There are just too many stories today about the Blagojevich administration to blog them all individually. So, I’ve bundled them for you here in one, super-long post.

· The governor’s office won’t say how many kids have been signed up for the AllKids plan, but they have said that the taxpayers are spending $3.2 million on TV advertising to promote the program during an election year.

Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, R-Des Plaines, said a constituent complained to her that TV ads for the All Kids program were running in close proximity to Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s campaign ads attacking his GOP opponent in the November election, state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka.

Mulligan said she saw the ads running in tandem and said it amounts to taxpayer dollars being used to expand the governor’s campaign fund. Health care is a major campaign issue for Blagojevich. […]

HFS spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said after the meeting that the state agency has no control over the timing of the All Kids ads because that’s up to the TV stations that run them.

· But that’s not all, campers. There was also a mass mailer.

Last month, Barry Maram, the director of the Healthcare and Family Services agency, sent out a letter to thousands of community leaders and health-care providers across the state to promote “Governor Blagojevich’s All Kids Training Tour” to “learn about programs that can help people with whom you work, worship and live.”

In addition to listing other Blagojevich health-care initiatives, Maram’s five-paragraph letter featured the governor’s name four times, including within the official logo for the program “Governor Blagojevich’s All Kids.”

· The Belleville News-Democrat has had enough.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is getting all the political mileage he can out of All Kids, the universal health insurance program that starts July 1. Blagojevich’s letter on the Web site for All Kids reads like a campaign ad — which is exactly what was intended. Blagojevich and Democratic lawmakers rushed through the program without any meaningful discussion or debate, with an eye toward having it running before the November election.

· And that brings us to the latest audit of the Department of Human Services and this little tidbit buried way down deep in the AP’s story.

Auditors also learned the department spent $48,000 for the Team Illinois program, promoted by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to target revitalization for four economically depressed communities. That money came from leftover grants provided in the 1990s by the Annie E. Casey Foundation to DHS.

About $3,300 of that was spent on a covered wagon, dancers and entertainment to promote Team Illinois in a Chicago parade, auditors discovered. The audit said there was no evidence the grant money was intended to be used that way.

· Oh, and did I mention the records? No, I guess I didn’t.

Payroll records containing Social Security numbers of government workers were found in a state recycling Dumpster accessible to the public, Illinois’ auditor general disclosed Tuesday.

The discovery came as a team of auditors hired by Auditor General William Holland toured the Springfield headquarters of the Department of Human Services and came upon the discarded data.

The paper recycling Dumpster in an open loading dock area contained payroll voucher reports with employee names and Social Security numbers, technical computer information and other confidential information.

“The fact it wasn’t properly destroyed was significant,” Holland said. “The unknown is whether any of this information was lifted from that Dumpster.”

· And then there’s this inconvenient little audit finding.

The cost of caring for mentally ill and developmentally disabled residents in Illinois has risen at all but four of the state’s 20 institutions, according to state documents released Tuesday.

Auditor General William Holland, in a study covering two years, found that caring for a resident at the John J. Madden Mental Health Center near Chicago topped $21,000 per month in fiscal year 2004. That’s up from nearly $16,000 per month in 2002.

Similarly, at the Jacksonville Developmental Center, the average cost of caring for a developmentally disabled resident was $13,029 per month, up from $12,621 in 2002.

Those examples lend credence to claims by advocacy groups that the state’s developmental centers be closed, said Don Moss, executive director United Cerebral Palsy of Illinois.

· And this:

Auditors said the agency appeared to be circumventing rules designed to make sure taxpayers get the lowest price when buying goods.

· Finally, there’s this fascinating bit of insight that I forgot to mention earlier this week.

The Democratic governor also said Topinka only criticizes his ideas and never comes up with any of her own, likening her to President Herbert Hoover and himself to President Franklin Roosevelt during the Depression.

“A new guy comes in, Franklin Roosevelt, and he’s got ideas and approaches and he tried a whole bunch of things. A lot of it worked, some of it didn’t,” Blagojevich said. “But he kept getting up everyday to try to do something to make a difference and improve people’s lives. Ultimately he led our country out of that Great Depression and had Herbert Hoover had his way, nothing would have been done.”

The most memorable quote from FDR’s second inaugural address was “Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” The operative word being “occasional.”

UPDATE: I forgot one. This is what happens when a governor - any governor - takes total control of the State Board of Education.

The Chairman of the State Board of Education sees no need for public hearings on the Governor’s education plan.

Rod Blagojevich wants to lease or sell the state lottery and push $10 billion in proceeds to Illinois schools. And while one state senator is calling for public hearings, Chairman Jesse Ruiz says regular state board meetings offer plenty of opportunity for the public to ask questions.

Ruiz also says the campaign season will help by offering robust debate on the plan.