20 Comments - Pelonski - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:08 am: State workers will continue to be in limbo, but the ability to pay Springfield businesses will be huge. The amount owed by the state to businesses in the area has to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. While they won’t get that all immediately, they should be getting a decent amount once the increased tax revenues start coming in. - Curl of the Burl - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:13 am: You mean that Mayor Langfelder took a break from dumping on food truck owners to comment about something else? Color me shocked. Rauner’s resolve on the labor front will only have hardened. AFSCME’s contract and the Manar education bill will receive his laser focus. - Give Me A Break - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:15 am: And yet this morning, talk on a local morning radio show was members of the Sangamon County GOP burning up the phones lines talking about who would primary Wojcicki. The Sangamon County GOP has for 40 years lived at the public trough putting their members to work in state government. They love to talk about being the part of smaller government and responsibility but when their own GOP rep. votes to preserve state government and pay the bills, the local big brains talk about taking her out for voting for the tax increase. Face it Sangamon County GOP members, you simply love big government but it would appear you don’t like to pay for it. - Hit or Miss - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:21 am: ===I think that helps provides certainty of a pay check or payments in a timely manner=== Is the State of Illinois still behind on paying the City of Springfield for water and electrical service? - Anonymous - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:25 am: Hit or Miss, yes, to the tune of $4.3 million. Look at the post under this one, ‘How we got here’… - Anon - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:31 am: Any type of strike would be the ultimate symbol of tone deafness given the dire financial situation the state finds itself in. “Quit while you’re ahead” is an idea that AFSCME should get used to. - hello?? - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:34 am: i think rauner will now settle with afsmce and say it’s not my fault just like the budget was pushed thru after i veto it and i cannot move these people to go with my plan now so re-elect me and we’ll try again then to dismantled the union. just me opinion. - Real - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:37 am: The AFSCME issue is tied up in court and with this tax hike Rauner loses many arguments. The court already stated that AFSCME is likely to prevail in court so that decreases the liklihood for a strike. - Arsenal - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:52 am: ==And yet this morning, talk on a local morning radio show was members of the Sangamon County GOP burning up the phones lines talking about who would primary Wojcicki.== They never liked her, they just put up with her ’cause she was the Governor’s pick. Now that she won’t even stand by the Governor… - Chicagonk - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 10:59 am: The court sure is taking it’s time on the AFSCME decision. The legal system in this state (and country) is so slow. - Seats - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 11:04 am: When is the next AFSCME vs Rauner court case set to take place? Does the budget nullify the Lisa Madigan case that state workers shouldn’t be paid? - Curl of the Burl - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 11:04 am: GMAB - if anyone with any name ID or any local pull were to run against Rep. Jimenez it would have to be an alderperson or some county official who is mid-term. Sangamon County officials are generally loathe to step out of a comfort zone to do something different. I cannot fault them, though, since the pay is good and since it is almost impossible to unseat an incumbent. - YO ! - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 11:12 am: Agree wth Give Me A Break- the GOP overall is conservative. It has conserved FDRs New Deal. Once upon a time adult children were financially responsible for parents, thus parents ineligible for Medicaid - Nursing Home care. How many conservatives would pay for such NH care while raising a family? Some socialism is palatable I guess. - Honeybear - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 12:57 pm: I’m afraid AFSCME might be in a trick box. - Cubs in '16 - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 2:31 pm: ===“Quit while you’re ahead” is an idea that AFSCME should get used to.=== Quit what exactly? Fighting against privatization and a 100% increase for health ins.? You do realize he wants to obliterate AFSCME don’t you? The “quit while you’re ahead” approach now would have AFSCME signing their own death warrant. - RNUG - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 3:07 pm: == a 100% increase for health ins. == I think the goal is a lot higher than 100%. That may be all they manage this go round. - up2now - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 3:37 pm: RNUG: Something I wonder about concerning a 100 percent (or whatever percent) increase in health insurance premiums: I’m a SURS retiree, but with just 18 years service, so I pay 10 percent of my monthly premium. If the state doubles the active union employee share, would retirees such as me pay twice as much, too? I thought we pay a percentage of the total premium (in my case about $1,000 a month), so that as long as the total doesn’t increase, the employee share would not increase. - Cubs in '16 - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 3:39 pm: ===I think the goal is a lot higher than 100%.=== Indeed it is RNUG. Now we wait for the courts to sort this out. - up2now - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 3:59 pm: I meant “retiree share” in the last sentence of my 3:37 post. - Seats - Friday, Jul 7, 17 @ 4:03 pm: Honeybear - Why do you feel AFSCME is in a trick box; it seemed the last judge was siding with their thoughts a bit. It seems a budget can only help them it terms of avoiding a huge insurance increase. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.