*** UPDATE *** Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. just sent out a press release headlined: “Southland Jobs Continue to Hemorrhage Under Quinn.” It was about an announcement of a supermarket closure, but he tied it in to the third airport and the south suburban casino…
Upon hearing Jewel-Osco’s surprise announcement to close the Olympia Fields store this summer, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. today called on Gov. Quinn to commit whatever state resources he can to keep the supermarket open.
“The Governor’s delays in developing a south suburban airport and Southland casino continues to create a hemorrhaging of jobs in the south suburbs, with Jewel being just the latest company to announce a shutdown and layoffs,” Jackson said. “Today I am calling on Gov. Quinn and the Jewel-Osco management team to come together and find a way to keep Jewel-Osco open.” […]
Jackson noted that a recent analysis showed that Quinn’s economic development programs awarded $350 million in business incentives during the last two years, but only 1 percent ($3.4 million) went to south suburban businesses.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Um, Congressman, the Democrats gave you a sweet map and a very Republican district. Yes, you were “targeted” - for preservation…
Shimkus was asked if he felt Democrats had singled him out by dividing his hometown between two districts.
“It’s almost an honor to be personally targeted, because it means that someone doesn’t like the job you’re doing,” he said. “And if it’s the Democrats in Springfield and Chicago, then that must mean I’m doing a pretty good job.”
I know it’s all the rage in DC to claim to be a victim, but Shimkus ain’t a victim. And since those bad ol’ Democrats actually kept him safe and sound, what does that mean?
Raja Krishnamoorthi who lost a primary bid for Illinois comptroller last year has already launched a campaign. On Friday, his campaign said in a release Krishnamoorthi has in the last five and a half weeks put $400,000 into his warchest.
Krishnamoorthi’s wife reportedly contributed another $2,500.
* Krishnamoorthi’s most likely Democratic primary foe is Tammy Duckworth, who was released from Hatch Act restrictions last Thursday when she left the federal payroll. She started making calls on Friday…
If Duckworth ran for the House again, she would have a much stronger position than the first time around–her resume is more formidable–since 2006 she ran the Illinois veterans agency and is one of the top VA officials in Washington– and she would be running from the more Democratic district.
Her Hoffman Estates home is in the proposed new 8th district, designed by Illinois Democrats to have a Democratic tilt.The new 8th contains territory from the present 6th district where Duckworth beat Roskam.
When Duckworth ran in 2006, her candidacy was supported by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), then Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and then Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), now Chicago’s mayor, then running the House political operation.
Pete Giangreco, a consultant who also worked on Duckworth’s 2006 bid, said Friday was her first day back in Illinois after leaving her job as assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs in Washington.
Giangreco was making calls and sending out e-mails Friday on her behalf.
* The Chicago News Cooperative has a decent basic primer on the expected Republican challenge to the legislative and congressional maps…
Republicans and Latinos are not traditional political allies in Illinois. But in a lawsuit expected to be filed this week, Republicans will stump for Latino interests as they challenge the legality of the state’s redrawn political boundaries.
In addition to that case, which disputes the new map of General Assembly districts, Republicans also plan to file a similar lawsuit opposing the redrawn congressional map.
In both instances, the GOP will advocate for more Latino representation in the Statehouse and Congress, a cause driven by political expediency, not ideology. Republicans and Latinos tend to clash on immigration policy, entitlement programs and criminal justice issues. […]
Latino groups are split over their analysis of the new boundaries. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Chicago) supports the new congressional map, which secures his seat representing a super-majority Latino district but does not create another. Other groups, such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, continue to weigh legal options to sue and have been communicating with GOP officials. The state map divides the heavily-Latino Little Village neighborhood into multiple districts, a change MALDEF opposed.
“It is not ironic,” MALDEF Midwest Redistricting Coordinator Elisa Alfonso said of a Latino-GOP partnership. “If you look at the history of redistricting cases, some cases we’re friends of the Republicans and sometimes we’re not.”
* Speaking of the map, I suppose one could look on the bright side and rejoice in the notion that the Associated press has finally discovered the rural hamlet of St. Anne…
Surrounded by fields that grow corn, soybeans, melons and potatoes, this tiny rural village is 65 miles from Chicago but light years away from the big city. Still, St. Anne and a lot of the farm country around it has now been dragged into the metropolis as part of an ambitious political strategy focused on the 2012 national elections.
A new census-based political map drawn by the state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature, and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, has taken swaths of suburban and rural Illinois and added them to the districts of veteran Chicago Democrats such as U.S. Rep. Jackson Jr., who could be St. Anne’s next representative.
That Jackson district is most certainly one of the weirder aspects of this new map. And perhaps the reporters in the southern end of his new district will have more luck prying answers out of Jackson…
During the trial, he denied, under oath, any involvement in Blagojevich’s shakedowns. Afterward, he issued a written statement:
“As you can imagine, I have many strong feelings about this entire matter,” he said. “My strongest feeling, however, is respect for our judicial system. Therefore, I will have no further comment about the case or how it has affected me until there is a verdict.”
I couldn’t wait. Alas, post-verdict, Jackson kept his “strong feelings” to himself. Last week, his office issued the usual “no comment.”
* This CNC story tells part of the story about black migration to the south suburbs…
On Willow Road, a boulevard lined with 3,200-square-foot houses, five of the nine buyers in the 1000 block moved to Newbury Estates from heavily black sections of the South Side. Buyers came from the Woodlawn, Park Manor, Morgan Park, Gresham and Englewood neighborhoods, property records show.
The subdivision, about 30 miles from the Loop, represents only part of a much greater migration to the south suburbs from 2000 to 2010. In all, Chicago’s black population declined by about 181,000 people, or 17 percent, in that period, according to recently released figures from the 2010 census. The rapid contraction of the black population was the main driver of the city’s overall population loss of about 200,000 in the last decade, a fact noted by Rahm Emanuel in his mayoral inauguration speech in May.
According to the CNC’s chart, south suburban towns saw a population increase of about 46,000 over ten years. Some of that was natural growth, much was migration from the city. But that still leaves a whole lot of people unaccounted for.
* Eric Reyes announced Saturday in Rock Island he will be joining three other Democratic candidates seeking nomination for the race against Rep. Bobby Schilling in the 2012 election.
* Bustos In, McNeil Out in Illinois’ 17th District Race
* Chuck Sweeny: Rockford stands to lose big in the new 17th District
Tuesday, Jul 5, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
On June 21 powerful storms, including two tornadoes, struck ComEd’s service territory knocking out power to 440,000 customers.
ComEd’s call center responded to nearly 600,000 calls and Web site traffic was at an all-time high as customers reported their outages and checked to find out when power would be restored.
With more than 800 crews, working around the clock ComEd restored service to 90 percent of customers within the first 48 hours. Within three days, the company had restored power to virtually all customers, with some individual, isolated outages lingering into Saturday.
Power outages are more than just an inconvenience; they lower productivity of the region’s economy and cost money.
But what if smart grid technology had been in place?
o ComEd would have known customers were out of power without them having to call us.
o Technology would have pinpointed outages allowing us to dispatch crews more quickly to restore service.
o Digital automation would have rerouted power meaning fewer customers would have been seen outages, and
o Thousands of customers may have never experienced an outage.
Why wait to modernize our electric grid? The time to act is now.
* As you already know, the Flubs managed to eke out just one win in the latest three-game series against the White Sox. The team’s record is an abysmal 35-51. They can’t even put together three wins in a row…
As difficult as this is to believe, through July 4, the Cubs have still not won three games in a row this season. As the three-game winning streak drought germinated early in 2011, I researched to see if other Cubs teams have ever had this problem. I had to go all the way back to 1974 to find a Chicago Cubs team that did not win three straight until July 5. After losing to the Washington Nationals, the 1966 Cubs are the next Chicago team to have gone longer without a three-game winning streak… The 1966 Chicago Cubs did not attain a three-game winning streak until August 6!
Cubs closer Carlos Marmol didn’t blame his costly wild pitch in the 10th inning on having to rush into the game because of an injury, which he never had done before. Marcos Mateo left with an elbow injury after facing two batters.
But manager Mike Quade wonders if there might be a better way to prepare a reliever if the situation arises again.
‘‘These guys’ routine is to get ready in the bullpen and then come out and make their eight [warmup] pitches and pitch,’’ Quade said. ‘‘But [in cases of injuries], everyone always comes out and makes their pitches on the mound in front of 30,000 people. Do you have to do that? Someone told me today it’s a courtesy.
‘‘Well, if a guy’s more comfortable doing his thing [in the bullpen], I’d rather have him [do that] because of the urgency once you get on the mound and everybody’s watching.’’
* More than three months after falsely claiming that Rep. Bob Rita had been convicted of a felony and was therefore ineligible to serve in the House (wrong on both counts), the Illinois Policy Institute quietly issued a retraction and apology on the Friday before the July 4th holiday weekend under the headline “Investigative Reporting Update.” I have no idea why the group waited so long to do this because it was clear within minutes of publishing its story that at least half of it was wrong (even if he was a felon, which he wasn’t, felons are able to serve in the General Assembly after they’ve completed their sentences). The other half (about being a felon) was cleared up within a few hours. Even so, the group continued to aggressively push the story via Chicago radio and TV appearances.
Rep. Rita has graciously accepted the apology. I’m still waiting for the group’s apology to me, however. All I did was point out IPI’s egregious errors and was then insanely accused of fronting for the House Democrats. Ridiculous.
State Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-Cicero) awarded a taxpayer-funded college scholarship for $8,200 to Michael A. Giorango, who’s the son of three-time felon and reputed mobster Michael C. “Jaws” Giorango.
And then Sandoval did something that state officials say was even more unusual: He tried to revoke the scholarship that he’d awarded to the younger Giorango to attend Illinois State University.
But it wasn’t because the father had been convicted of helping run a mob bookmaking operation, failing to file his taxes and participating in a nationwide prostitution ring, according to Sandoval.
“I never met him, I don’t know who he was, and I don’t care to meet him,” Sandoval says of Michael A. Giorango and the string of events that led to his getting — and ultimately giving up — one of the college scholarships that the senator gets to hand out under Illinois’ legislative scholarship program.
Nor, Sandoval says, does he know the elder Giorango, who served a four-year prison sentence during the early 1990s for the mob bookmaking conviction. According to federal prosecutors, the south suburban ring that Giorango helped run once threatened bombings and other violence to make sure people paid them what money they owed.
Giorango listed his address as being at the home of Rudy Acosta, a top precinct captain for Ald. Ed Burke, even though he actually lives in Orland Park, which is not in Sandoval’s district. Acosta has worked for Sandoval in the past, but Sandoval says Acosta didn’t personally recommend Giorango to him for a scholarship. The scholarship application was approved by an aide, Sandoval claims, even though Giorango didn’t complete a 500-word essay or submit a school transcript.
The father of an Illinois State Police officer mowed down during a high speed police chase 25 years ago in Itasca, is imploring Gov. Pat Quinn to sign a bill requiring first-degree murderers to register their whereabouts with local law enforcement for 10 years after their release. The state Senate unanimously approved the bill in May. […]
John Kugelman had been a member of the Illinois State Police for about 3½ years when he was killed during a high-speed police chase in November 1986. David Melind, who was 17 at the time, led police on a high-speed chase through Hoffman Estates, Schaumburg and Elk Grove Village before he mowed down John Kugelman. The state police officer had stepped onto the shoulder of Route 53 near Irving Park Road in an attempt to stop the chase. Melind, formerly of Elk Grove Village, had taken off when police attempted to pull him over for speeding. Melind did not take his foot off the accelerator when he ran Kugelman over, according to court testimony. […]
Sponsored by state Rep. Dennis Reboletti, a Republican from Elmhurst, the bill is known as “Andrea’s Law.” Andrea Will was an Eastern Illinois University student murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 1998. He was released from prison after serving half of his 24-year sentence. If approved by Gov. Quinn, it is estimated between 400 and 500 first-degree murderers currently on parole would have to register with the state police. The Internet database would include mug shots and addresses, similar to the state’s sex offender registry.
But this bill would make it all but impossible for ex-offenders to make a fresh start, while offering only the illusion of greater public safety.
The logic of sex offender registries is that at least some small percentage of sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated; released from prison, they will repeat the same crimes. Society must know who they are to protect itself.
There is no compelling evidence, however, that people who kill once tend to do so again, especially after serving a 20- to 30-year prison term.
What we do know is that making it harder for ex-offenders to fully integrate into society after prison — with friends, family and a job — increases the likelihood that they’ll return to crime.
In a cash-strapped state that already has public registries for sex offenders, child murderers and arsonists, we also question whether Illinois has the resources to keep track of the thousands of convicted murderers who would be required to register.
While Rod Blagojevich’s jury found him guilty on 17 felony counts last week, jurors found him not guilty on one count and deadlocked on two others. Not much has been written about those other counts, so let’s take a look.
The paucity of electronic surveillance evidence related to those verdicts, the lack of credible witnesses for the prosecution and absence of actual harm appeared to hurt the federal government’s case.
Jurors deadlocked on whether Blagojevich actually attempted to hit up Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s brother for a big campaign contribution in exchange for releasing funds to a school in Emanuel’s old congressional district. But this allegedly happened in 2006, long before the feds began bugging Blagojevich, so there were no tapes. And Mayor Emanuel testified at trial that he’d never been told the grant would be made if his brother held a fundraiser. His testimony undermined the feds’ case and jurors deadlocked.
There was some surveillance involving the other two counts, which centered around whether Blagojevich tried to shake down a road builder in exchange for giving him tollway contracts. But nothing concrete could be promised to the builder since a $6 billion tollway construction plan that was constantly mentioned on tape was just a dream in Blagojevich’s head at the time.
Blagojevich, in other words, was just dangling the possibility of government work in exchange for money from the road builder. But demanding a contribution from someone who does business with the government is not illegal under federal law.
The targeted road builder testified that he felt pressured to contribute, but he initially told the FBI that there was no pressure. And the builder’s bosses testified that Blagojevich never directly connected campaign contributions to contracts. Blagojevich was declared not guilty on one count and the jury deadlocked on the other
“No harm, no foul,” may be a good way of summing this up. Emanuel’s school got the cash and no fundraiser was held. The road builder was never promised or given anything specific and no money was contributed.
Blagojevich was convicted of two other similar shakedown attempts. He was recorded being told that for every day he didn’t sign a horse racing industry bailout bill that track owner John Johnston would lose $9,000. Real harm was being done. Blagojevich was also caught on tape instructing his aide how to approach Johnston and appeared to admit that he was holding off signing the bill until he got his money. He didn’t sign the bill until after his arrest. There was nothing hypothetical about that charge and harm was done, and the former governor was found guilty.
The same reasoning goes for the shakedown of a Children’s Memorial Hospital executive. Blagojevich was repeatedly caught on tape plotting to hit the exec up for a large contribution in exchange for releasing funding for the hospital. Blagojevich was also busted checking out whether he could hold up the money. And the exec credibly testified that he believed he was being shaken down. The state cash wasn’t released until after Blagojevich was removed from office. Once again, real harm was done and there was plenty of recorded evidence and credible testimony to back up the government.
But if hypothetical situations and lack of actual harm undermined the government’s case on three counts, why then did the jurors decide to back the prosecution’s case all the way on the attempted sale of Barack Obama’s US Senate seat? After all, none of the schemes were ever followed that far. Nobody was really harmed by the delay, and much of what Blagojevich was caught on tape saying was obviously crazy talk.
Besides the audacity of Blagojevich’s crassness, the answer may have been the huge amount of electronic surveillance. The jury was obviously impressed with the vast number of recordings involving the Senate scheme. “There was so much more evidence to go on,” said one juror after the verdicts were issued.
And, unlike his last jury, which deadlocked on all but one charge, these jurors seemed to comprehend the fact that this wasn’t about whether Blagojevich followed all the way through on his Senate schemes. “He was being tried on attempting, not committing a crime,” a juror correctly explained to reporters.
Prosecutors also did a better job of explaining a much more streamlined case this time. The last jury got lost in a jumbled maze. But the feds used a PowerPoint presentation during summation which so impressed one juror that she said she wished the jury could’ve had it during deliberations.
* Related…
* Blagojevich appeal complicated by testimony?: So even if the appeals court finds Judge Zagel made an error, they’re unlikely to grant an appeal. They’d consider most judicial errors unimportant compared to the role Blagojevich’s testimony played in the jury’s decision.
* The Tribune has published a very good article on corporate tax burdens. But keep a few things in mind. These numbers are for state and local income taxes. Illinois has no local income tax. Also, these numbers are for all states, not just Illinois. And Illinois changed its tax laws several years ago to what’s known as the “single sales factor.” Only Illinois sales are counted toward a company’s income taxes. The change was meant as a boost to the state’s manufacturers…
In 2010, a majority of Illinois’ top 50 publicly traded corporations paid less than 2 percent of their earnings in income taxes to states and municipalities across the country, with some paying nothing at all or receiving refunds.
[…]
Peoria-based Caterpillar, with $42.6 billion in sales and revenue last year… does 70 percent of its sales outside the U.S. and saw sales plummet by 37 percent in 2009. Its state and local income tax burden that year was minus 3.3 percent of global earnings, which means it was owed money back. In 2010, a year when its sales began to recover, its liability was just 0.7 percent. […]
Infant-formula maker Mead Johnson Nutrition has a low state and local tax burden, 0.2 percent, because only 17 percent of pretax income came from the United States, and within that segment, a lot of sales occur in other states.
* But not every corporation has it so good…
Integrys’ [which owns Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas] state and local income tax burden for 2010 was 5.1 percent of global earnings, tying the electronic health records company Allscripts for the second-highest effective rate among the region’s largest companies, according to the Tribune analysis. At the top was CME Group, owner of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, at 5.8 percent. All tax-burden figures in this story include an allowable federal deduction.
* More relevant numbers…
While Illinois income taxes generally make up a small portion of expenses for major corporations, and corporate income tax revenues accounted for only 4.5 percent of the state’s general fund revenues in 2010, 18 of the state’s 50 largest public companies have been granted state tax credits in the past decade.
Discuss.
* Related…
* John Cullerton talks workers’ comp, tax increase
* Menard workers still get disability even though doctors clear them to return to work
* Committee to examine state’s business atmosphere
* A drop in downtown day-trippers - City’s attractions are drawing fewer suburban visitors
* Technology replaces brawn in Ravenswood corridor
* Joffrey letter to dancers threatens to cut season: The drastic action — which constitutes a lockout not dissimilar to what the NFL is facing — is the result of an ongoing, unresolved contract negotiation between the ballet company and the dancers union, the American Guild of Musical Artists, which also represents major companies such as American Ballet Theatre in New York.
* For the complete story on how and why Gov. Pat Quinn decided to cancel scheduled pay raises for thousands of union employees, click here and here.
* The reasoning basically boils down to this: The state Constitution gives the General Assembly the sole authority to appropriate funds. The state’s Labor Relations Act has a clause that makes all union contract provisions subject to appropriations. Therefore, since the GA shorted the approps for personnel, the governor had no choice but to cancel scheduled pay raises. Even so, AFSCME claims that the action is illegal and vows to fight it in court
Approximately 30,000 state workers, from prison guards to health care workers, were supposed to get a raise Friday, after having time-deferred their previous two raises.
The governor said ‘no’. Legislators did not put money in the budget for the raises, so for now, they will not happen.
“We have got to run the government, got to make sure it lasts for an entire fiscal year - all of the services that people need - and when the money was not provided for the pay raises, I had no choice,” said Quinn.
Quinn wanted a budget $2 billion larger than what was approved by the Democratic-led legislature. But a leading legislative budget negotiator said the administration never signaled that it would try to bypass a collective bargaining agreement with union workers as a financial management strategy.
Rep. Frank Mautino of Spring Valley, the House Democrats’ budget point man, also said he doesn’t think Quinn’s pay raise move is enforceable.
Mautino acknowledged lawmakers cut the personal services budget lines of state agencies, but said this was to allow Quinn to eliminate unfilled positions because the governor struck an election-year deal with AFSCME not to seek layoffs.
Discuss.
…Adding… Ghost makes several strong and quite important points in comments…
Set aside that it is AFSCME and just insert “contract” here.
Right now every Gov can only spend money which has been appropriated for that purpose. Quinn can not sign a contract to buy the Dodgers, for example, if no money has been appropriated for it. It is a fundamental check and balance of our system. Only the GA can authorize and approve spending.
If the GA does not approve the spending, then the money can not be spent. There is no legal remedy as the court does not have appropriation authority either.
If the court upholds that a Gov can spend money without spending authority form the GA stand back, you think our budget situation is bad now, imagine a Blago who could enter into contracts for health care without any money being appropriated to cover them…or to build buildings or roads etc.
In essence if the court sides with AFSCME, it is giving the Gov authority to spend money without the approval of the general assembly, which tosses out any need for the general assembly to appropriate and approve spending. [a few minor spelling corrections made]
* 3:04 pm - Statement of AFSCME Council 31 executive director Henry Bayer…
“With his illegal and irresponsible actions today, Governor Pat Quinn has trampled on the collective bargaining process and broken his contract with the men and women who do the real work of state government. These tens of thousands of Illinois state employees care for disabled veterans, risk their lives in state prisons, monitor paroled convicts, protect children from abuse and neglect, rush to assist in disasters, and much more.
“They fulfill their responsibilities to the citizens of this state, and they deserve to know that their employer, the governor, will honor the commitments made to them. Instead, Governor Quinn has shown that he lacks basic respect for the work they do. He has acted unilaterally and in clear contravention of union contracts to void modest, negotiated increases for frontline state employees, despite handing out 25 and 50 percent raises to his own inner circle.
“At the request of Governor Quinn, AFSCME members agreed to significant steps to help address the state’s budget woes. Under negotiated cost-savings agreements reached at the bargaining table, three times in the last 18 months they deferred scheduled increases, and thousands have taken unpaid furlough days.
“Today Pat Quinn has shown that his signature on such negotiated agreements is not worth the paper it’s printed on. Further, the governor defends his actions with the flimsiest of legal rationales. The General Assembly neither directed him to violate a collective bargaining agreement nor has the power to do so.
“Republican governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John Kasich of Ohio, Chris Christie of New Jersey and others have recently sought changes in law to eliminate the right of collective bargaining for public employees. By choosing to simply ignore a legally binding agreement, Pat Quinn has sunk even lower. Not only is Quinn’s assault on public employee collective bargaining unprecedented in the four decades of state employee bargaining in Illinois, given his repeated criticism of Walker and others, it is utterly hypocritical.
“AFSCME will aggressively pursue every available legal recourse to ensure that the collective bargaining agreement is honored and employees are paid according to their contract.”
Looks like the governor got the union’s attention. Quinn has “sunk even lower” than Walker, Kasich and Christie? Wow.
* 12:36 pm - The Department of Central Management Services has just sent a memo to agency directors decreeing that pay raises mandated by union contracts in 14 state “departments, boards, authorities and commissions” cannot and should not be paid.
* CMS’s logic is that the General Assembly has sole authority to make appropriations under the Illinois Constitution. As you already know, the GA did not adequately fund personnel line items in the budget which was sent to the governor’s desk.
The state’s Labor Relations Act also includes a provision about how union contracts are “subject to the appropriations power of the employer.”
The governor, therefore, “does not have the appropriations authority to implement cost of living adjustments, longevity enhancements, or step increases covered by a collective bargaining agreement,” according to the memo.
* The agencies impacted are…
Criminal Justice Information Authority
Corrections
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Commission
Historic Preservation
Human Rights Commission
Dept. of Human Rights
Human Services
Labor
Natural Resources
Public Health
Revenue
…Adding… The missing three…
Guardianship and Advocacy
Juvenile Justice
Prisoner Review Board
The CMS memo claims there are 14 entities, but only 11 are listed. Checking on that.
* The memo, signed by CMS’s Acting Director Malcom Weems, continues to say, “due to the absence of sufficient appropriations by the General Assembly, the above listed agencies cannot implement the FY 12 increases.”
Agencies not listed had sufficient appropriations to implement the increases.
* The CMS memo goes on to say that those workers who’ve already committed to retire by the end of December will continue to receive the raises.
* I’m awaiting a call-back from AFSCME at the moment. That oughtta be good.
* According to a top administration official, CMS believed it had no choice because of the budget sent to it by the General Assembly. “There simply isn’t enough appropriation,” the official said, adding “We pleaded with the House to work with us and the Senate to reallocate to cover the huge shortfalls in personal services lines at the affected agencies.”
Asked whether eliminating positions would’ve been an option, I was told that the action would’ve required going to court and getting the union involved.
* The memo also has this paragraph, and I’ve asked for clarification about what it means…
Additionally, employees covered by HR-001, RC-19, RC-20, NR-916, RC-45 and Prevailing Rate collective bargaining agreements are not impacted by this memo.”
* If this is a device to get AFSCME’s attention, it’ll probably work.
People with direct knowledge of the governor’s plan said Friday that skipping the 2 percent raises would affect nearly 30,000 workers and save $77 million. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge the information.
The state promised in union contracts to provide the raises. But Quinn argues the promise is void because lawmakers passed a budget that lacks money for the raises.
The actual number is 29,905 workers out of about 41,000 union employees. Scheduled union wage increases beginning today…
7/1/11 — 2.0%
1/1/12 — 1.25%
2/1/12 — 2.0%
* From the governor’s office…
Today we notified the directors of 14 agencies and the impacted unions that approximately 30,000 state employees will not be receiving scheduled pay increases in the new fiscal year. These pay increases were part of the labor agreements that were agreed to by the previous administration.
The fiscal year 2012 budget does not provide the money for these pay raises. If the state paid these increases, the impacted agencies would not be able to make payroll for the entire fiscal year, preventing them from continuing operations and providing core services to the people of Illinois.
Implementing a budget is a year-round process. Today’s action marks the first of many steps required to manage the fiscal year 2012 budget.
* Two state judges, one in Colorado, the other in Minnesota, have ruled that certain cuts to pension benefits are constitutional in those states. First up, Colorado…
Under the legislation, employee/employer contributions were modified, new contributions for working retirees were created, the age and service requirements of certain groups of employees before they are eligible to receive retirement benefits was increased, and a cap was put on cost of living increases for retirees.
At issue in this case were Sections 19 and 20 of the bill, modifying the cost of living adjustments.
Depending on the sub class, the adjustments were modified from an annual increase of 3.25 percent or 3.5 percent to an annual increase to be calculated under a different formula and capped at 2 percent.
The plaintiffs in the case argued that the two sections of the bill were in violation of the Contract Clause of the Colorado Constitution and the Contract, Takings and Substantive Due Process Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
“While Plaintiffs unarguably have a contractual right to their PERA pension itself, they do not have a contractual right to the specific COLA formula in place at their respective retirement, for life without change,” Denver District Court Judge Robert S. Hyatt wrote.
What that means is the judge ruled that COLAs could be cut, but not the actual pension benefits.
Statutes regulating benefit formulas do not constitute contracts that require negotiating, ruled Ramsey County District Court Judge Gregg Johnson. He said the benefit adjustments amounted to a reasonable response to a fiscal threat that jeopardized the long-term interests of retirees.
At issue were cost of living adjustments that occurred automatically for retired state employees drawing pensions. The changes affect the state’s three largest retirement funds. One is for teachers, another covers state employees and the third covers local municipal workers.
The pension funds differ, but under the changes, current employees and employers will have to pay more into the fund while retirees will receive smaller annual increases in their payouts. For retired teachers, payouts will be frozen for two years, starting next year.
Several states, including New Jersey in a move this week, have cut back on cost-of-living adjustments for retirees in an effort to shore up the finances of public-employee retirement systems. Cost-of-living adjustments are annual increases to retirement benefits that are essentially designed to keep pace with inflation.
The cases in Minnesota and Colorado have been closely watched by lawmakers across the country as they contemplate similar changes in their own states. Unlike changes to benefits for new workers, which can take decades to deliver savings to state and local governments, rolling back cost-of-living adjustments can yield immediate savings.
While each state has different legal protections for public-worker pension benefits, the rulings “will really have an impact on what other state legislatures choose to do,'’ said Amy Monahan, a professor at the University of Minnesota law school who has studied legal issues of public pensions. “Even if the rulings are not direct precedent, legislatures will now say, ‘We might as well try it.’ ”
Stephen Pincus, a Pittsburgh attorney representing the retirees who filed the lawsuits, said his clients were “contemplating filing an appeal.”
Membership in any pension or retirement system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.
So, if you’re a state employee or a retiree here, don’t freak out yet.
* I’m going to take the rest of the day off for the holiday, so I won’t be turning on comments. I’ll post a video later, but let’s do a quick news coverage roundup of last night’s action.
Quinn proposes to reduce the general revenue budget approved by the legislature by $376 million. The largest reduction is a $276 million cut to Medicaid funding for hospitals. The legislature approved about $2.3 billion in such funding. Quinn Budget Director David Vaught said that the reduction is meant to bring hospitals to the table to negotiate cutting their rates. In his original proposal, Quinn called for cuts to Medicaid rates that he said would save the state an estimated $550 million in the first fiscal year.
Without a change to the rates, hospitals will continue to be paid the same amount, and Quinn’s reduction would mean that the money would run out before the end of the fiscal year. “We hope that it helps convince the interested parties on this, which would be hospitals, to come to the table,” Vaught said. “We have a rate system in Illinois that’s been in effect for many years. It’s not been changed for many years. …We’re dealing with a very fast-growing industry that is growing more quickly than we can afford.” He acknowledged that some hospitals and nursing homes felt they got the short end of the stick in recently approved nursing home legislation and a workers’ compensation reform package, and that may complicate negotiations.
During the budgeting process, hospital representatives said the industry would prefer waiting longer for payments than see a drastic reduction in the rates they are paid.
The governor failed to persuade lawmakers to cut Medicaid reimbursements rates during the spring, so his cut in Medicaid spending could have the effect of simply pushing those health-care bills off to the 2012-2013 budget year, meaning hospitals would have to wait to be paid even longer.
A spokesman for Quinn budget director David Vaught said the Medicaid spending reduction would not have an impact on Stroger Hospital, and he stressed that the cut would not cause any hospital in Illinois to close.
On school transportation — money districts use to pay for busing students — Quinn sliced the $294 million lawmakers wanted to spend by $89 million.
The move became an immediate flash point. Republican Rep. Roger Eddy, a school superintendent from Hutsonville, said the cuts will hurt the Chicago suburbs and rural districts where some children need to travel many miles to get to schools.
Eddy contended that Quinn’s actions made him appear to have a “vendetta against transporting kids.”
“If you don’t get kids to school, and transporting kids is obviously vital to get them there, you can’t teach them,” said Eddy, the Republican spokesman for the House committee dealing with elementary and high school spending.
Vaught reiterated the administration’s position that local school districts can cough up the money if they want their own regional superintendent. “This is not a proposal to say get rid of their regional superintendents,” he said.
Vaught reiterated the administration’s position that local school districts can cough up the money if they want their own regional superintendent. “This is not a proposal to say get rid of their regional superintendents,” he said.
For now, the regional offices of education, which provide a number of education-related services to local school districts, will continue to operate until the Legislature decides whether to challenge Quinn’s move.
“This is a fundamentally broken budget, an unworkable plan that falls far short of the revenue needed to adequately support basic services,” said Anders Lindall, spokesman for the Illinois division of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Lindall urged Quinn to spend at the levels needed to maintain services and then work with lawmakers to come up with more money later in the year.
But Vaught said Quinn must assume no more money will be available. “You implement right away and you do the cuts,” he said.
The legislature must approve all of Quinn’s budget reductions. Quinn has been scarcely involved in the budgeting process this year, and he is pushing some of the original pieces of his proposal that did not go over well with the legislature the first time around. “In spite of the fact that he’s going to be governor for four years that he was elected, he certainly has not been able to assert the power within the office and his role in the process,” said Kent Redfield, an emeritus political science professor at the University of Illinois Springfield. Time will tell if legislators will warm to budget policy they have already rejected and welcome a governor into the process who has been a less than active player so far.
