— Most talks are being held by special working groups, but the meeting times, locations and topics are secret. Lawmakers involved say Rauner’s staff has demanded they don’t reveal what was discussed.
— Rauner has so far refused to let anyone see copies of legislation outlining his desired reforms, though he has publicly assured reporters the legislation exists, and more information is coming soon. On top of that, his legal staff has rejected freedom of information requests seeking the information.
— Rauner’s staff has consistently taken more than one month to provide copies of his non-public schedule in response to requests from The Associated Press. Those documents, once provided, are redacted — making it impossible to see who’s attending “legislative briefings” and other meetings with the governor, and therefore who may be influencing his policy decisions… Responding to AP requests, Rauner’s office has so far provided only the governor’s schedules for January through March. AP is appealing to the attorney general’s public access counselor because the schedules that have been provided have redacted portions that appear to include the names of people with whom Rauner met or spoke.
“I don’t think I could be more transparent,” he said Thursday. “I’ve laid out everything we’re working on and why. I think we couldn’t be more crystal clear from our point of view. … I believe we’ll be able to come forward with a lot of detail in the not too distant future. “
* I posted on the ScribbleLive feed earlier this week that Madigan had started advancing this legislation. From a press release…
Encouraged by November’s referendum results showing widespread, statewide support, House Speaker Michael J. Madigan said the full House will vote next week on a constitutional amendment to increase state funding for elementary schools and high schools through an income tax surcharge on millionaires.
“I’ve believed for a long time that Illinois schools need and deserve greater resources to help give students the best education possible, and that more needs to be done,” Madigan said. “January’s income tax rollback is putting greater pressure on schools’ finances and the state’s ability to increase funding for schools. Once enacted, this measure would bring needed relief for students and schools.”
Madigan’s proposal provides for an additional 3 percent surcharge on incomes over $1 million. Based on a five-year average of taxable income over $1 million, Madigan’s measure would generate an estimated $1 billion in additional funding each year. The additional revenue would be earmarked exclusively for elementary schools and high schools throughout Illinois and would be distributed on a per-pupil basis.
Millionaires affected by the surcharge would pay the current individual income tax rate of 3.75 percent on income under $1 million and pay 6.75 percent on income over $1 million.
Illinois voters voiced broad support for Madigan’s measure, contained in House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 26, through a referendum in November’s general election. Statewide, nearly 64 percent of all those voting on the surcharge supported it. More than 40 counties supported the referendum with at least 60 percent of the vote, and 100 counties supported the measure with at least 50 percent of the vote.
In light of the budget challenges Illinois faces in the coming years, Madigan said the funding would help schools provide needed programs and avoid teacher layoffs while lessening the need for local property tax increases.
“This measure deserves legislators’ approval. The majority of Illinois voters made a clear statement in November that they support this idea, whether they live in Cook County, DuPage County, Jackson County or Montgomery County. Budget decisions have been very difficult in recent years, and they’re only going to get tougher with the rollback of the tax increase. While the surcharge proposal is not a complete solution to our education funding challenges, opposition to this legislation ensures property taxes at the local level will be increased.”
* Twenty years ago, the General Assembly (then in GOP hands) and Gov. Jim Edgar gave Mayor Daley a gift. Buried deep within a big school reform bill which gave Daley pretty much complete control of the school system was a nice little sweetener that keeps on “giving” to this very day. From a press release…
The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund (CTPF), the Retired Teachers Association of Chicago (RTAC), the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association (CPAA), and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) announced their support for House Bill 3695, a measure which reinstates the pension tax levy diverted from CTPF in 1995. […]
The proposal reestablishes a specific tax levy for contributions to CTPF beginning in Fiscal Year 2016. In 1995, legislation diverted the CTPF tax levy into the CPS operating budget, giving CPS administrators control over pension contributions. CPS then deferred their contributions from 1996 to 2005. As a result, CTPF lost $2 billion in revenue. CPS again deferred contributions from 2010 to 2013 and cost the fund another $1.2 billion. In total, CTPF has foregone more than $3.2 billion in funding.
The bill restores the tax levy, equal to 0.26% of all taxable property within the Chicago Public Schools district, and would generate approximately $160 to $180 million in 2016. The bill does not increase taxes, but reduces the CPS levy from 3.07% to 2.81% to fund pensions. The 0.26% of tax levied each year will be deposited directly with CTPF.
And, yet, $3.2 billion in diversions later, nobody has ever bothered to repeal it. Indeed, it was apparently renewed four years after it first passed - under a Democratic House while Rep. Currie was Majority Leader.
* Earlier this week, I asked if you could help transport some rescued puppies from Missouri to points north. The response was strong. From Teri DeGrado in comments…
I am so excited! I just heard from Judy that she has many emails from folks offering to help. Thank you so much!! For the first time I can remember, we may actually have more drivers than we need.
But have no fear! There will be another transport in two weeks, so let Judy know if you want to be informed of future transports. We are almost always looking for drivers in northern Missouri/southern Illinois and southern Illinois over into Iowa.
If you couldn’t help this weekend, but would like to volunteer for a future caravan, contact Judy Kirkpatrick at: TomandJudy3015@att.net.
* More from Teri…
A little background, these transports run every two weeks (excluding Holiday weekends) to bring shelter dogs and puppies (with the occasional cat) up from high kill shelters in southern Missouri. These shelters still use gas chambers to euthanize dogs. Several rescuers work tirelessly to get those dogs up here where they are vetted and eventually find their forever homes.
…Adding… Oops. I didn’t notice that Michael had the scoop…
Sneed hears Urban League President and CEO Andrea Zopp, whose resume reads like a corporate bible, is all in.
• Translation: Top Sneed sources claim Zopp plans to run against Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and will make the announcement shortly.
On April 1, Sneed reported Zopp was mulling over such a run and encouraged to do so by former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, the brother and son of former Chicago mayors.
“She [Zopp] is now making phone calls, she is not waiting any longer,” a source said. “She feels the time is right now.”
Top Dem leaders, concerned about an absence of African-Americans on the Illinois Dem ticket — besides perennial candidate Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White — were urging Zopp, whose nickname is Andy, to run.
* Oh, and by the way, check out the NRSC’s bizarre new slogan about Duckworth…
Sen. Mark Kirk said Friday that he’d rather take on Urban League President and CEO Andrea Zopp in the general election than U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth.
“Zopp is an easier candidate for me to defeat … Because she’s not as well known,” Kirk said Friday, before participating in a lunchtime event with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs downtown.
“Tammy is a war hero. She has a great story to tell because she’s given a lot to this country . . . ” Kirk said. Duckworth lost both her legs when her helicopter was shot down over Iraq.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Press release…
“Tammy Duckworth is a partisan voice who sides with Washington insiders and powerbrokers, not the independent-minded people of Illinois. The inability to clear her path in the US Senate primary demonstrates a massive failure by her Washington friends. Mark Kirk is the person Illinois needs in the nation’s capital as he works across the aisle to get things done that benefit all of us,” said Nick Klitzing, Executive Director of the Illinois Republican Party.
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The Illinois Department of Transportation released its annual five-year report Thursday, saying the department continues to fall behind on maintaining the state’s roads.
IDOT issued the report as part of an announced $8.4 billion, six-year construction program. The report says funding will likely remain flat for any future projects without some kind of capital bill.
“While this latest multiyear program will have a positive impact on many of our communities, it also underscores the urgency to find a long-term, sustainable solution for our infrastructure needs,” acting Illinois Transportation Secretary Randy Blankenhorn said in a prepared statement.
The report says 83 percent of the state’s highways and 93 percent of its bridges are in “acceptable condition” today. That number will drop to 62 percent for highways and 86 percent for bridges by 2021 at current funding levels. […]
The multiyear program IDOT announced includes $1.85 billion in projects for the fiscal year beginning in July.
In addition to a budget deficit of as much as $6 billion in the coming year, several factors crimp road spending. A $31 billion capital-construction plan which buoyed road work ended last year. The state’s road fund collects money from vehicle registrations — stagnant for the last decade at about $1.3 billion annually — and a motor fuel tax which, with falling gas prices, dropped about $100 million in the past two years from a 2004 high of just under $600 million.
What’s more, to erase a deficit in the current budget left when a temporary income-tax increase was allowed to roll back in January at incoming governor Rauner’s insistence, the [legislature] and Rauner agreed to take more than $350 million from accounts devoted to road-building [Emphasis added]
So, instead of $1.85 billion in spending next fiscal year, IDOT could’ve spent $2.2 billion - almost 20 percent more - if the Road Fund hadn’t been swept - not to mention the other $150 million swept from various state construction accounts.
A report from the state auditor’s office has found more than $321,000 was paid for services to dead people through a program in the Illinois Department of Aging. […]
The audit released Thursday from the Illinois Office of the Auditor General says the funds went for senior citizen services in the department’s Community Care Program last year. It also says another $38,000 was paid for services to incarcerated people.
OK, this is a serious story and somebody could be in big trouble, but check out this last line…
Auditors recommend stricter controls be placed on the program to prevent dead or imprisoned people from receiving services in the future.
Somehow, I’m thinking that the dead and the jailed didn’t actually receive any services.
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desires to have right-to-work in Illinois went down in flames in the House on Thursday, gaining zero yes votes in a fiery debate Democrats aimed squarely at the governor.
The vote tally was 0 yes votes, 72 no votes and 37 voting present, offering a blistering rebuke to Rauner’s anti-union agenda.
Republicans were ordered to vote “Present.” So “zero yes votes” was completely expected. They were also ordered to stay away from the merits of the bill, which is why nobody rose to speak in favor.
Republicans, as they did in a vote on a portion of Rauner’s budget plan last week, once again objected to Democrats staging the symbolic vote, and with all but one member voted “present” on the bills. The “present” votes, in place of “no” votes — allowed Republicans to avoid taking a stand on the politically-sensitive issue.
“This isn’t about right to work,” Republican state Rep. Bill Mitchell, of Forsyth said. “It’s about dividing people and it’s not fair.”
Only GOP state Rep. Raymond Poe of Springfield, the state capital where many unionized government workers live, voted against the plan.
Poe did vote “No,” but a handful of Republicans took a walk yesterday and didn’t vote either way: Anthony, Cabello, Fortner, David Harris, McAuliffe, McSweeney and Bill Mitchell. Those were the cracks in the Rauner armor.
But some Republicans are gonna get some real grief from unions for their “Present” votes yesterday.
Republicans called the ordeal a political stunt. They said Democrats weren’t taking the idea seriously, noting that the language in the bill was not written or reviewed by the Rauner administration.
“People are watching us and they’re demanding results in Springfield that are going to put people back to work,” said House Republican leader Jim Durkin. “This governor was not elected with just Republican votes, he was elected with Democrat votes, independent votes, who told him to come to Springfield and fix the problems that we have.”
The governor has been traveling the state giving speeches almost every day for six months bashing unions, and yet his House leader calls yesterday’s vote a political stunt?
Please.
* Several Republicans also bashed the Democrats yesterday for being “divisive.”
Really?
For months, the governor has cynically attempted to turn the non-unionized have-little’s in this state against the unionized have-some’s while simultaneously catering to the grotesque self-interest of the have-it-all’s.
That’s not infinitely more divisive than a little floor debate?
Rep. Ron Sandack, R-Downers Grove, generated a chorus of boos when he said Democrats were just staging the event to produce videos for their next campaigns.
“The idea you are standing up for the working man is an embarrassment,” Sandack said. “You’re for no one but yourselves.”
District E’s Dan Neal said he supported working on creating equitable pensions and improving workers’ compensation issues, among other things, but he didn’t support the entire resolution.
“(Rauner has) really put this forth to us as: Take it or leave it; it’s all or nothing,” Neal said. “I don’t think we’re subject to that kind of dictation. I think we should look at this as what should be supported.”
Clukey, however, questioned when Rauner demanded that the resolution considered without any revisions, pointing out that other local governments had. Neal said he talked with a governor’s office representative who said county members could add an addendum but not change the language.
Control freaks.
*** UPDATE *** From the governor’s office…
Good morning, Rich!
Moultrie County and Arthur both passed the Turnaround Resolution.
* Buried at the very bottom of this Tribune story is something I told subscribers about on Tuesday…
Rauner is hoping to put forth a united front heading into the final, frenzied days of session. The governor, whose campaign fund held more than $20.5 million to help supportive Republicans and potentially punish obstinate legislators, made the unorthodox move of doling out $400,000 to GOP lawmakers this week, a Rauner aide said.
The donations to the Republican legislators, who are a minority to the overwhelming Democratic majority that controls the House and Senate, included $10,000 to Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno of Lemont.
“We are encouraging the Republicans to stay strong together,” Rauner told reporters Thursday without mentioning his campaign donations to members of the Republican caucuses. “To have more influence in the process we need to stay unified, and that’s a message I’ve been saying that for the entire process and that’s important.”
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said the massive donations seem “a bit contradictory” since Rauner railed during the campaign about what he considered to be corrupt fundraising practices and has sought to ban political donations from some interest groups.
“He is a special interest,” Brown said of the governor. “It confuses the average person who thinks he’s about changing the whole environment, when he’s engaged in the very same activity.”
If some big votes were coming up on any topic and any leader or interest group dumped $400,000 on every legislator of a single party, I highly doubt it would be at the bottom of a story.
New representative Carol Ammons (D-Champaign) insinuated the Republicans had been bought by donations from political action committees including one on behalf of the new governor.
“Whether we will be able to represent the rest of us that don’t make it into the one percent, don’t cash that check,” Ammons said.
* Rep. Lou Lang also whacked the Republicans for the governor’s contributions during yesterday’s “right to work” floor debate. Relevant comments start at the 2:50 mark…
