* An unincorporated subdivision needs to hook into Joliet’s sewer system. So, it creates a board which eventually has property tax authority.The last member of the Greenfield Sanitary District Board died about 10 years ago. The last payment made to Joliet by the district was in 2009. Now, Joliet wants the rest of its money, totaling $197,000.
Withers and a couple of neighbors in Greenfield, located in the area of Rowell Avenue and New Lenox Road, have been trying to find out more about the status of the Greenfield Sanitary District.
They know the district existed at one time, because they used to pay bills to it. The Greenfield Sanitary District still appears on their property tax bills, but it does not levy for money.
“We wanted to see who the board members were and how many homes there are,” Withers said. “We haven’t got any answers.”
When Withers picked up the latest copy of the annual Will County Directory, the page that lists sanitary districts in unincorporated areas did not include Greenfield.
Joliet officials said they have had trouble getting information.
Moral of the story: We apparently have so many local units of government in this state that we can’t even keep track of them all.
* The Associated Press takes a look at the dispute over Gov. Rauner’s “off-shoring”…
Amid this summer’s budget impasse, Democratic lawmakers argued that the Republican governor’s administration is squeezing essential state services, particularly by having high-priced consultants’ salaries paid by other agencies. The administration acknowledged that about $3 million in salaries for Rauner’s staff was paid by other agencies and provided lawmakers with lists showing that his Democratic predecessor, Pat Quinn, annually offshored even more — $3.5 million.
Rauner aides, who continue to insist that the office pays less in compensation than Quinn, were not counting key contractual agreements, such as a $250,000 salary for education adviser Beth Purvis paid by the Department of Human Services or a seven-month, $135,000 contract financed by the Department of Revenue for chief financial officer Donna Arduin.
Based on a publicly available online directory of governor’s staff, Rauner is asking other agencies to cover about $4 million — more than Quinn, the AP’s analysis found.
The directory lists about 80 people with contact information. Counting a dozen more staffers provided by the governor’s office and not on the list — such as those staffing the Executive Mansion — annual salaries total $7.8 million. Half of that total comes from at least 18 other agencies, including the Department on Aging, the Illinois State Police, the Capital Development Board and the Department of Natural Resources.
The problem is that the AP is apparently counting people like the director of the budget office as being off-shored, but GOMB has its own staff paid for out of its own approps.
So far, this story is a rabbit hole of little consequence.
…Adding… From an e-mail…
No, Rich, Tim Nuding was not included in the analysis; he and others were removed from the list when the governor’s office reviewed it and discussed with me why they shouldn’t be included. Please correct this supposition on your blog.
ROB MELLON, the Quincy Democrat running against state Sen. DARIN LaHOOD, R-Peoria, for the U.S. House in the Sept. 10 special election in the 18th Congressional District, has pledged not to raise too much money.
Mellon signed an agreement with a nonpartisan organization based in Chicago called RunClean.org to limit fundraising to $150,000. The group claims to be improving the political climate by having campaigns run on “dramatically less money” while letting the candidates who agree to fundraising caps post their issues on the website.
I asked Mellon if it wasn’t merely convenient that a candidate who hasn’t raised much money would pledge to cap his fundraising. LaHood has raised more than $1 million for this race, including more than $111,000 from June 18 through June 30. And he had more than $265,000 on hand as of the end of June. […]
“When I win, I pledge to sign another agreement to limit campaign fundraising for the 2016 election,” Mellon said.
Rauner is thinking long-term: If Illinois doesn’t restore economic growth and rising incomes, legacy costs will continue to strangle this state’s 7,000 governments. Empowering those governments to control their own costs is one way to give them a chance of survival in the form their constituents expect. Tax hikes will drive even more employers and other taxpayers to more competitive states.
* I’m not sure which Democrats they’re talking to, but maybe they’re part of IllinoisGO…
And some Dems wary of Rauner’s effort to permit local right-to-work zones admit privately that the unions may have to relent: Four of the six states bordering Illinois — Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin — now are right-to-work states, poaching businesses from jobs-starved Illinois.
Until now the survival strategy at CPS, City Hall and elsewhere has been to beg help from Springfield, duck cost reforms and keep borrowing by the billions. But the credit markets, which already charge huge interest penalties to indebted governments here, won’t let that go forever.
Not yet, as Crain’s reports today. People keep predicting the return of the bond vigilantes, but that return is nowhere in sight.
At some point — maybe now — Democratic leaders have to decide: Will we keep blocking reforms that would cut government costs? Or will we tell our union allies the truth? We can compromise to rescue failing governments. Or we can let them, and many union jobs, implode.
No doubt that compromise is what we need. But that means real and true compromise, not anti-union legislation.
U of I needs the best top faculty they can get. The regionals need good faculty.
On the other hand, no one needs a $500,000 a year university president, and those presidents’ salaries draw up the next couple of layers of administrators’ salaries.
We pay CFOs and Deans more than we pay the state Auditor General or Comptroller or Treasurer.
For a small one-time finder’s fee I would be happy to talent hunt for those jobs and save the universities a ton.
On p. 19 of its new Credit Outlook released today (attached), Moody’s notes the recent notification by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority of Illinois (rated Baa1/negative outlook) that holders of its expansion project bonds did not made a required $20.8 million monthly transfer to the bonds’ debt service fund is credit negative for the State of Illinois (A3/negative) and symptomatic of the state’s political paralysis and ongoing failure to enact a budget for fiscal 2016, which began July 1.
By starting the fiscal year with no enacted budget due to the political impasse between the state’s governor and legislature, Illinois failed to authorize transfers for the Metropolitan Pier bonds. Our rating on these securities (a notch below the state’s A3-rated general obligation bonds) has always recognized their vulnerability to governmental inaction. The bonds’ legal provisions include a so-called trapping mechanism meant to ensure annual appropriations: if the government fails to act, state sales tax receipts equal to annual debt service are trapped in the Expansion Project Fund. This year’s omission supports our long-held view that the mechanism does not fully offset non-appropriation risk.
The state continues to make required monthly debt-service transfers on its other rated securities, which consist mostly of general obligation bonds. The Metropolitan Pier bonds (with about $2.5 billion outstanding) account for a comparatively small 7% of Illinois’ $34 billion of rated debt. The state also has about $40 million of Civic Center bonds (Baa1 negative) outstanding. These securities are also subject to legislative appropriation. The lack of appropriation for these bonds has not interrupted monthly transfers to date, but, if not addressed by the December 15 payment date, would lead to a default.
Moody’s declaration of “credit positive” or “credit negative” does not connote a rating or outlook change. It is indicative of the impact of a distinct event or development as one of many credit factors affecting the issuer.
Please contact me if you have any questions or wish to speak to anyone at Moody’s. Thanks
David Jacobson
AVP, Communications Strategist - Public Finance Group
Moody’s Investors Service
What I want to know is why the Rauner administration didn’t tell legislative leaders that they needed an approp to make that McPier transfer payment after Rauner vetoed the original legislation.
There are those who believe strongly that one side or the other is “winning” our latest and perhaps greatest Statehouse impasse in Illinois history.
I think it’s too early to judge, and, frankly, I think everyone is going to end up losing here anyway.
As you know, the governor has refused to negotiate a budget until the Democrats accede to his demands to essentially neuter the power of labor unions. The Democrats won’t ever back down from his more radical proposals, including forbidding schoolteachers from negotiating their own salaries.
Many who think Gov. Bruce Rauner is winning point to the fact that about 80 percent of the state general revenue fund’s budget is being spent under court order or signed legislation.
State employee wages and pensions, Medicaid-reliant hospitals in Cook County, part of the state child care program, debt service, transfers to local governments and human service programs tied to federal consent decrees all are being funded. In addition, Rauner signed the K-12 budget, so schools are being paid on time.
In addition, as I write this the House is expected to pass legislation appropriating about $5 billion in federal pass-through money.
So Rauner has managed to avoid wearing the jacket for any devastating consequences of a state shutdown because there hasn’t really been a shutdown.
But there are plenty of crises to come.
For instance, the state’s Monetary Award Program can’t distribute money to 125,000 poor college students without an appropriation. As of Friday afternoon, Western Illinois University was planning to inform its students that they would have to replace that state aid with other sources or out of their own pockets.
Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun-Times has been doing a great job documenting the impact of Rauner’s child care program changes, which are wreaking havoc throughout the state.
There also are serious problems with federal grants matched with state dollars. If there’s no state appropriation by the end of September, the state could lose a whole lot of money in the next federal fiscal year.
And what about nursing homes? The federal Medicaid decree doesn’t cover them, and neither does the “federal only” appropriations bill. But many rely heavily on Medicaid. Are we gonna see old folks kicked to the curb soon?
There’s also over $3 billion in nonfederal human service appropriations that can’t be spent. We definitely will see some all-too-real horror stories very soon.
Then there are all the fiscal problems in Chicago. The city’s media tend to give the mayor a whole lot of credence in disputes with governors, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been cranking up the heat on Rauner lately, so that’s a major pressure point.
Not to mention that former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar publicly chided Rauner the other day for not dropping his more extreme anti-union demands and focusing on the budget. That attack could give cover to pro-union Republican legislators to eventually break with Rauner.
What Rauner’s been doing so far kinda reminds me of those movies where somebody gets chased through a house. One door is breached, so the person being chased runs into another room and locks the door. That door is broken, so he runs into another room and puts a chair in front of the door. Etc. That’s kind of what Rauner has been doing with state dollars. The spending has given him breathing room to last another day.
But Rauner can’t just escape through a window. He runs the government. Eventually, he could very well run out of doors to lock.
Right now, I think voters are giving the new guy the benefit of the doubt. Add those who approve of his job performance to the undecideds in the last statewide poll we’ve seen and you have a 57 percent majority.
That could change quickly, however, when pain starts being felt.
Rather than focus on winning or losing, I really wish the state’s leaders (all of them) would start focusing on solving problems.
You want to bring down local government costs to ease the burden of a property tax freeze? You want to help employers with workers’ comp costs? You want a more equitable and fair way of drawing legislative district maps? OK, then find a way to do these things that both sides can live with.
The governor should stop trying to stick it to the unions and the Democrats absolutely need to help him come up with some alternative ideas.
The departments of Healthcare and Family Services and Human Services will process payments to Medicaid providers as if a budget had been enacted this fiscal year, the departments announced today. The decision comes after the departments reviewed relevant consent decrees and recent court rulings. The effect of today’s decision is to include providers beyond those who serve children. Details will be announced soon.
A University of Illinois official says the outgoing Urbana-Champaign chancellor will receive $400,000 as part of her resignation.
U of I spokesman Tom Hardy says Phyllis Wise’s contract includes a $500,000 retention bonus — $100,000 for each year she stayed. She’s been chancellor for four years.
Wise announced Thursday she’s resigning effective Aug. 12. She cited a range of “external issues” she says have become a distraction.
Wise, 70, is expected to join the faculty after her resignation is effective next week, though, according to her contract, she is first eligible for a one-year sabbatical. Her salary is $549,069 this year, and her new faculty salary is expected to be about $300,000. [Emphasis added.]
There’s also yet another new scandal under Wise’s tenure. Click here.
* I don’t always express love for the Illinois Policy Institute, but their research and hard work on criminal justice reform has been astoundingly good this year…
Illinois law provides few remedies for property-crime victims to recover their losses. Anyone guilty of a property crime, such as theft or destruction of property, may be sent to jail or prison, but this precludes them from working to pay off their debt. And even if victims can cover the cost or time needed for a civil lawsuit, incarcerated defendants rarely have the assets to pay them.
Instead of sending property offenders to prison – a solution that isn’t always the best option for low-level offenders – a better approach is to pursue restorative-justice programs that ensure that property offenders work to pay back their victims.
States such as Texas and Kansas have implemented restorative-justice programs as an alternative method of addressing nonviolent property crimes. For example, “Bridges to Life,” a Texas program, is a 12-week course for offenders currently serving time in prison. Bridges to Life, which has provided services to 3,100 offenders, is a faith-based program that encourages interaction between offenders and victims.
The program requires the willing participation of both the defendant and the victim, as well as either the admission or – more rarely – a finding of guilt by the defendant. If both parties are willing, the process begins with a conference between the two. The victim is given an opportunity to discuss the harm inflicted by the offender. Through this discussion, the victim is able to determine appropriate sanctions, such as compensation for damages, community service or the defendant’s volunteering at the victim’s preferred charity.
Research has shown higher rates of victim satisfaction upon the completion of restorative-justice programs than through trials resulting in incarceration. The restorative-justice process continues only if the defendant clearly acknowledges responsibility for the harm he or she caused and demonstrates remorse.
Mary Beth Jachec lives in a three-bedroom house in Wauconda, a village of 14,000 in Illinois, 45 miles northwest of Chicago. Her semi-detached brick home is unassuming. Her tax bills are not.
The 53-year-old insurance manager gets a real estate tax bill for 20 different local government authorities and a total payout of about $7,000 in 2014. They include the Village of Wauconda, the Wauconda Park District, the Township of Wauconda, the Forest Preserve, the Wauconda Area Public Library District, and the Wauconda Fire Protection District.
Then there is Wauconda Road and Bridge, not to be confused with Road and Bridge, Wauconda Gravel, or with Wauconda Special Road Improvement and Gravel unit – all three of which have imposed separate taxes on her and the village’s other homeowners.
Those three road entities come under the auspices of Wauconda Township. Officials there struggled to explain exactly what they each do, and why three separate taxing bodies are needed. The Wauconda Township Highway Commissioner, Joe Munson, said: “They are all for road maintenance.” So why three? “I don’t know why,” Munson said. “It’s always been that way.” […]
The average homeowner pays taxes to six layers of government, and in Wauconda and many other places a lot more. In Ingleside, 55 miles north of Chicago, Dan Koivisto pays taxes to 18 local bodies. […]
The state is home to nearly 8,500 local government units, with 6,026 empowered to raise taxes, by far the highest number in the U.S. Texas – whose population is more than twice that of Illinois - is second highest with about 5,150 local government units. Florida, with a population 54 percent greater than Illinois, has just 1,650, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Plaintiffs and intervenors in the Ligas Consent Decree accused the State of Illinois late Thursday of flagrantly disregarding the rights of more than 10,000 people with developmental disabilities, and they urged the federal court to order the state to issue Medicaid payments to providers immediately.
Their motion, obtained by McManus Consulting, seeks payments not just for members of the Ligas class but for non-class members as well.
Earlier in the week, attorneys for the state appeared before Judge Joan Lefkow in a case involving Medicaid payments for children and made oral promises to the judge to begin making all Medicaid payments. But the state failed to follow this up with any statement in writing to clarify their intentions, prompting the Ligas lawyers to file their motion.
Residents of CILAs and ICFDDs “are in immediate peril,” according to the motion. “As private providers inevitably reduce or cease their operations, the state will likely have no other option but to place individuals in State Operated Developmental Centers.” The state’s disregard of the court’s orders and federal statutes is “tantamount to placing the Illinois Constitution above federal law, in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.”
The motion was filed by Equip for Equality and the Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU, representing Ligas plaintiffs, and attorney William Choslovsky, representing residents of intermediate care facilities who are intervenors in the case. They requested a hearing next Tuesday before Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman.
Joining in the request was Ligas Court Monitor Ronnie Cohn, who filed an affidavit pointing out that most providers are completely reliant on state funding. “These providers literally live from payment to payment and have no ability to survive even a short termination or reduction of funding,” she said.
PROVIDERS SAY THEY ARE ON THE VERGE OF CLOSING . . .
Affidavits also were submitted by Charlene Bennett of Individual Advocacy Group, Romeoville; Mary Beth Hepp, Helping Hand Center, Countryside; Jessica Rosales, Progressive Housing, Olympia Fields; James A. Keller, Keltech Management Co., Anna; Karen Donovan, Futures Unlimited, Pontiac; Krystal L. Gruenfelder, Parents and Friends of the Specialized Living Center, Swansea; John Huelskamp, Community Link, Breese; and Michael S. Poe, ARC Community Support Systems, Teutopolis.
Rosales said Progressive, which provides residential services to 244 people, has less than 30 days of cash on hand and has maxed out a $750,000 line of credit. They will be forced to close and will default on $12.6 million in revenue bonds. Bennett said IAG has 57 CILAs and “unless some dramatic reimbursement arrangements occur soon,” they will be unable to meet their obligations. Hepp said Helping Hand serves 80 persons in CILAs, including 17 Ligas class members, but will not be able to operate the CILAs with funding for only Ligas class members.
The motion asks for enforcement of both the Ligas decree and an order that Judge Coleman issued June 30, directing the comptroller to make all payments to providers. It says on July 23 the state sent a letter to providers informing them that payments would be made only for Ligas class members, “in complete disregard” of the decree and the order.
The lawyers called the letter seriously misleading. “Through this letter, the state attempts to transform the agreed order into something it’s not–an order which requires the comptroller to make only some payments and which allows the state to pick and choose which payments the comptroller should make.”
“The state’s disruption of funding to service providers impermissibly shifts from the state to the providers the obligation to provide funding to people with developmental disabilities. . . . Funding through the state, though at a rate among the lowest in the nation, is the only means by which providers can pay their employees and pay for housing, food, nursing care, therapy and the other essential needs of the individuals they serve.”
The lawyers said it is a violation of the decree to provide funding only for class members. “As a specific example, Stanley Ligas, one of the named plaintiffs, lives in a four-person CILA (run by IAG) with three roommates he chose, none of whom are class members. With funding only for Mr. Ligas, this CILA home and the supports necessary to maintain Mr. Ligas’ life in the community cannot be sustained.”
* This particular settlement was expected to be the same basic plan that was behind the state employee pay issue. Instead of just paying union members during the budget impasse, because it was too complicated, the judge ordered all state workers be paid.
But, instead of covering everybody at a facility, the state is only providing funding for those folks narrowly impacted by the consent decree. That’s very odd because the object is to keep services flowing to those folks and the groups in question can’t do that with only a fraction of their current costs.
What could happen is that several facilities will have to close. And it’ll be a crazily complicated task to figure out who goes where and who gets dumped into the street.
* I’m pretty darned certain that we’re gonna see more and more public pressure to pass a state law which removes pension benefits from the local collective bargaining processes. A major reason why is that Chicago picks up most of its teachers’ pension payments. The CTU is so far refusing to give any ground on that topic, so something is gonna have to eventually give…
Eliminating the district's practice of picking up the bulk of teacher pension contributions is "strike-worthy," Lewis says.
The problem becomes if the governor leverages the pension bargaining issue to get even more of his collective bargaining “reform” proposals into law. There’s only so much that the Democrats will accept.
Mayor Emanuel essentially dodged the allegation last night on “Chicago Tonight.” But he did have this advice…
“I asked the Speaker and then Gov. Quinn and President Cullerton, that I ran on an effort to make sure our children have the full school day, the full school year, no longer the shortest school day and the shortest school year. We couldn’t make progress, work with me so that we should not have to negotiate that in a contract.
“We worked on it, got it done.”
[Cross talk, including a question about how Gov. Rauner wants a bill that applies statewide.]
“Then work with the legislative leaders on a bill to do that, not try to hold the children of the City of Chicago hostage, not try to hold parents who rely on daycare hostage.”
During a Thursday evening appearance on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight,” Emanuel said Rauner’s “finger-pointing and name-calling” are not the way to get results. And the mayor expressed frustration over Rauner’s tactics.
“Two weeks ago the governor said that with me and John Cullerton, he’d get a deal already, and now I’m a problem this week.”
When asked if Rauner was trying to get Emanuel to turn on Madigan, Emanuel said: “That’s not going to be a successful effort.”
The Chicago Public Schools pension provision in Cullerton’s bill is designed to offset state funding of teacher pensions granted to every school district in Illinois except Chicago. Emanuel said Rauner’s opposition to the bill amounts to holding Chicago students hostage while trying to squeeze concessions on politically unpopular concepts like right-to-work laws.
“Don’t use it as a pawn to get your agenda where people have hard feelings about it,” Emanuel said.
Emanuel said the governor needs to look at what’s in the bill, not what’s missing, and use it as a starting point for his agenda.
“I say to the governor, having worked for two presidents and as mayor, there’s a way to get some of the things you want done,” Emanuel said. “My point is, rather than try to turn one person against the other, John Cullerton has a bill that addresses two years’ worth of property tax freeze. Let’s work on that product. It also addresses my needs, it addresses some of the Republicans in the suburbs’ needs. There’s a real bill there.”
• Enhancing pension benefits. Former GOP Gov. James Thompson agreed in 1989 to establish a compounding, 3 percent cost-of-living increase for retirees. Another round of benefit enhancements followed in the late 1990s. In May, the state Supreme Court ruled that those changes can’t ever be revoked for tens of thousands of current and retired government workers.
• Clearing a bloated state payroll by letting workers retire early. A 2002 plan created under Republican Ryan and pushed by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan cost the pension systems at least four times more than originally billed and won’t be paid off until after 2045, when early-century budgetary ills will be the stuff of history books.
Other factors happened outside policymakers’ control. The collapse of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s and the 2008 stock-market meltdown accounted for a combined $15.9 billion in pension-investment losses, CGFA reported. And an adjustment downward in long-term investment return assumptions in 2011 pushed Illinois’ pension systems $9.8 billion deeper into the red.
But perhaps the most enduring culprit is the “Edgar ramp,” conceived in 1994 by Republican Gov. Jim Edgar as a 50-year program to stabilize the retirement systems.
* Our resident pension expert RNUG e-mailed me today…
Pretty decent overall but they blew it at the end, failing to note the Rauner pension reform proposals are just as unconstitutional as SB-1 was. Still, it’s a decent primer for people who won’t take the time to read Eric Madiar’s report.
Friday, Aug 7, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
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* Former Gov. Jim Edgar told reporters Gov. Bruce Rauner should focus on the budget, not the Turnaround Agenda…
“He comes from a different background than I do. But I just think it’s very important for a governor, you’ve got to have a good budget and you need it in place,” Edgar told reporters. “You can try to compromise on some issues — and I think there are certain things (Democrats in the Legislature) might give him — but some of the things he’s asking for, they’re not going to give him. They’re just not going to give him.” […]
“But I come at it from a little different background. I come at it as someone who came out of state government, and I’m still concerned about the state budget and having a good fiscal foundation,” Edgar said. “(Rauner) comes out of the business world and he’s very worried about some of these economic issues. He’s the governor. I’m not going to argue with him.” […]
“Truthfully the Democrats can walk away a lot easier than he can. They’re not the governor,” he said. “I told him, they’ve proven they walked away before. It’s not like they lay awake at night wondering if everything is working 100 percent. Particularly now that we have a Republican governor, they probably even worry less.” […]
He said he was “worried that in two or three weeks we might be in the same position that we are right now. We need a budget. There are too many things that can fall through the cracks and wheels beginning to fall off and it’s unfortunate.”
Edgar has said the same to me, but he was off the record. This public comment is significant, to say the least.
* ABC 20’s Jordan Abudayyeh sat down with House Speaker Michael Madigan the other day. One of the topics they discussed was Gov. Rauner’s election. Here’s the Speaker’s analysis…
I don’t think that Gov. Rauner won the election, I think that Gov. Quinn lost the election.
And let me just explain this. There was an advisory question on the ballot in November of 2014 concerning the minimum wage. And the thinking was that if somebody came to vote for the advisory question on the minimum wage their political thinking would be such that they would go for Gov. Quinn.
Well, there were 650,000 Illinoisans who found their way to vote for the advisory question on the minimum wage, but could not find their way to vote for Gov. Quinn.
And that’s where I would say that Quinn lost the election, not Rauner winning the election.
Lots of folks have repeatedly made that very same point in comments here.
But just as interesting to me is that Madigan all but admitted to Jordan that he put that advisory question on the ballot to help his governor win an election. It’s an obvious point. Everybody knew it. But I don’t think he’s ever actually come out and said it before.
