In Illinois, roadwork won’t grind to a halt, prisons won’t run out of food and schools will reopen on time. But the six-month stopgap budget that averts a government shutdown is only digging the state deeper into the hole.
With no agreement between Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and the Democrat-led legislature over how to raise revenue, the state is on track to spend $5.5 billion more than it brings in by the end of June, according to initial estimates from the Civic Federation, a watchdog group. And the appropriations make no dent in the $111 billion debt to the state’s pensions, one of the biggest drags on Illinois, whose credit rating has fallen lower than any U.S. state in over a decade.
“This is a political gimmick to bring to resolution the state of Illinois’s inability to deal with its major issues,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Chicago-based federation, which tracks the state’s finances. “It does not end the fiscal crisis.”
Human services, higher education and government agency operations, which have had little or no funding in FY2016, received appropriations to pay for FY2016 expenses and for the first half of FY2017. Besides education spending, most of the appropriations end by December 31, 2016.
Although the stopgap budget authorizes funding for many struggling areas of State government, it is far from a complete budget. Human services grants and programs receive $667 million, which represents 65% of the total funding needed to complete the FY2016 budget and fund the first half of FY2017, according to legislative reports.
Illinois has been sued for breach of contract by a group of 82 social service providers who are allegedly owed more than $130 million for work that has been performed but not paid for on State contracts dating back to July 1, 2015. Other agencies have provided services without contracts.
No General Funds payments have been made for group health insurance in FY2016 and those appropriations are not included in the FY2017 stopgap budget. As a result, the backlog of unpaid health insurance claims stood at $3.3 billion at the end of May 2016. Without the addition of considerable resources this backlog will grow substantially in FY2017. The Governor’s recommended FY2017 budget estimated the General Funds cost at $1.81 billion, which the Governor hoped to reduce to $1.37 billion through labor negotiations. However, those talks have not yet resulted in an agreement with the State’s largest union. Group health insurance costs must be paid eventually due to State law and existing collective bargaining agreements.
Most of the State’s General Funds spending for FY2017 is not accounted for in the appropriations but will continue to be provided through consent decrees, court orders and existing statutory requirement. This includes Medicaid, employee salaries, State pension contributions and debt service. All of the appropriations in the stopgap budget are in addition to the State’s compelled spending.
To help fund the spending plan without passing a substantial tax increase, the State approved several one-time revenue measures. As proposed in the Governor’s FY2017 budget, the State will forgo repayment of approximately $450 million of interfund borrowing and spend down the entire balance of $276 million in the Budget Stabilization Fund, Illinois’ only rainy day fund.
The State hopes to reduce its debt service by $20 million through a $2 billion refinancing of its outstanding debt. To achieve these savings several provisions of the current General Obligation Bond Act were suspended for FY2017 including the level principal repayment rule and the prohibition on extending the life of principal debt beyond its original maturity. Details on the structure of the refinancing or how the savings are generated were not specified in the refunding bond authorization, which also included $2 billion of bonds for capital purposes.
General Funds resources were increased in FY2017 by approximately $150 million through a new assessment on hospitals that will pay for Medicaid costs that would have otherwise relied on the State’s operating resources.
To fund part of the higher education budget, the State appropriated $97.1 million from Personal Property Replacement Tax (PPRT) proceeds. This fund allocation will reduce the amount that would otherwise be distributed via formula to local governments, which usually totals roughly $1.4 billion annually. With the addition of the PPRT resources higher education spending will receive approximately $1.0 billion in funding compared to $600 million provided at the end of FY2016. This is still significantly less than the $1.9 billion spent on higher education in FY2015 and the $1.7 billion proposed in the Governor’s recommended FY2017 budget. The funding is also available to pay for FY2016 costs.
As previously discussed here, education funding was a major sticking point in the budget negotiations. The enacted budget legislation, Public Act 0524, includes a full-year FY2017 appropriation of $5.1 billion for General State Aid (GSA), the State’s main spending program for elementary and secondary education. That amount is $361.4 million above the $4.7 billion appropriated in FY2016 and $306.1 million higher than the $4.8 billion in the Governor’s recommended FY2017 budget.
The enacted GSA funding is intended to ensure that no school district receives less money in FY2017 than in the previous year. It also includes $250 million for schools with high concentrations of low-income students. The cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools will receive an additional $102.5 million in GSA in FY2017, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.
Another component of the budget package requires the State to pay the normal cost (current service cost) of $215.2 million for Chicago teachers’ pensions in FY2017. However, that amount is not due until June 1, 2017, and the payment will only be made if the Governor and legislature reach agreement on pension reform legislation. In FY2016 the State is scheduled to make total contributions of $3.7 billion to the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), which covers teachers outside of Chicago, while paying $12.1 million for Chicago teachers’ pensions.
The Governor and legislature also agreed on a measure that would allow CPS to levy a special property tax to pay pension costs. That tax, at a rate of 0.383%, would generate about $250 million per year.
George works for the state of Illinois. He has a clerical job. Nothing fancy.
But it pays the bills. […]
On Wednesday, George has trouble showing up to work on time. He arrives almost an hour late. Luckily, his contract with the state says there “should be no general policy of docking for late arrival.” George gets paid for his tardiness.
* This is essentially a retread of a column penned over two years ago by Diana Sroka Rickert of the Illinois Policy Institute…
Say you’re scheduled to work at 8 a.m. Instead, you mosey in around 8:50 a.m.. Would you expect to be paid for those first 50 minutes?
Moreover, would you expect to still have a job if you regularly showed up late?
For most people, the answer to both questions is “no.” But allow me to introduce you to the world of Illinois state government — where not only is such behavior permissible, it’s incentivized.
Most state government workers are covered by a union contract with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Tucked away in this contract is an expensive gift: state employees can be up to one hour late for work before their pay is docked. And while workers may be asked to be more adherent to the schedule, there’s no limit to how many days state workers can show up late and still be paid for the time they’re not there. […]
“They can be up to an hour late with no consequences, but if they work a minute later after check-out time, it’s overtime, and taxpayers are stuck paying for that,” said Vincent Vernuccio, director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan. While flexible schedules can be beneficial for the employer and the employee, that flexibility has to be a two-way street, Vernuccio said.
* I asked an AFSCME spokesman for a comment on the most recent version and he pointed me to their response to the earlier version…
An April 15 opinion column by Diana Sroka Rickert, an employee of the Illinois Policy Institute, wrongly claimed that in “the world of Illinois state government,” showing up late for work is not only “permissible, it’s incentivized.”
The column went on to quote an employee of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, another right-wing group, as saying that Illinois state workers “can be up to an hour late with no consequences.”
This, too, is false.
Rickert repeatedly blamed our union contract for this supposed scandal.
Unfortunately, it seems she never bothered to read that contract.
Here is the relevant passage:
“Employees who are repeatedly late may be disciplined until the problem has been corrected over a reasonable period. However, this shall not limit the employer’s right to dock for unauthorized absence and/or resort to the disciplinary procedure of this agreement.”
Our contract acknowledges that management has the right to discipline for tardiness and provides latitude for agencies or facilities to establish policies in a manner tailored to their needs.
It’s too much to expect the Illinois Policy Institute to be honest.
Its real aim is not informed debate but stirring animosity against government, public services and the workers who provide them.
— Anders Lindall, director of public affairs, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, Chicago
There shall be no general policy of docking for late arrival. Employees who are repeatedly late may be docked until the problem has been corrected over a reasonable period. However, this shall not limit the Employer’s right to dock for unauthorized absence and/or resort to the disciplinary procedure of this Agreement for excessive late arrival and/or unauthorized absence. The threshold between late arrival and unauthorized absence is one hour after the starting time.
Monday, Jul 11, 2016 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
The Independent Map Amendment has received editorial support from news outlets across Illinois:
“A fair redistricting process is the single most important reform that could come to Illinois. Voters will have more choices and better candidates.” -Chicago Tribune; June 17, 2014
“The stakes could not be higher in this fight between entrenched political power brokers who profit from the status quo and reformers who believe changing the way state lawmakers are elected will help jump-start the legislative election process in Illinois.” -Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette; July 7, 2016
“Illinois residents want a chance to change their dysfunctional government, but that won’t happen until the map-drawing process is changed.” -Bloomington Pantagraph and Decatur Herald & Review; June 14, 2016
“If legislative districts are no longer drawn by politicians, they would be more likely to serve the public better through elected officials who are more accountable for their actions, or lack thereof.” -Shaw Media; June 8, 2016
“The single biggest reason so many races now are not even races — just that one lone candidate — is that the politicians draw up district boundaries in cockeyed ways to eliminate competition.” -Chicago Sun-Times; June 1, 2016
* From the Illinois Policy Institute’s radio network…
An Illinois business group wants Gov. Bruce Rauner to veto a bill that would allow workers to use sick leave for family members’ illnesses.
Mark Denzler, vice president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers Association, said the Employee Sick Leave Act would allow the state to tell businesses what to do.
“These decisions are best left in the hands of employers who can make choices for their employees about the best type of way to administer leave programs,” he said.
The bill would impact collective bargaining agreements and violate some provisions of federal law, Denzler added. “So we think that very clearly this violates some provisions of federal law, we think it is going to probably have to be litigated.”
* The IMA sent me a list of bills that fall under this heading…
HB 4036 (Lilly/Hutchinson) amends the Victims’ Economic Security and Safety Act (VESSA) by requiring that small employers with 14 or fewer employees provide at least four weeks of unpaid leave in cases of domestic violence impacting the employee or a member of their household.
HB 6162 (Skoog/Collins) provides an employee may use personal sick leave benefits voluntarily provided by the employer to care for extended family members. This new state mandate creates a one-size-fits-all approach and does not allow employers the opportunity to craft policies that make sense for their individual businesses. The IMA and individual companies have noted that HB 6162 supersedes collective bargaining agreements and could violate the Illinois Constitution that prohibits any law impairing the obligations of private contracts.
SB 2613 (Bertino-Tarrant/Manley) creates the Child Bereavement Leave Act and mandates that employers must provide at least two weeks of unpaid leave to employees who have lost a child. In the unfortunate situation where an employee loses more than one child in a twelve-month period, an employer must provide six weeks of unpaid leave.
* HB 6162 is the bill referenced in the story above and it passed the House with a veto-proof, bipartisan majority of 78-35 and the Senate 38-19 with two Republicans voting for it (Rezin and McCann).
HB 4036 passed the House 73-42 and passed the Senate 40-14.
We need workers’ compensation reform. It is the number one regulation that is pushing manufacturing jobs out of the state, and it is also costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars because workers’ compensation inside government is also very expensive.
* Mark Denzler of the Illinois Manufacturers Association sent this to me a while back about tackling workers’ comp medical costs. He was reacting to a pro-doctor article I sent him which I can no longer find…
It’s a very interesting piece written by medical professionals who may be worried about whether they will buy a new Ferrari or have to settle for the Mercedes or Lexus but it doesn’t reflect the reality of the recent Workers Compensation Research Institute that found:
“Illinois’ ranking did not change materially for major surgery, major and minor radiology, pain management injections, and emergency services, remaining among the highest of the fee schedules states during the same time period.”
Major surgery rates are 339 percent above Medicare rates.
Illinois fee schedule rates for hospital outpatient facility services associates with common knee surgeries were on average 157 percent higher than Medicare rates.
In 2015, the Illinois fee schedule rates for ASC facility services associated with common keen and shoulder surgeries were on average 242 percent and 172 percent higher than Medicare rates for similar knee and shoulder surgeries.
Major and minor radiology rates are 238 percent and 252 percent higher than average.
For example, according to WCRI, an Illinois doctor performing an arthroscopy for a rotator cuff repair will be paid $2,574 under Medicare but that same doctor will receive $7,856. Perhaps, these doctors can explain why they should receive $5,282 more for the same procedure when it’s funded by Workers’ Compensation. Perhaps, its needed to get the luxury package on the new car.
Can they explain why they get paid $14,215 for a simple hand or wrist procedure under the WC system but only receive $6,676 under Medicare. Why is the same identical procedure worth $7,539 more when it’s paid by employers under WC? Maybe this is for the new boat?
There is absolutely NO limit on the number of chiropractor or OT/PT visits under Workers’ Compensation while nearly every private health insurance coverage limits the number of visits. Are they willing to limit the number of visits by a patient unless they can prove that the employee is progressing? If not, then they are simply running up the costs of the system.
In 2011, Illinois did enact a 30 percent across the board cut in the medical fee schedule and our medical costs dropped from 2nd to 3rd highest in the United States. Today, Illinois workers’ compensation costs are 7th highest nationally and NCCI has recommended no further reduction in costs this year.
“What we’ve got to do is what Indiana has already done. The balance of power between taxpayers and special interest groups inside government needs to get balanced,” Gov. Rauner said. “Workers comp costs in Illinois are some of the highest in America. We’re right next door to Indiana which has the lowest workers comp costs in America and manufacturers can compete in Indiana. They can’t compete in Illinois.”
Starting decades ago, as Indiana’s leaders sought out factory jobs to supplant the state’s mostly rural economy, they embraced a low-cost, employer-friendly workers’ compensation system. And it has stuck, as the state’s Senate has largely stayed under control of the GOP.
Workers in Indiana must wait seven days before receiving benefits (as opposed to three in Illinois). While permanently disabled workers in Illinois can receive benefits for life, Indiana caps benefits at 500 weeks, just under 10 years.
To qualify for permanent total disability in Indiana, workers must meet a “pretty high bench.” as Terry Coriden, a former chairman of the Worker’s Compensation Board of Indiana, describes it. “If you can be a greeter at any type of store, then that type of employment could be deemed to be reasonable, which would preclude you from total permanent disability,” he says.
Only 45 workers out of 597,058 who filed claims between 2005 and 2014 received permanent total disability status in Indiana, according to statistics from the Worker’s Compensation Board of Indiana. The rate was twice as high in Illinois, according to data from the National Council on Compensation Insurance provided by Burton. Only 13 percent of the Indiana workers who filed claims over those years qualified even for permanent partial impairment.
And the system simply pays out less.
Consider the case of a steelworker in northwest Indiana who suffered third- and fourth-degree burns over two-thirds of his body after being hit by hot metal and slag from a blast furnace.
In the nine years since, he has undergone 38 surgeries and still has no feeling in parts of his arms and legs.
Before the injury, he was earning as much as $130,000 year because of extensive overtime. Today, he gets $600 a week in workers’ compensation as a totally disabled individual, as well as $2,200 monthly in Social Security Disability income. In order to stay afloat, he has dipped heavily into his savings and his wife has picked up low-wage part-time jobs. […]
Asked for evidence that workers’ compensation costs may be driving firms out of state, officials from the Illinois Governor’s office cited their contacts with employers and site selectors and suggested contacting business groups for more information.
But when In These Times posed that question to the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, which has been outspoken about the need to drive down workers’ compensation costs in order to remain competitive, Jay Shattuck, a contract lobbyist for the group, said he was not aware of any studies specifying that workers’ compensation alone made Illinois noncompetitive. (He also notes that the Chamber, while supporting most of Rauner’s plan, doesn’t see Indiana’s low payout system as the ideal.)
* The Cook Political Report has compiled a list of where Republican congresscritters stand on Donald Trump. I’ve added Illinois names in brackets after each category…
1 True Believers (14) - endorsed Trump by name before the Indiana primary [N/A]
2 Eager Unifiers (66) - endorsed Trump by name after the Indiana primary [Shimkus]
3 Reluctant Endorsers (59) - has endorsed Trump by name, with reservations [Bost, LaHood]
4 Non-Namers (48) - has stated support for the “nominee,” but not by name [R. Davis]
5 Quiet Observers (27) - hasn’t made a definitive public statement regarding Trump [Roskam]
6 Hesitant Holdouts (20) - publicly undecided on whether to support Trump [Hultgren, Kinzinger]
7 True Skeptics (13) - has stated he/she will not vote for or endorse Trump [Dold]
…Adding… Related…
Bernard Schoenburg: Rep. Davis says Trump meeting went well: “I don’t agree with everything Donald Trump says and the stances he puts out, and I don’t agree with everything Mark Kirk says and the stances that he puts out. But they’re both the Republican candidates on the ballot, and … I’m going to support them both,” Davis said. In early June, Davis called “racist and unacceptable” Trump’s initial criticism of a federal judge, born in Indiana but of Mexican descent, presiding over a case involving Trump University. But Davis didn’t withdraw support for Trump at the time. And in the interview Friday, when asked about a tweet Trump’s campaign disseminated in early July featuring a picture of HILLARY CLINTON, $100 bills and a six-pointed star many took to be the Jewish Star of David, Davis said, “I don’t think I can comment on his intent” or reaction. “I don’t agree with everything that any candidate at any level of office says 100 percent of the time,” Davis said.
…Adding More… Cheri Bustos’ GOP opponent backs Trump. It’s not yet clear where Bill Foster’s opponent stands.
* The Southern’s editorial board asked Rauner what he would have done differently if he could do it all over again…
The Southern: The past 18 months have been tough on everybody, especially those in human services. What do you think you could have done differently looking back?
Rauner: “The simple fact is that we need to change, and the General Assembly is controlled by a super-majority that doesn’t want to change. They have controlled the system — Speaker Madigan and all the folks who have been loyal to him, and keep him in office and the legislators that do what he tells them to do — they are in the super majority and they’ve never had to compromise. They’ve never had to negotiate and they have never had to change. But they have created a system that is broken. We are losing our jobs. Our taxes are too high. Our family incomes are too low, and we have cronyism and corruption. The system needs to change. We should have had this done in a couple months. This has taken us 18 months. Finally, members of the General Assembly are saying we support reform and we will vote on it after the November election. It took too long, but we are getting there.
The Southern: What about you specifically? Do you think you could have done anything different?
Rauner: That one thing we should somehow figure out how to do is let the people of Illinois know what is really at stake and is really going on.
Your average person in Illinois doesn’t really know what workman’s compensation is, but it is a big deal that we have to change. Your average person doesn’t know much unfunded mandates are coming out of Springfield dictating how much they have to spend of their property taxes.
We have to do a better job. That is reason I meeting with you and other leaders to get the message out about what is really at stake here and what has to change, and make sure the people of Illinois get involved in the process. That will bring about the change.”
Again, it’s better messaging not a better approach to governing.
* A relative of mine saw this ad on TV and told me it looked like a family and a school bus were run over by a tank. Not quite, but it comes awfully close. Press release…
Gary Forby, John Bradley and Brandon Phelps claim to represent Southern Illinois, but they have backed Mike Madigan’s tax-and-spend agenda for more than a decade, supporting higher taxes, reckless spending and a bailout of Chicago Public Schools. Today, the House Republican Organization released a new ad to underscore their years of service to Mike Madigan. The broadcast TV ad will be backed by substantial resources.
* This rumor was raging all day yesterday. No official confirmation yet, but here’s Michael Sneed…
Top tip!
Sneed is told Hillary Clinton just penned in a morning rally in Springfield on Wednesday, before she heads to Chicago for a fundraiser at the North Shore home of Laura Ricketts.
Police sources say they’ve been told to expect the visit. And word was that it’ll be at the Old State Capitol. But, again, nobody has yet confirmed that it’s actually happening.
…Adding… I just got a message from the Clinton campaign confirming the visit. However, “Details are still coming together,” I was told.
…Adding More… From the campaign…
Hillary Clinton will travel to Springfield, Illinois on Wednesday, July 13 for an event to discuss building an America that is stronger together and an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.
Additional details on the event will be released soon.
* Eric Madiar, one of the best pension reform analysts this state has, recently penned an article for the Chicago Kent College of Law. Here’s the summary…
Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” For quite some time, the “ain’t so” in Illinois has been its enormously underfunded pension system and its obligation to pay pension benefits when they become due. Indeed, as a 2009 legislative report explained, underfunding of the pension system occurred because the State’s fiscal system failed to generate sufficient revenue to both maintain public services, such as education, healthcare, and public safety, as well as cover the State’s actuarially required pension contributions. As a result, the pension system was used for decades as a proverbial credit card to fund public services and stave off the need for tax increases or service cuts.
To tackle its mounting unfunded pension liabilities, the General Assembly passed legislation in 2010 that cut the pension benefits provided to future public employees and officials entering service after January 1, 2011. The legislature also enacted a temporary income tax increase in 2011 to help retire unpaid bills and make timely pension contributions. And in 2013, the legislature passed two pension reform bills that unilaterally cut the pension benefits of retirees and current employees. The first bill applied to participants in four of the State’s five pension systems, while the second bill applied to participants in two of the City of Chicago’s four pension systems.
While passing these bills was heralded as a bipartisan political success, it was shortlived. In the last twelve months, the Illinois Supreme Court issued two unanimous decisions invalidating both bills as violative of the Pension Clause of the Illinois Constitution. In both decisions, as explained below, the court held that the Clause bars the legislature from unilaterally reducing the pension benefits of current public employees and retirees. Given this outcome and the State’s wider fiscal challenges, this Article assesses the legal options the Illinois General Assembly may pursue to mitigate the fiscal impact of funding its public pension obligations.
This Article is organized as follows: Part II begins with a primer on the Pension Clause of the Illinois Constitution (Article XIII, Section 5). Part III reviews the Illinois Supreme Court’s May 2015 decision, which found that the 2013 Pension Reform bill—Public Act 980599—violated the Clause. Part IV reviews the court’s March 2016 decision, which similarly found that Chicago’s 2013 Pension Reform Bill—Public Act 980641—violated the Clause. Part V assesses the options that the General Assembly may pursue to mitigate its financial burden of funding the pension system based on the Clause’s background and the two recent court decisions. The Article concludes that the use of ordinary contract principles—as suggested by this author five years ago—provides a means to reduce pension benefits of current employees and thereby mitigate this financial burden. The proposal offered by Senate President John J. Cullerton, in particular, provides one viable means of mitigation, as does forging an agreement with public sector labor unions through the collective bargaining process. Municipal bankruptcy and amending the Pension Clause, however, are not plausible options.
Gov. Bruce Rauner has been touring Illinois to talk about his new “messaging.” He’s quite excited about his “messaging” plans, telling one reporter that if he could do anything differently about his tenure so far it would be to improve the way he gets his message out to voters. Yep. That’s really what he said.
One of the things that the governor was apparently counting on during his downstate tour is few, if any follow-up questions from reporters. For instance, after he completely dodged a question from a Peoria TV reporter about whether he deserves any blame for a year without a budget, the subject was changed and the governor was let off the hook.
Despite this, Rauner actually complained in Champaign last week about how “There’s no substance in the reporting,” before saying he was in the process of creating his own communication platforms to push his messaging directly to Illinoisans.
He’s not wrong about the lack of substance in the media’s coverage. A recent survey of social service providers by the highly respected United Way of Illinois was almost completely ignored by media outlets, despite an eye-grabbing finding that about a million Illinoisans had lost services during the impasse.
And the governor’s contention that he himself had cut $800 million in “wasteful spending” from the budget made it into print and on the air without a single question being asked about what those cuts were.
As it turns out, there are multiple problems with the governor’s list of cuts, which I asked to see (you can read the list below). Some of the saved money is due to action by his predecessor, a chunk of the cash is from special state funds with their own dedicated revenue sources, a bunch of the spending was put into the six-month stopgap budget that Rauner signed into law on June 30th and Rauner himself requested some of the “cut” items be appropriated in his own budget proposal last spring.
Let’s start at the very top of the governor’s list: “Medicaid Eligibility Redeterminations,” which he claims saved $53 million. OK, but that was initiated in 2012 with Medicaid reforms signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn. Rauner’s budget office says Quinn may have signed it, but he fully implemented it.
Rauner’s touted savings from cutting $21 million subsidies for disabled mass transit users is illusory because that money comes from the state’s Road Fund, which is funded with motor fuel taxes, license fees, etc. The same goes for his $4 million cut to Amtrak.
Several other programs on the governor’s list also get their money from Other State Funds (OSF), including tourism ($13 million claimed cut), recycling ($6 million), renewable and energy efficiency programs ($8 million), ICC vacancies and transfers ($6 million) and coal programs ($15 million).
The governor’s budget office claims that saving OSF money can help patch holes in the rest of the budget. But these funds (like the Road Fund, which was swept last year for a fortune) are set up and funded for particular purposes.
The governor claims in his list that he cut “Assorted DHS Programs not covered by Court Orders or Consent Decrees” for a total of $91 million. But several of those programs are funded in the stopgap budget that the governor signed into law on June 30th, including The Autism Program, ARC of Illinois, Teen Reach, homeless prevention, addiction prevention, the Emergency Food Program, funeral and burial expenses, immigrant integration services, welcoming centers, epilepsy services, etc.
Rauner also claims reductions to Criminal Justice Information Authority programs including CeaseFire, but that’s in the stopgap as well.
And despite claiming credit for making cuts, the governor actually requested spending for the programs in his own budget proposal from earlier this year, including paratransit and Amtrak. His budget also increased funding for tourism programs.
The governor also claimed $100 million in savings for not constructing the Illiana Expressway, which was in doubt anyway. And his touted $145 million cut to child care programs was reversed when Rauner cut a deal with the Democrats.
And then there’s the claimed savings of $4 million due to a delay in the opening of a veterans home in Chicago. But that delay actually ended up increasing the cost of the project and no money was appropriated by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly last fiscal year anyway, so it’s not really a Rauner savings.
Also, is a veterans home really “wasteful” spending? I doubt many politicians would make that claim. Much the same could be said of several other programs on the list.
* Brian Brueggemann of the Belleville News Democrat asked Rauner about this very topic…
Q. You’ve boasted that your administration has cut $800 million in “wasteful spending.” Those cuts include Medicaid, child care, State Police vehicles, coal programs and agriculture programs. Do you consider those wasteful?
A. Well, we’ve got even another $700 million that we can cut. We have got to make government balanced and working for the people again, and we’ve been spending beyond what we can afford for decades. It’s just not sustainable. No family in Illinois could keep spending what they don’t have, like Illinois’ government. Government’s got to work for the people. We have cut $800 million out of unnecessary spending.
Two things I’m very proud of: We are now modernizing our IT system. We in Illinois, many of the departments don’t even have computers. We’re living in the stone age. I walked into one department in my first week — second week in office actually. Two-hundred people were in a room with paper applications on their desks, and no computers. I said, this doesn’t look efficient. I found out, we could spend half a million dollars on a computer system —half a million — and save $7 million per year. That’s going on all over the government. We are saving hundreds of millions of dollars by modernizing our IT. We’ve either got to move away from paper, or, in some departments we have computers but we’re running software from 1974. I mean, that was a great year, that’s when I got out of high school, but software changed a lot in the last 40-50 years. We can have productivity changes by modernizing.
And the other thing I’m very proud of…we have put in new labor contracts with 18 of the unions that work in state government. That’s transformative. We have the highest-paid state employes in America, which, you know, we can debate. I’m proud, we’ve got great workers, and I want them to be well-paid, but they want $3 billion more than what they’re receiving now, based on seniority. We said no, that’s not affordable, that’s not fair to our taxpayers. But we said we’ll pay bonuses, we will pay you more. We’ll leave salaries flat, but we’ll pay bonuses, but let’s do it based on productivity. Let’s have a bonus based on a percentage of what you save taxpayers. Save a taxpayer a dollar, we’ll give you 10 cents of that dollar. And you know what? A lot of employees have said, ‘Yeah, I know how to save money.’ That’s a win-win for the employees and the taxpayers. Eighteen unions have signed up for that deal. That’s transformative for Illinois, it’s saving us a lot of money. The bad news is, the largest union, so far, the leaders have said no to that. Their members, I think, they would ratify that new proposal if it could get to a vote. The leaders so far have said no. But we’ve got to stay strong. That’s going to help transform state government and save taxpayers a lot of money.
So, now it’s “unnecessary” spending. Some, I think, would disagree.
Sen. Mark Kirk’s campaign released an ad attacking challenger Rep. Tammy Duckworth’s lawsuit settlement. The ad charges that Duckworth ‘humiliated and bullied’ employees and spent $26,000 of taxpayers’ money to fight the suit.
A preliminary review of federal television station records show what appears to be a limited buy for the ad, with only $35,000 being spent alone on Chicago stations ABC-7 and NBC-5.
Unless they up the buy, this is essentially a press release ad.
Those numbers are just through this Tuesday and the ad was just trafficked so it isn’t showing up on all the stations. It will have sufficient points behind it to drive the message.
Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, widely considered to be the most vulnerable Republican senator up for re-election this year, raised only $1 million in the second quarter of 2016, his campaign announced, a modest sum for a highly competitive race.
Rep. Tammy Duckworth, Mr. Kirk’s Democratic opponent, raised $2.7 million. She ended the second quarter with $5.5 million cash on hand, compared with Mr. Kirk’s $3.1 million.
Though the race is considered a toss-up by the Cook Political Report, Mr. Kirk has all but lost the financial backing of national Republicans, with groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and One Nation sitting the race out entirely.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Press release…
In response to Mark Kirk’s desperate new attack ad — which is in reality a $35,000 press release that won’t be widely seen by Illinois voters — Duckworth deputy campaign manager Matt McGrath issued the following statement:
“Tammy Duckworth served 23 years in the National Guard and nearly lost her life in service of her country, and she has made fighting for Veterans her life’s work, with tangible results. Mark Kirk, on the other hand, lies with such ease and frequency, both about his own military record and his political opponents, it’s hard to keep up. Here he is once again overhyping a civil case that a federal judge called a ‘garden variety workplace case’ before dismissing it, and which was eventually settled at ‘nuisance value,’ saving taxpayer dollars.
“This dishonest attack is also plainly an attempt to distract from his abysmal fundraising, which he released Friday night, and which indicates that even though Kirk always does the bidding of Wall Street and the corporate special interests that have funded his campaigns for 16 years, the gravy train is running dry.” — Matt McGrath, campaign spokesman
