A better option is for the politicians who own — sorry, we should say run — Illinois governance to declare right now that they will put before us an amendment to refine the state constitution’s retiree benefits protection wording.
The pols also should guarantee that they finally will take budget pressure off taxpayers by eliminating layers of costly Illinois bureaucracy. Seven thousand governments? More than 800 school districts?
And the pols should finally adopt the structural budget reforms and massive cost-cutting that civic watchdog groups and other constructive voices have impatiently advocated for eons.
Changing the state Constitution probably won’t produce any significant near-term savings. And as the Sun-Times rightly notes in its own editorial entitled “Time for pension reform 2.0“…
One possibility would be to amend the constitution to modify the pension protection clause — not eliminating it but weakening it some. However, this is a lengthy process and may still not protect the state legally if it reduces benefits already promised.
The Sun-Times offered no other ideas of its own.
And you can eliminate some local governments, but the services still have to be provided. So the savings aren’t truly gigantic. And state savings are practically nil.
And massive cost-cutting plans by civic watchdog groups? Where?
This is a crisis, and we’re teetering on the cliff. We either raise taxes and drive more of us to move away, or we change the constitution, or we change laws to control double-dipping and too-generous pension benefits approved by local school board members and other officials.
Or all of the above. Waiting any longer is pure insanity.
Again, changing the Constitution probably won’t work for existing retirees and workers. And, keep in mind that the already passed Tier 2 benefits are a net donor to the pension funds. Yep, the recipients will get less than what is put in. Kill that off and you’ve actually cost the state money.
You can stop prospective double-dipping, but current double-dipping can’t be stopped after that ruling. And it’s not a huge fiscal issue anyway.
* School districts, however, most certainly can be legislatively reined in on their end of career salaries. The GA has already done this once.
But wouldn’t a more market-style approach be to begin making school districts pick up their own pension payments? They’d watch those salaries a whole lot more closely if it cost them real money down the road. And, since it’s probably not possible to cut benefits, that’s where the only real savings will be realized. Illinois, as I’ve told you before, is almost alone in the nation for being responsible for teacher pension payments.
* Jim Oberweis spoke to the Champaign County Active Seniors Republicans on Monday…
“We’re going to make some inroads in Chicago. All we have to do is get between 25 and 27 percent in Chicago and we will win statewide,” he told the group. “That’s what it takes. They’re showing me within 8 points of Dick Durbin. If we can get the turnout up we will win.”
Later, though, meeting with reporters, Oberweis said he couldn’t name the source of the poll and said he was disappointed with his campaign’s fundraising in the second quarter, which ended June 30.
“I am not as happy with our fundraising as I would like to see. We have raised something like a half million plus I have made significant contributions to the campaign,” he said. “We need to get this to the national level. This is going to be a very expensive race if we’re going to win this race. Mr. Durbin has millions and millions (more than $6 million as on March 31) in his campaign account. We have a little less than a million in our campaign account. We need some help. I can’t do it alone.
“Unfortunately the way these things work is the national groups tend to put their money into those races that are very, very close and I believe that we really need to see 4 to 5 points (difference) for us to bring the national guys in in a big way.”
The only recent poll of the race, take in early June by the web site Reboot Illinois, had Durbin leading Oberweis, 52 percent to 39 percent with 9 percent undecided.
Former Democratic Candidate for Governor, Tio Hardiman has decided to run for United States Senate against Mark Kirk in 2016. Tio Hardiman made his decision to run for United States Senate after speaking with his supporters and gaining statewide recognition by securing 125,500 votes and winning 30 counties in downstate Illinois which represents 28.1 percent of the statewide vote in Illinois during the 2014 Democratic Primary. “Mark Kirk is out of touch with the working class and poor people of Illinois.”-Tio Hardiman. Mark Kirk voted against raising the minimum wage to $10.00 per hour and extending unemployment benefits for unemployed workers across the nation.
Additionally, Tio Hardiman plans to endorse United States Senator Richard Durbin.
Tio’s Platform Issues will include:
1. Raising the Minimum Wage
2. Ending the Culture of Corruption
3. Combating Illegal Gun Trafficking
4. Reducing Violence
5. Immigration Reform
6. Strengthening Animal Welfare Laws
* The Question: Your recommended slogans for Hardiman’s 2016 campaign?
CHICAGO – Governor Pat Quinn will be joined by Illinois workers to call on Republican billionaire Bruce Rauner to release his 2013 income tax return and complete tax documents, including schedules, from previous years.
WHEN: 2 p.m.
WHERE: Plumbers Hall
1340 W. Washington Blvd
Chicago, 60607
OK, first of all, Rauner hasn’t even filed his 2013 taxes yet, so how can he release them? He filed for an extension. Rod Blagojevich did exactly the same thing when Quinn was RRB’s running mate. Not to compare Rauner to Blagojevich, of course, but what Rauner did is totally legal and acceptable practice.
The part about the releasing all schedules from previous years isn’t a bad point, though.
Republican candidate for Illinois governor Bruce Rauner says he’ll release his 2013 income tax returns once they’re ready.
Rauner Spokesman Mike Schrimpf says Rauner got a six-month extension of the April 15 filing deadline. He says Rauner will make his returns public before the Nov. 4 election.
Again, RRB did this very thing in 2006 and his running mate did not complain at all.
The rate of prescriptions that doctors write for painkillers varies widely by state, with states in the South having some of the highest rates, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. […]
In 2012, there were 259 million prescriptions written for opioid painkillers in the United States, which is enough for every adult in the country to have a bottle of pills, the report said.
Southern states — particularly Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia — had the most painkiller prescriptions per person, the report said. For example, in Alabama, there were 143 prescriptions for opioid prescriptions written for every 100 people. That’s about three times the rate seen in Hawaii, which had the lowest rate among U.S. states, with 52 prescriptions per 100 people.
The rate of prescriptions for oxymorphone, one type of opioid painkiller, was about 22 times higher in Tennessee than in Minnesota, which had the lowest rate of prescriptions for that drug, the report said.
A mayoral working group recommended [yesterday] that the city’s minimum wage be raised to $13 an hour within four years, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel promptly endorsed the plan. […]
Under the recommendation, the minimum wage would rise from its current level of $8.25 an hour to $9.50 next year. It would keep going up until hitting $13 an hour in 2018. After that, it would be adjusted annually to keep pace with inflation. The national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
None of the benefits provided for in this Article shall be paid to any person who is convicted of any felony relating to or arising out of or in connection with his service as a policeman.
That’s pretty darned broad, if you ask me. It’s pretty clear that triggering this provision doesn’t have to directly involve a felony during service, but the felony has to somehow be connected to the service, however loosely.
* This bring us to the disgusting case of former Chicago police Commander Jon Burge…
For decades, police and prosecutors had discounted complaints that suspects were being coerced into making false confessions — at gunpoint, with shocks to the genitals or with plastic bags over their heads — at the Area Two headquarters, where Burge supervised the violent crimes unit.
Later, those same authorities wrung their hands and claimed the case against Burge wasn’t strong enough to win a conviction. The evidence was old, they said; the witnesses were uncooperative or unreliable.
After the statute of limitations expired, it fell to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to get a measure of justice: In 2010, Burge was convicted of perjury for lying during a 2003 civil trial brought by one of his many victims.
* That felony conviction most certainly “arose” from his service as a police officer. The four members of the police pension board appointed by the mayor voted to yank Burge’s pension. The four police officers on the pension board sided with Burge. Attorney General Lisa Madigan quickly stepped in…
A week later, the Attorney General filed suit in the Circuit Court, naming the retiree, the Board and all its individual Trustees as defendants, seeking an injunction to prohibit further pension payments to the retiree and requiring that all payments made since his conviction be refunded. The defendants filed motions to dismiss, alleging that the Circuit Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over what amounted to a collateral attack on a routine benefits decision of the Board. The Circuit Court agreed and dismissed. The Appellate Court reversed, holding that the Circuit Court had concurrent jurisdiction over the Attorney General’s claims pursuant to Section 1-115 of the Pension Code, which authorizes the Attorney General to sue to “enjoin any act or practice which violates any provision of this Code.” 40 ILCS 5/1-115.
That appellate ruling certainly seemed reasonable since Burge’s conviction was obviously related to his service time. But…
The Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Court. The majority notes that Section 5-189 of the Pension Code expressly confers “exclusive original jurisdiction” on the Retirement Board “in all matters relating to of affecting the fund, including . . . all claims for annuities, pensions, benefits or refunds.” That grant of authority includes deciding proposals to “increase, reduce, or suspend” any pension.
The Attorney General argued that Section 1-115 was a sweeping grant of concurrent jurisdiction over any decision to award benefits, so long as the award violated some clause of the Pension Code. The majority disagreed, finding that the Attorney General’s construction would potentially create two tracks of Circuit Court proceedings, one via administrative review, with the Circuit Court required to give deference to the Board’s findings, and one an independent suit under Section 1-115. Such a system would inject “tremendous instability . . . into the Fund.” The majority acknowledged that “[p]reventing significant violations of the Pension Code” were “important goals,” but found that authorizing collateral attacks against any Board decision wasn’t necessary to achieve that goal, since acts in excess of jurisdiction and breaches of the Trustees’ fidicuciary duties could be challenged in separate suits. In addition, the Department of Insurance has general responsibility for examining and investigating pension funds created under the Code. But no such issue was involved in the case, the majority found. The Attorney General’s challenge to the Board’s action was merely an allegation that the Board had erred in failing to terminate benefits on the particular facts involved here – an “individualized error.”
Chief Justice Garman dissented at length, joined by Justice Thomas Kilbride. There were several problems with the majority analysis, the Chief Justice argued. First of all, read literally, Section 5-189 would give the Board exclusive original jurisdiction over its own breaches of fiduciary duty. Second, the majority ignored the breadth of the Trustees’ fiduciary duties. In addition to loyalty, the Trustees have duties to diversify (with limited exceptions), to exercise “care, skill, prudence and diligence,” and to administer in accordance with the Code. So if the retiree’s felony conviction related to, arose out of, or was in connection with his service as a policeman, continuing to pay him benefits was a breach of the Trustees’ fiduciary duty to administer the Fund pursuant to the Code.
Even more disturbing, the Chief Justice argues, the majority’s sweeping construction of the Board’s original and exclusive jurisdiction would seem to place decisions awarding retirement benefits beyond any court review. There was no basis for believing that another system participant could intervene in a retiree’s benefit proceeding. Appeal under the Administrative Review Act was limited to parties of record aggrieved by the decision. Therefore, “[n]o party would have both incentive and ability to challenge the Board’ s error. So long as the Board awards benefits, its errors will now go unchallenged” – even if the Board chose to openly defy a decision of the Supreme Court itself.
* The Chicago Tribune obtained a copy of former Legislative Inspector General Tom Homer’s secret report of House Speaker Michael Madigan’s involvement in Metra patronage. The main conclusion…
“(Madigan) should have realized, given his influential position, that by making the requests at the conclusion of meetings with Metra officials to discuss funding and other legislative issues, he would be creating reciprocal expectations,” Homer wrote.
“This unhealthy situation was exacerbated by the subsequent communications to Metra by the speaker or persons associated with him inquiring as to the state of the promotion requests when favorable action was not forthcoming,” Homer concluded. […]
In his report, Homer maintained that the “proximity” of Madigan’s discussions about the transit system’s agenda and the speaker’s mentions of favored Metra workers “created the impression among Metra officials that the speaker’s support for Metra’s legislative initiatives may be linked.”
“While this may not have been the speaker’s intention, the natural inferences to be drawn by Metra officials should have been obvious,” Homer wrote. “Moreover, when the requested promotions were not immediately forthcoming, the follow-up inquiries by the speaker or his agents created additional angst at Metra and contributed to the controversy.”
Madigan is known to be very, very persistent and persuasive when he wants something. He doesn’t have to spell out consequences. People just know what he’s capable of.
It may be no coincidence that Homer decided to resign after issuing such a stinging report. He found nothing illegal, but he clearly was not enthused about what he’d uncovered.
The report contains an account of Metra’s chairwoman entering Madigan’s Capitol office to talk about state issues and leaving with a yellow Post-it note bearing names of two workers the speaker wanted to see promoted. In another meeting, a Metra lobbyist who was a longtime Madigan aide was spotted leaving the speaker’s office with two resumes. Another time, Madigan simply called the cellphone of one of his “better” precinct captains to tell him about a state job, according to the report.
State Treasurer Dan Rutherford fired three senior administrators in his office last week after they were identified as subjects in a probe by the treasurer’s inspector general, Rutherford’s office confirmed Monday.
Rutherford dismissed Patrick Z. Carlson, George Daglas and Ashvin Lad on July 2 after they allegedly were found to have violated timekeeping policies and falsified records, according to termination letters submitted to the three by Rutherford’s chief legal counsel.
Additionally, Carlson was alleged to have engaged in “workplace harassment,” though details were not spelled out in the letter Carlson received from Neil Olson, Rutherford’s general counsel and ethics officer.
It wasn’t clear from the termination letters, first disclosed by the Associated Press, whether the allegations against the three related in any way to the allegations of sexual harassment and political work on state time that were contained in a lawsuit filed earlier this year against Rutherford by an ex-administrator in his office.
* The firings sent a shock wave through the office, but the dismissals appear to be legit…
The letters indicate that the inspector general for the treasurer’s office had found that each had broken timekeeping policies and falsified records. The letter to Carlson also said he violated rules against “workplace harassment.” […]
The dismissals were based on a summary report made by David Wells, the independent inspector general for the treasurer’s office. State law dictates that the inspector general independently determines what issues to investigate and in what manner. Wells said he’s prohibited by law from even confirming the existence of an investigation.
