Uh-oh
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Reuters…
A deal to plug a $1.6 billion hole in Illinois’ current budget is not imminent, the president of the state Senate said on Friday, contradicting assertions this week from the governor and House Speaker.
Senate President John Cullerton told Reuters the fiscal year 2016 budget unveiled by Governor Bruce Rauner on Wednesday complicates negotiations over the budget gap in fiscal 2015, which ends June 30. An impasse could potentially threaten cutoff of operating funds for child care, prisons and other state institutions, he added.
The Republican governor’s $32 billion general budget for fiscal 2016 beginning July 1, aims to chop $6.6 billion from healthcare, local government revenues, mass transit and other areas. It raises no new revenue and controversial pension changes account for $2.2 billion of the savings.
“Because it’s slashing programs and no revenue, I think that’s going to make it difficult for us to reach an agreement” on the 2015 budget gap, said Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat.
In his budget address Wednesday, Rauner said a resolution was “literally days away.” Madigan, also a Chicago Democrat, said after the speech he expected a deal “in a matter of days.”
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Rauner’s Friday afternoon appointments
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Rep. Rich Brauer is moving to IDOT…
Governor Bruce Rauner announced today he has selected a new Assistant Secretary for the Illinois Department of Transportation and filled openings on the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission.
Name: Rich Brauer
Position: Assistant Secretary – Illinois Department of Transportation
Governor Bruce Rauner has selected Rep. Rich Brauer to serve as the Assistant Secretary at the Illinois Department of Transportation. Brauer has served on transportation committees, and as a downstate resident, he will be a strong advocate for the region on transportation issues.
For the past 13 years, Brauer worked for the people of Illinois in the General Assembly as a state representative. His committee assignments included Transportation, Regulation, Roads; Transportation: Vehicles & Safety; Tourism & Conventions; and Appropriations, among others.
Brauer also spent much of his career in the agricultural industry as the owner of OASIS Farms, a farrow-to-finish operation. As the owner he oversaw the creation of new facilities and managed employees. He is a member of the Illinois Farm Bureau. Brauer is also the past president of the Illinois Pork Producers and served on the Board of Directors of the National Pork Producers.
Brauer attended Southern Illinois University and Western Illinois University.
Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission
Name: Joann Fratianni-Atsaves
Position: Chairman – Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission
Governor Bruce Rauner has selected Joann Fratianni-Atsaves as the chairman of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission (IWCC). She has 34 years of experience in workers’ compensation law and is currently an arbitrator on the IWCC.
Fratianni-Atsaves has worked for the IWCC for the past 27 years. She began her career as an arbitrator in 1987 and was appointed to be a commissioner from 1990 to 1993. She continued her work as an arbitrator after her term as a commissioner was complete. She currently hears workers’ compensation matters by trial or settlement, and renders written decisions and approves settlement contracts.
Prior to her work for the IWCC, Fratianni-Atsaves worked in private practice at the law offices of Anthony V. Fanone where she handled insurance defense litigation for workers’ compensation matters, often trying cases within the IWCC. She began her legal career at Osterkamp, Jackson & Hollywood.
Fratianni-Atsaves is a graduate of the University of Illinois and earned her law degree at Northern Illinois University.
Name: David Gore
Position: Commissioner – Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission
Governor Bruce Rauner has reappointed David Gore to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission (IWCC). This will be Gore’s fourth term as a commissioner and he has served on the board since 2006. He represents the employee community as a labor commissioner.
Gore has more than 20 years of experience as an attorney, previously serving as a partner at the law firm Gore & Gore. It specialized in workers’ compensation cases. He also worked as an Assistant Attorney General for the Illinois Attorney General and a staff attorney with the Illinois Legislative Reference Bureau.
Gore also has experience working on workers’ compensation matters as a staff representative for the United Steel Workers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC. He handled unfair labor practice charges and represented the union before the National Labor Relations Board.
Gore holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing, a law degree and an M.B.A. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Name: Kevin Lamborn
Position: Commissioner – Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission
Governor Bruce Rauner has reappointed Kevin Lamborn to a third term as a commissioner of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission (IWCC). He has served on the board since 2007 as a Business Member Appointee. In this position, he conducts hearings and issues written decisions on litigation appealed from arbitration.
Prior to his work on the IWCC, Lamborn was an associate attorney at Storino, Ramello & Durkin where he practiced municipal law. He represented local municipalities in civil actions, and also served as an Administrative Hearing officer in property impoundment and code violations.
Lamborn’s legal career also included being a partner at McAauley & Lamborn. In that practice, Lamborn focused on a large range of the law including civil litigation, property transactions, work-related injury, and criminal defense, among others.
Lamborn began his career as an Assistant State’s Attorney in Cook County. He worked his way up from traffic court to the felony trial division. He spent his final two years in the Special Prosecutions Bureau, where he investigated and tried cases involving public officials accused of misconduct.
Lamborn received his law degree from The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. He earned two bachelor’s degrees in political science and criminal justice from Valparaiso University.
Name: Joshua Luskin
Position: Commissioner – Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission
Governor Bruce Rauner has selected Joshua Luskin to serve as a public member commissioner on the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. Luskin is currently an arbitrator on the IWCC and has more than 15 years of law experience.
Prior to his work on the IWCC, Luskin was a partner at the law firm Nyhan, Bambrick, Kinzie & Lowry, where he specialized in workers’ compensation law. Luskin also served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he handled military prosecution and offered legal service to members of the military. He also worked in the Champaign County State’s Attorney’s office, and in the State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor’s office.
Luskin graduated from Macalester College in 1994 with a degree in philosophy. He earned his law degree from the University of Michigan.
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An “ever-burgeoning bureaucracy”
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* John Bambenek and I have become sorta pals over the years. I always appreciate his insights. He’s a former legislative candidate, has his own consulting firm and is a visiting lecturer at UIUC.
When John told me about the huge skim the U of I was taking from tuition and grants, I was appalled and asked him to send me an op-ed. Check it out…
In light of potential higher education budget cuts, I decided to calculate how much of the University of Illinois’ tuition dollars end up in instructors’ pockets.
I teach 125 Computer Science students. Assuming they are all in-state and they are all 3-hour students, they pay about $1,655 to take the class. This adds up to $207,000 paid to the University. It’s actually much higher than that because about half my students are out-of-state and pay double the in-state tuition and I have about a half-dozen 4-hours students.
My salary and the grading staff pay is only about 13% of that $207K. So the vast majority of those tuition dollars goes to things other than actually teaching the class. By way of comparison, when I teach overseas I am paid between 50-60% of the course cost.
Don’t mistake this as a gripe about my pay, I do this because it’s fun and to help deal with a very critical skill shortage in my field.
Some of this is necessary overhead. However, many of the typical overhead costs are paid (or at least subsidized) by student fees like the Academic Facility Maintenance Fund Assessment (for buildings), Transportation Fee, Library and Information Technology Fee and others.
Doing some spot checking of other lecturers on campus I found between 10% and 30% of tuition dollars ended up paying those who actually perform the service people are paying for.
And it’s just as bad on the research side.
The University charges 58% to federal grants for unitemized “overhead charges”. So a large portion of research dollars are spent on things other than direct costs of actually doing the research the institution was paid to do.
The University of Illinois has two missions: teaching and research. The question is why is a majority of the funds in both categories not being spent directly on those missions?
The answer lies in the fact that while the number of students has remained generally flat or grown slightly, the growth in the number of non-teaching administrators has skyrocketed. In the last 25 years, the number of administrators has doubled according to a recent study. Here is a helpful graph to show the problem:
This isn’t to say that support staff are unimportant or that the University needs no administrators. I know in my department I rely on the good work many people do. That said, many faculty members have remarked they don’t feel like the University’s mission is to support those who do teaching and research. They feel that it’s the mission of researchers and teachers to support an ever-burgeoning bureaucracy that delivers nominal benefit to students. With the number above, it’s easy to see why.
The Governor’s budget can easily be spun to say it will cut academic opportunities to college students. Or it can be an opportunity for higher education to focus on its core missions and trim those functions that do little to no good in making it happen.
Discuss.
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* Gov. Bruce Rauner’s new chief of staff ran Rodney Davis’ first congressional campaign. Maybe they’ll finally start to listen to reason on 2.5. From the Republican Congressman’s press conference today…
Rodney telegraphed his message last Wednesday…
Judy Baar Topinka would’ve kicked Rauner’s behind for all of his over the top union bashing. But with her untimely death, no other Republican elected official with ties to organized labor has stepped forward as a voice of reason or as a middle-man.
So, good on Davis. Rauner’s war is not only unwinnable, it’s costing him dearly in the GA.
* Allow me to explain. There’s a reason why Rauner drastically toned down the rhetoric during the general election and said attacking unions wasn’t even on his radar in October. Politics is a game of addition. The race was close. Rauner wanted to win. Why push people away?
Well, every significant legislative roll call is like an election. You need 60 votes in the House and 30 in the Senate to win. So, why needlessly push people away when you know you have to get some big things done?
The governor was smart in the fall about this issue, but not so much since he was inaugurated.
Hopefully, he’ll listen to Rodney.
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Schock hit with off-season DCCC mailer
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the DCCC…
New Mailer Delivers Aaron Schock’s Latest Ethical Lapses And Tax Dollar Abuses Right To Voters Door
Following a flurry of news stories exposing Congressman Schock’s shocking abuse of tax dollars, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee today launched a direct mail piece to show voters exactly what their hard earned tax dollars were going to fund. This mailer is being delivered to thousands of voters in Schock’s district.
According to reports, Schock spent more than $220,000 in tax payer funds to redecorate his swanky Washington DC office in a Downton Abbey theme, to fund his global gallivanting as well as a private plane and a photographer to chronicle his travels.
“Congressman Schock seems to be confused: he was elected to be a member of Congress, not the Earl of Grantham,” said Matt Thornton of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “His lavish lifestyle and blatant abuse of tax dollars is just the latest head scratching failures from Republicans who control Congress.”
This is not Congressman Schock’s first ethical lapse. In 2013, Schock was involved in an ethics complaint surrounding campaign contributions that also ensnared fellow Republican Congressman Rodney Davis.
* Click the pic for a larger image of the mailer…
I just don’t understand what the Democrats think they are gaining by these attacks except causing a little trouble for a guy in a safe district.
…Adding… People, this is a DCCC mailer - the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It has nothing to do with Kirk’s Senate race or whatever. If anything, the DCCC should be happy to see him move on to greener pastures.
Insights are usually appreciated, but put this into context, please.
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Question of the day
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Gov. Bruce Rauner shakes hands with House Speaker Michael Madigan before delivering his budget address…
* The Question: Caption?
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I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but…
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* While some folks are encouraging you to ignore all the specifics of the governor’s proposed budget cuts, the governor’s own wife is taking those proposals quite seriously…
The Ounce of Prevention Fund, an early-childhood nonprofit headed by first lady of Illinois Diana Rauner, issued statements to the media and supporters this week criticizing cuts proposed by the governor that target the state’s Child Care Assistance Program and Early Intervention programs.
A statement to the media reads, “We are opposed to the many proposed cuts in health, social service and education programs that would directly impact vulnerable children and families and their communities. We will oppose any changes to the Child Care Assistance Program that would adversely affect low-income families.” […]
A spokeswoman for the Ounce says Diana Rauner approved the statement and though she didn’t see the Action Alert, “everything in it reflects the position of the Ounce organization, including our president Diana Rauner.”
The governor’s office declined to talk about any discussion he had with his wife about the budget-cutting plans
Discuss.
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Budget addresses have consequences
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Despite various attempts to downplay the significance of the governor’s proposed budget cuts, the reality is that’s it’s February 20th - meaning the only budget plan we have right now is the governor’s. And since that’s the case, the media will naturally gauge the impact of what the governor wants to do.
Seth Richardson at the SJ-R has an interesting story about the governor’s 50 percent cut in municipal revenue sharing…
In his budget speech, Rauner said the reduction would only account for three percent of local municipalities’ budgets. But Illinois Municipal League legislative director Joe McCoy said every community would feel the pain, but smaller communities might fare worse.
“If a community doesn’t have a very vibrant array of other taxes that they can generate revenue from, then (the Local Government Distributive Fund) becomes that much more important,” McCoy said. “So I think it is a community-by-community issue, and there are a lot of communities that rely much more heavily on LGDF, and those would feel the most impact.”
He said some communities with smaller tax bases and no businesses rely on the fund for 15 percent to 20 percent of their budgets.
The likely outcome, according to several mayors, is the reduction of public safety personnel. [Springfield Mayor Mike Houston] said if Rauner’s decrease passes, the city would have to look at laying off personnel, likely in public safety, which takes up 70 percent of the $118 million total budget.
Cutting budgets is like that old saying about bank robbery: You go where the money is. The local money is in public safety. And the same goes for the state. If you’re not cutting P-12, some very big money is in local government.
* Phil Kadner takes a look at the governor’s claim Wednesday that local governments are sitting on a $15 billion cash pile of reserves…
The governor’s office said the $15 billion estimate of local government reserve funds came from the state comptroller’s office, but that office’s figures total about $18 billion.
Municipalities have roughly $6.5 billion in fund balances, counties have $3.4 billion, townships $894 million, park districts $862 million, fire protection districts $540 million, public library districts around $400 million and special purpose districts $944 million, according to the comptroller’s office.
It said Cook County, the city of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department, the Regional Transportation Authority and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District have a combined $4.4 billion in reserve fund balances. […]
[Orland Park Mayor Dan McLaughlin] said Orland Park has about $20 million in reserve on a $50 million annual operating budget “because we’ve been doing what the state should have been doing all these years” — living within a budget. He said the village has a policy of keeping 20 percent of its operating budget in reserve.
* And in Lake County…
“Instead of fixing the state, he’s coming after local governments,” Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik said Wednesday afternoon. “I’m not happy at all. Gurnee has its house in order — we have a AAA bond rating, no local property tax and exceptional services. I don’t know why he’s decided to pick on us.” […]
“I was very hopeful about the new governor. I’m so disappointed,” she said. “He’s ignoring everything at the state level and coming after the local guys.”
* Riopell…
“Municipalities throughout the state have been pickpocketed for years by Springfield, and now Governor Rauner’s proposal to eliminate 50 percent is akin to armed robbery,” Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns said.
Armed robbery? Pretty strong words for Geneva’s mayor.
* In other budget-cutting news, the Tribune looks at the governor’s proposed $400 million cut to higher education…
The new Republican governor’s move follows a pattern of higher education funding reductions embraced by fellow GOP governors such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, a pair of Republicans who like to burnish their bonafides with their political bases. […]
When a variety of restricted funds are added in for categories like research and student housing, [UIUC] operates on an overall $5.6 billion budget.
That’s the figure Rauner’s team prefers to focus upon when looking at public universities as it tries to defuse a bit of the political blowback to the governor’s proposed funding cuts. Through that lens, the cuts are closer to 6 percent of total revenues going to universities.
The Rauner administration also counts general state funds that go into the university pension funds — a number that budget officials estimate is more than $1 billion — along with hundreds of millions more for health care. […]
“They’ve taken hits for a long time,” said Sen. David Luechtefeld, the Republican spokesman on the Senate Higher Education Committee. “I think they’re pretty close to rock bottom.”
* And at NIU…
Northern Illinois University officials are considering reducing staff, restructuring academic programs and pursuing more grants after Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget proposal included a 31 percent cut in NIU’s state funding.
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* Regarding the governor’s proposed Illinois Department of Corrections’ budget increase and sentencing reform…
While increasing staff numbers may be a sensible way to cut back on the cost of overtime, for which employees must be paid 1.5 times their normal salary, it’s not a long-term solution to the systemic problem at hand. IDOC is amidst a budgetary crisis, and will be unable to make payroll by April. To get prison spending under control, the state must incarcerate fewer people. Prison may make sense for violent criminals who pose a threat to public safety. But nearly 70 percent of Illinois’ prison population is serving time for nonviolent offenses. Many would benefit from diversion into drug- and mental-health treatment programs, parole, or other programs that keep families together and allow offenders to continue working instead of costing taxpayers billions each year.
In order to build a fairer and more cost-effective system, the state needs major criminal-justice reforms. The state must strongly consider policies that:
* Reform mandatory minimum sentencing: Repeal laws that set a minimum number of years to serve for an offense, allowing judges to tailor punishments to each crime and individual circumstances.
* Roll back overcriminalization: Reduce laws that criminalize victimless activities and lead to overcrowded prisons, overextended public budgets and police militarization.
* Ease offender re-entry into society: Remove state-imposed barriers, such as occupational-licensing rules, that prevent ex-offenders from finding work and integrating back into society.
If taxpayers want Illinois’ criminal-justice system to prioritize individual rights and fiscal responsibility, lawmakers must reorganize the state’s corrections system to focus on rehabilitation and recovery, not simply punishment and incarceration. Hopefully, Rauner will act with the General Assembly to pass sensible reforms to the state’s justice system.
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Run away! Run away!
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The last thing the Republicans want is a detailed discussion of the proposed cuts in Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget. It’s probably why legislative staff, reporters and others were not thoroughly briefed on the budget plan this week. Cuts are never popular. People generally want the government to cut “waste” and continue doing largely what it has been doing - and everybody’s got a different idea about what waste actually is.
Plus, lots of Republican legislators are beyond nervous about the governor’s proposed cuts. Nerves most definitely need to be calmed.
So…
In a sign that a final state budget plan will look significantly different from what Gov. Bruce Rauner outlined Wednesday, the man expected to deliver Republican votes in the House predicted tough but “delicate” negotiations lie ahead.
In an interview Thursday with the Quad-City Times Springfield Bureau, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, downplayed concerns that Rauner proposed a budget that is not balanced because it relies on $2.2 billion in savings from an overhaul of state employee pensions.
“Everything in that speech is subject to negotiation,” Durkin said […]
Durkin said his goal in the coming weeks will be to find ways to cut state spending within the parameters laid out by Rauner. But he did not commit to following the exact template proposed by the rookie chief executive.
“The governor has indicated he wants to live within a certain revenue number, and how we get there, he’ll be very open to how we do that,” Durkin said. “It’s going to be really delicate, but I think its going to be a very good negotiating year for the caucuses.”
…Adding… The Tribune editorial board has also refused to get into the weeds of the governor’s budget plan, preferring instead to echo Durkin’s comments. So gutsy.
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Rauner’s magic pension beans
Friday, Feb 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller
* As I told subscribers yesterday, neither Sen. Biss nor Rep. Nekritz are buying into the validity of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed pension reform plan. Neither of then can figure out how it could save $2.2 billion in the first year and they can’t fathom how the governor can claim it will immediately knock $25 billion off the state’s unfunded pension liability…
“I’m not quite sure I understand the numbers at all. It seemed a little confusing to me,” said [Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston], a Harvard-educated former mathematics professor at the University of Chicago. “I also don’t know how you can possibly bank the savings before you’ve gone to court.” […]
“This, to me, is a return to fuzzy pension math,” [Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook]. “There’s just no way, looking at the proposal, that you protect every retiree and give every worker [the “vast majority” of whom are already ages 45 to 50] the pensions they have earned and say that you are going to knock 25 percent off of the unfunded liability. If you are going to preserve all of that, the math just doesn’t add up.”
She also said that during negotiations on the pension reform bill, some suggested then the idea of moving workers into a 401(k)-style plan.
“Pretty much all of the experts came back and said that that will blow a bigger hole in the pension systems,” she said.
Discuss.
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