Q. Will State employees be paid if there is no budget?
A. State employees are expected to be paid in full and on time. As long as the employee continues to work as directed, they will continue to earn a paycheck. However, depending on court rulings, there could be a delay in payment.
So, they’re gonna “direct” people to work without money for… who knows how long if Lisa Madigan wins her expected lawsuit?
They wouldn’t be paid if they were sent home, but that’s asking an awful lot of folks, particularly those who have child care responsibilities, commuting expenses, etc.
Police in Chicago have “no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color” and have alienated blacks and Hispanics for decades by using excessive force and honoring a code of silence, a task force declared Wednesday in a report that seeks sweeping changes to the nation’s third-largest police force.
The panel, established by Mayor Rahm Emanuel late last year in response to an outcry over police shootings, found that the department does little to weed out problem officers and routine encounters unnecessarily turn deadly.
The group concluded that minorities’ lack of trust and fear are justified, citing data that show 74 percent of the hundreds of people shot by officers in recent years were African-Americans, even though blacks account for 33 percent of the city’s population.
The task force pointed to a painful history spanning generations, including the 1969 killing of Black Panther Fred Hampton, allegations of torture from the 1970s to the 1990s under former commander Jon Burge and stop-and-frisk in the 2000s.
A draft of the report’s executive summary obtained by the Tribune on Tuesday slams the department and its chief oversight body, blames its collective bargaining agreements for supporting a police “code of silence” and calls on the superintendent to publicly acknowledge the department’s “history of racial disparity and discrimination.”
• Create a Community Safety Oversight Board, allowing the community to have a powerful platform and role in the police oversight system.
• Implement a citywide Reconciliation Process beginning with the Superintendent publicly acknowledging CPD’s history of racial disparity and discrimination, and making a public commitment to cultural change.
• Replace CAPS with localized Community Empowerment and Engagement Districts (CEED) for each of the city’s 22 police districts, and support them accordingly. Under CEED, district Commanders and other leadership would work with local stakeholders to develop tailored community policing strategies and partnerships.
• Renew commitment to beat-based policing and expand community patrols so that officers learn about and get to know the communities they serve, and community members take an active role in partnering with the police.
• Reinvigorate community policing as a core philosophy and approach that informs actions throughout the department.
• Evaluate and improve the training officers receive with respect to youth so that they are prepared to engage in ways that are age-appropriate, trauma-informed and based in a restorative justice model.
• Require CPD and the police oversight system to be more transparent and release to the public incident-level information on arrests, traffic and investigatory stops, officer weapon use and disciplinary cases.
• Host citywide summits jointly sponsored by the Mayor and the President of the Cook County Board to develop and implement comprehensive criminal justice reform.
• Encourage the Mayor and President of the Cook County Board to work together to develop and implement programs that address socioeconomic justice and equality, housing segregation, systemic racism, poverty, education, health and safety.
• Adoption of a citywide protocol allowing arrestees to make phone calls to an attorney and/or family member(s) within one hour of arrest.
• Implementation of citywide “Know Your Rights” training for youth.
[Comptroller Leslie Munger], who was appointed by Rauner to fill the term of Judy Baar Topinka who died shortly after being re-elected, said the lack of a budget is affecting universities, community colleges and students waiting for MAP grants.
“Things are stretched at the seams, and seams are splitting in places,” Munger said. “And yet our legislature doesn’t seem to have any urgency to get this solved.”
Munger criticized the legislature for working on bills that weren’t budget-related.
“Life would be much better if we had a budget in place and running the state like a normal, responsible group would be running things,” Munger said.
Not all legislators are budget experts, and there is other business to do. But it certainly made me cringe today when I saw legislation move which designates the pirogue as the state artifact. Until I Googled it, I thought they were trying to stretch the meaning of the word “artifact” to include Polish dumplings.
* Munger was in the Metro East to personally apologize “to those who are served by the Lessie Bates Neighborhood House in East St. Louis, which plans to lay off 117 employees.”
As the state’s bill-payer, she’s supremely and understandably frustrated about the lack of a budget. I’ve gotten to know her over the past year or so (we had a chat last night, in fact), and I have found her to be a decent person with a deep and abiding worry about the imperiled future of our social service network.
* But it takes two to tango. So if Comptroller Munger is demanding that the General Assembly dump the non-budget stuff, then she should publicly call on Gov. Rauner to do the same. And no disrespect intended, but her late predecessor would’ve certainly done that months ago.
I mean, really. Can you imagine what JBT would’ve done about this situation? I don’t think the history of any American state has ever been so hugely altered by the death of a comptroller. I miss that woman every single day.
Nobody could ever fill Judy Baar Topinka’s shoes, and I do not now nor have I ever expected Munger to do that. But our comptroller should keep in mind that Illinois voters from both parties reelected Topinka for who she was. Comptroller Munger has a duty to uphold that legacy while she’s serving out Judy’s term.
* From the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition…
IBIC applauds Governor Bruce Rauner, Speaker Michael Madigan, bill sponsor Representative Lisa Hernandez, deputy House Minority Leader Patricia Bellock, committee chair Representative Greg Harris, and the strong bipartisanship support demonstrated by the Illinois House committee today to support Covering All Kids HB 5736. In a 15 to 2 vote: with 11 Democrats and 4 Republicans voted in support, Illinois legislators upheld a bipartisan commitment made 11 years ago to treat all children equally and that all kids should have access to health coverage regardless of their immigration status. HB 5736 will next be voted by the full House of Representatives.
“Covering All Kids works” said WILLIAM KUNKLER III, Co-Chairman of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition, “Not only is this program good for Illinois and our economy - it is politically smart for Illinois Republicans.”
“Illinois has the second highest health coverage rates for Latino children in the nation - 95.5% because of All Kids,” said RAUL RAYMUNDO, CEO of the Resurrection Project, “Today, Democrats and Republicans reaffirmed their commitment to health care as basic human right, an essential safeguard of human dignity.”
“I give my full-throated support to HB 5736 Covering All Kids. As House Minority leader, I worked closely with Democrats to pass Covering All Kids with unanimous bipartisan support 107 to nothing,” said TOM CROSS, Illinois House minority leader (2002-2013), “The bi-partisan commitment in Illinois, guided by a clear moral imperative, to ensure that every child in the state has access to a healthy life is something Republicans and Democrats should absolutely take pride in, and continue to uphold.”
The Covering All Kids Health Insurance Act covers an estimated 41,000 children from working poor families regardless of their immigration status. The program is the result of a bi-partisan policy decision made in Illinois a decade ago and renewed consistently by Democrat and Republican Governors since then, that in Illinois all children are treated equally and have access to health coverage. The Covering All Kids Act ensures that every child has a relationship with a doctor, receives preventive care, early diagnosis and treatment, and the best health outcomes. Under current law, The Covering All Kids Act sunsets July 1, 2016. HB5736 extends the program to October 1, 2019.
COVERING ALL KIDS WORKS
· Covering All Kids has resulted in Illinois having the second highest rate of health coverage for Latino children in the nation – 95.5%
· Covering All Kids has resulted in Illinois having one of the highest rates of health coverage for ALL children in the nation - 96.7%
· Covering All Kids generates an enhanced Federal match: the program draws down over $40 million annual federal match that reduces the already modest state cost
· In 2006, Covering All Kids was passed with a unanimous bi-partisan vote of 107 to nothing in the IL House, and has since enjoyed the support of both Democratic and Republican Governors
· Substantial federal matching funds will be lost or at risk, and children from working poor families, including immigrant children, will lose health coverage on July 1, if Illinois does not continue “Covering All Kids”
Puerto Rico, Atlantic City and Chicago school district bondholders have reason to fear a fight in court if the ailing governments collapse financially: recent cases show that when municipalities go broke, investors lose when pitted against municipal retirees.
The latest example is San Bernardino, California, which saddled bondholders with a 60 percent loss while keeping retirement benefits intact under a settlement last month aimed at ending its nearly four years in bankruptcy. That’s in line with the outcome of the local-government bankruptcies filed since the onset of the Great Recession, all but one of which sheltered pensioners from the deeper cuts extracted from investors who bought their debt.
“The more cases that come to light like this in favor of pensioners, the odds of breaking those precedents become lower and lower,” said Howard Cure, director of municipal research in New York at Evercore Wealth Management, which oversees $6.2 billion of assets. […]
“Pensions are faring far better than other creditors under Chapter 9,” analysts led by Peter Hayes, BlackRock’s head of municipal bonds, wrote in an note Monday. “This reinforces the view that bondholders need to be extremely cautious dealing with distressed municipalities.” […]
In every recent bankruptcy nationwide except for Central Falls, Rhode Island, pensioners have fared better than bondholders, according to Moody’s. In Detroit’s, the biggest, pensioners recovered about 82 percent of what they were owed, compared with 25 percent for bondholders, according to the rating company.
The dream of using bk as a tool to get out of paying pensions probably won’t work, although it could reduce pension costs. And it could still be used to bust up union contracts (which may be the real point here), although AFSCME is still alive in the Motor City.
Gov. Bruce Rauner has all but sealed the fate of legislation pushed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel that would put off nearly $220 million in payments to the city’s police and fire pension funds, saying “there’s no way” he’d sign the bill without action on his pro-business, union weakening agenda.
[Senate President John Cullerton] said the [leaders] meeting needed to focus on the budget, not Rauner’s “turnaround agenda.”
“We’ve been focusing on the budget; the governor’s been focusing on these other items,” Cullerton said. “So I’m looking forward today to start talking about solutions to the budget problem.”
Speaking to the same gathering a short time later, Rauner balked at the idea that his policy agenda is unrelated to the budget.
“This is not ‘other stuff,’” said the governor, who wasn’t in the room for Cullerton’s remarks. “Growth is the budget.” […]
Democrats “just don’t get it, or they refuse to acknowledge it,” he said.
The governor’s absolutely right about growth and the budget. We’d be a whole lot better off right now if we had a better economy here. Cullerton too often focuses on the bright side to avoid the painful reality that people are leaving Illinois partly because they want a better life for their families. There’s just not enough opportunity here. And while the state can’t solve all those problems, it can at least address some of them. But so far… bupkis.
On the other hand, the lack of a government budget is obviously harming the economy and the quality of peoples’ lives. Thousands of good people (some of the best, in my opinion) have been laid off by social service providers since this impasse began. Tens of thousands of working poor people were forced last year to scramble to find child care, and thousands still aren’t eligible. How is that helping? And tens of thousands more could be kicked to the curb if universities start to shut down.
Rauner needs to get tough and stop all funding that taxes don’t cover. He needs to put ads on TV that call Democrats TERRORISTS!
By the Zorn standard Michael Madigan would get an A after 44 years of failure.
This article has exposed you for what you truly are - a Madigan hack. I can only hope that you are financially compensated for your defense of the worst politician since Boss Tweed. It’s Chicago, so why wouldn’t expect your cut. I hope that the Chicago Tribune reconsiders your employment as the editorial board has justly called out King Madigan for what he is which is the king of corruption and special interests. How could you compare 18 months of a Rauner governorship with the 45 years of corruption, side deals, slime and destruction caused by Madigan and the machine? You are a complete and utter moron. Please do state of Illinois a favor and go away.
I use to think Zorn was an idiot, now I know he’s an idiot. How can a boy write for a major newspaper and be totally ignorant. Zorn is simply Madigan’s boy. Absolutely disgraceful. When is the reorganization of the Trib staff going to take place.
Zorn, why don’t you rate the Democrats who have bankrupted Illinois, Cook County, and Chicago? Rauner is the best thing that happened to Illinois since Edgar. But it’s likely too late to save a State that is on life support with Madigan ready to pull the plug by his dictatorial behavior.
And Zorn gets and epic F as a columnist. To put blame for this mess on Rauner and mention Madigan only once, in passing, is ignoring the real problem in the name of party alliance.
Most of the opinion pieces In the Trib around the Illinois budget situation are fairly accurate and balanced. This one reads like an op-ed written by Cullerton or Madigan. My favorite part is where he says Rauner “insinuates” that our legislative leaders are crooked. I believe that any objective observer knows this to be true. I typically enjoy Eric’s writing, but he’s way off base here. And my politics are liberal.
The Trib should fire Zorn and just run Mike Madigan’s press releases in the place of his abysmal column. At least they would be better written and perhaps even entertaining.
Zorn is Madigan’s puppet!
Zorn is a dufus. Madigan is the ongoing problem.
WHAT GRADE TO YOU GIVE TO KING MADIGAN?
Once again Eric fails to tell the truth. This is 100% Mike Madigan. He us a piece of garbage set about to ruin Illinois.
An EPIC F- to worthless Madigan boot licker Eric Zorn.
Eric Zorn - protecting the Madigan organized crime family.
I didn’t know the Tribune was going to start writing sponsored content. I wonder how much Madigan had to fork over for this hit piece.
WHERE: Illinois State Capitol
1st Floor, South Hall
301 S. 2nd Street
Springfield, IL 62707
WHEN: Thursday, April 14
Lunches available anytime between 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Illinois retailers launched a statewide campaign aimed at shining the spotlight on how little profit margin exists – just two cents – on every dollar spent in an Illinois retail establishment. The retailers Two Cents movement will highlight an industry increasingly burdened with a litany of cost mandates at federal, state, and local level resulting in scaling back employee hours, laying off employees and impacting overall growth. The harsh reality of today’s retail sector is that for every $1 spent in an Illinois retail establishment, only about two cents results in profit, holding true from grocery stores and gas stations, to pharmacies and hardware stores.
Fifteen months after the wealthy Republican private equity investor was sworn in to his first elected office, the state he was elected to lead is in worse shape by nearly every measure than the state he inherited from his Democratic predecessor.
The backlog of unpaid bills is higher, as is the unemployment rate and the largest-in-the-nation unfunded public pension liability. We were one of just six states that showed a net loss in private sector jobs last year. Accordingly, our credit rating has continued to fall, meaning it will cost us even more than anticipated to dig out of a financial hole that’s growing at an estimated rate of $33 million every day.
Illinois still doesn’t have — and at this rate probably never will have — a budget for the fiscal year that began last July, which has put many human service providers and public colleges and universities into a financial crisis.
Now, yes, it’s quite true that Rauner didn’t create the underlying economic problems facing Illinois — those came about due to decades of irresponsible governance, some of it bipartisan, much of it Democratic.
This spring, with prospects for an end to the stalemate dim, education spending is in the cross hairs as Rauner and Democrats fight over the future of school funding. The governor has called on Democrats to send him a bill that would spend an extra $55 million and ensure the next school year isn’t disrupted should the stalemate drag on. Democrats say the governor’s plan only throws more money at an inequitable system that props up wealthy districts to the detriment of poorer ones and suggest now is the time to overhaul the entire school aid funding formula. […]
“They’re trying to create a crisis so our public schools don’t open, to force a tax hike,” Rauner said. “Believe me, it’s hand-to-hand combat every day. It’s really hard to run a government without a budget. Really hard.” […]
Rauner’s approach took the form of the carrot, as he dangled out a list detailing how dollars would be doled out to school districts across the state under his plan to beef up K-12 spending by $55 million this year. It’s a time-tested tactic aimed at building support within districts that would benefit from the plan, designed to put pressure on suburban Democrats whose schools stand to take home more dollars.
Madigan employed the stick, introducing a constitutional amendment to make public education in Illinois a “fundamental right,” creating the potential for the state to be sued if it doesn’t come up with the majority of money to finance public schools. It’s a signal that Democrats aren’t backing down from their larger plan to rewrite the state’s school aid formula following years of complaints that districts with a lesser ability to raise money from property taxes are falling farther behind property tax-rich districts.
I have my doubts that Madigan is gonna be on board with Sen. Manar’s plan because of his suburban Democratic targets mentioned above. So I’m not so sure that last part is actually being signaled here.
To me, Madigan’s plan looks more like Madigan’s response to Manar than anything else. And as some folks mentioned in comments yesterday, this state has belatedly discovered via pension reform that mandating spending in the Constitution can have extremely expensive consequences. So, I’d probably take Manar’s plan over Madigan’s if forced to choose between just those two. And I think the current funding formula is just crazily flawed.
* From Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery…
“For the first time in several years, the General Assembly is having a meaningful conversation about school funding, but Governor Rauner’s proposal only distracts from that serious debate. Let’s be clear: the Governor has not put forth a real education funding reform plan. He merely suggested putting slightly more money into the same broken formula without addressing the core need for fairness or adequacy. His proposal further demonstrates the flaws of the current system where students in dire need would face more cuts if nothing changes.
“We’d be foolish to think this is a silver bullet, especially coming from a Governor who is presiding over an epic collapse of social services and higher education because he refuses to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share. The same schools Rauner claims he wants to help are the center of the communities he is hurting. With limited resources, teachers and school staff are doing their best to educate students whose families are losing the support they need today and the college educations they want tomorrow.”
The key phrase for me here is “putting slightly more money into the same broken formula.” Yep.
* Check out the top ten losers in the governor’s plan…
Prior to the vote [on the Democratic appropriations bill], Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin tried to offer an olive branch, telling legislators he was done with the “heated rhetoric” that is elongating the budget impasse.
“My guess is that what’s going to happen is that the vote will go down party lines. That is not what the public wants anymore. They want us to find solutions in a collaborative manner. I am going to do that. I will stop the rhetoric. I hope that you can as well,” Durkin said. “I think we can slow down with these gotcha votes we’ve been seeing for many, many months so we can get down to the business at hand.”
Just hours after a private meeting with the governor, House Speaker Michael Madigan widened the gap between them Tuesday afternoon, telling legislators the state budget mess is “completely avoidable” and the result of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner pursuing “a personal agenda.”
The Southwest Side Democrat’s relatively rare extended remarks on the floor came just before the Illinois House voted to pass a $3.89 billion appropriations bill to fund state universities and social service agencies. And it also came just two hours after Madigan wrapped up a meeting with Rauner and the other three top legislative leaders about the budget impasse that’s reached its tenth month.
“Never before has the state gone this long without a budget. Every other governor that I have worked with has negotiated with the General Assembly in good faith to help the people of Illinois and to ensure the people of our state did not needlessly suffer,” Madigan said. “The fact is the current budget crisis was completely avoidable. While this crisis was avoidable, Gov. Rauner has refused to put an end to the crisis.”
Madigan called Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda “his personal agenda, which is targeted at diminishing the wages and standard of living of the middle class and other struggling families.”
“The governor’s objections to House Democratic budget priorities are based on his insistence the General Assembly first pass his personal agenda, which is targeted at diminishing wages and the standard of living of the middle class and other struggling families,” Madigan said. “Progress will not be made by targeting the wages and standard of living of the middle class.”
Madigan said he’s had differences with all six governors with whom he has served.
“Every other governor I have worked with has negotiated with the General Assembly in good faith,” Madigan said.
“Differences with governors is not something that is new to me. Nor is it something that has prevented me from working with governors of both political parties for the good of the people of Illinois in passing state budgets,” Madigan said. “Over 30 years I have worked with six governors from both political parties. Twice as many Republicans as Democrats… I have had differences with all the governors I have worked with including governors of my own party… Many of you will recall the very strong differences I had with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. However, we found a way to compromise. My record over the years is one of compromise…”
[Madigan contended] it has been the Republican governor’s strategy all along to try to get rid of public unions and seek a state government shutdown.
The Democratic leader quoted from a speech then-candidate Rauner made a couple of years ago in Tazewell County in which he likened the need to act in state government the way President Ronald Reagan did in a 1981 decision to fire thousands of striking air traffic controllers.
“I apologize but we may have to go through a little rough times and we have to do what Ronald Reagan did with the air traffic controllers,” Rauner said at that dinner.
“We sort of have to do a do-over and shut things down for a little while, that’s what we’re going to do,” Rauner said.
Rauner met with Madigan and other legislative leaders Tuesday. But the speaker’s remarks indicate they made no progress on a budget deal.
* Our good friends at BlueRoomStream.com posted video of Madigan’s prepared remarks. They’re even harsher than portrayed in the above stories. Check it out…
…Adding… The full video of Rauner speaking at that Tazewell County Lincoln Day Dinner referenced in Madigan’s speech is here…
“But even if they’ve got a major majority against us, you know what, they can’t stop us. They won’t stop me if I want to spend dramatically less. You need the legislature if you want to spend more. If you want to spend less, they can’t stop me. They can’t stop me.”
* Oscar came to the Statehouse with me yesterday. He couldn’t go inside because he’s not allowed, but he did meet Zed when we were out for a walk on the Capitol Complex grounds…
Gov. Bruce Rauner said Tuesday that Attorney General Lisa Madigan is planning legal action in the next couple of weeks to try and stop state employees from being paid and shut down the government.
“(Democrats) are going to try to use the latest Supreme Court rulings about appropriations trumping contracts to say state employees should not be paid more, even though they’re working,” Rauner said. “And by the way, the legislature makes sure they always get continuing appropriations; the legislature always gets paid. They don’t want the state employees paid.” […]
The attorney general’s office is reviewing the court’s decision, and any further action is still under review, Madigan spokeswoman Annie Thompson said Tuesday.
But Rauner, a Republican, said he knows what Madigan, a Democrat and the daughter of House Speaker Michael Madigan, plans to do.
“The attorney general is going to try and stop pay to the state workers to try to force a crisis and force the shutdown of government to try to force a tax hike,” Rauner said. “That’s going on right now.”
Governor Bruce Rauner predicts Democrats will now move to force a total shutdown of Illinois state government, and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan confirms that.
She may, indeed, ask the Illinois Supreme Court to stop state employee paychecks. […]
State workers are still being paid because a lower court judge Downstate ordered it last year. But the Illinois Supreme Court recently ruled that, without a budget appropriation, the state should not pay even those who have an ironclad contract. The attorney general appears to agree.
“Just the same way it happens at the federal level, when there’s no budget you face a shutdown. That’s what happens - or should happen - in every single state. That has not happened here,” Madigan said. “But for far too many people not having access to the services they need, not having a budget has been a complete disaster.”
