 23, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* This seems like a common sense bill…
A new law in Illinois that will take effect at the end of the year is aimed at protecting renters if their landlord’s property goes into foreclosure.
Gov. Pat Quinn signed the law that says that those who buy multifamily properties out of foreclosure should either honor existing tenant leases or give the renters 90 days to move.
State officials say that about 40 percent of families affected by foreclosure are renters.
* From a press release…
Currently, tenants living in foreclosed properties are protected under federal law, but those protections are set to sunset in 2014.
Under the new state law, an owner who acquires a property in a foreclosure proceeding can evict a tenant only at the end of the lease or, if there is no lease, with 90 days’ notice.
If the new owner intends to use the property as his or her primary residence, he or she may terminate the lease but must still give 90 days’ notice. A bank foreclosing on a rental property also must inform tenants of where they should pay their rent.
The bill is here.
Of course, pulling the state and the nation out of the housing foreclosure crisis would probably do a lot more good. But this never-ending economic slump is beyond stubborn.
…Adding… A similar bill was introduced way back in 2007.
* There was a spot of good news accompanying the state’s lousy July unemployment rate report, however…
The number of jobs across the Chicago area grew by 1.9 percent last month from a year earlier, but the unemployment rate still increased.
Highlighting volatility in employment figures, the region encompassing Chicago, Joliet and Naperville saw one of the state’s largest increases in job growth and in the rate of unemployment, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
The unemployment rate measures those who are actively searching for work, so if someone gives up their search, they are no longer counted. Conversely, if a region sees job growth but the unemployment rate rises, it indicates that more people are starting to look for jobs.
But…
Across the state, the unemployment rate fell last month in seven of 12 metro areas, but the number of jobs declined in eight out of 12.
So, while the Metro East area saw its unemployment rate drop by a full percentage point, to 8.6 percent, the number of jobs have actually declined by 2,300 from a year ago.
Springfield’s rate fell by a tenth of a point, but Springfield now has 200 fewer gross, non-farm jobs than it did a year ago. Ugh.
And while that 1.9 percentage point increase in the number of jobs in the Chicago region is good news, it’s still not nearly enough over a year’s time. We need growth, man.
The full report is here.
* Meanwhile…
The issue of raising Illinois’ minimum wage generated quite a bit of controversy early in the spring session of the Illinois General Assembly.
One bill in particular, which proposed raising Illinois’ minimum wage from $8.25 an hour to $10 over three years, generated lots of opposition from the business community, which said raising the minimum wage would result only in employers cutting existing minimum wage jobs.
But it never got a vote in the House or Senate, where it remains in the Assignments Committee. By session’s end, pension reform, concealed carry and same-sex marriage had pushed minimum wage off the stage.
If you listened to Gov. Pat Quinn’s speech to Democratic county chairmen last week, though, you heard the minimum wage stepping back into the spotlight as one of the main planks of Quinn’s reelection campaign platform.
“It’s a principle as old as the Bible. If you work 40 hours a week, you should not live in poverty,” Quinn told the crowd in Springfield. “That’s why we’re going to raise the Illinois minimum wage as well.”
I really doubt that bill will be approved by the House if it does clear the Senate. The Illinois Retail Merchants Association, among others, is dead-set against it, and they have a very friendly ear in Speaker Madigan.
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Beer can spoiler
Friday, Aug 23, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Maybe it’s because I’m still not feeling well, but I’ve read this three times and I’m still not sure I get the logic behind today’s Kass piece about how state Sen. Kwame Raoul is a spoiler…
Kwame Raoul hates it when you call him a “spoiler,” so I what am I supposed to call him?
The Kwame-Nader?
Kwame-Nader is an homage to Ralph Nader, who took enough votes from weird Al Gore to make George W. Bush the president.
Raoul is Haitian-American, popular among Hyde Park liberals and flirting with challenging incumbent Quinn in the Democratic primary. Quinn is already facing a challenge from mayoral brother and former Obama White House chief of staff William Daley.
So if the Kwame-Nader gets in, will he take black votes from Quinn? Does this help Daley?
“The notion that somebody has characterized me as a spoiler, given my record of achievement, not only advancing policy that impacts the black community, but all communities, is insulting at best,” he told WLS-Ch. 7.
That’s so precious, Sen. Kwame-Nader. You don’t like being insulted? Who are you, the public relations guy for the Chicago Fire?
If you were serious about running for governor of a state in financial ruin, you would have been doing something about it long ago.
If Kwame-Nader was serious, he’d have been out there for months like others, staking out positions, declaring where he stands.
Instead, he’s been running that legislative pension committee, the one that costs Illinois taxpayers $5 million for every day it doesn’t solve the problem. Instead, it keeps meeting and meeting and meeting. And meeting.
Oh, Kwame-Nader. If you don’t like the name, please give me a call (finally) and we’ll think of something else.
Perhaps you can help me understand the logic here.
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* Sorry. Wasn’t feeling well this morning at all. Somewhat better now.
Since Oswego Willy was one of those who sent me an e-mail wondering if I was still alive, how about a caption contest to welcome his favorite legislative leader into the state treasurer’s race?…
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