A plan to impose stiffer sentences for felons convicted of gun crimes narrowly cleared an early hurdle Thursday after Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson asked state lawmakers for help in cracking down on repeat offenders.
Johnson appeared before an Illinois Senate committee to back the proposal, which would increase the sentencing guidelines for judges deciding punishment for repeat gun felons. Instead of a range of three to 14 years, judges would hand out sentences of seven to 14 years. A judge could depart from that guideline under certain circumstances.
Johnson has for months has been calling for lawmakers to take action as the Chicago Police Department continues to face a surge of street violence.
“This is about creating a culture of accountability,” he said.
“They make the decision to pull the trigger because they don’t fear our judicial system,” Johnson said. “If they fear the judicial system, then it is a deterrent.”
He said passage of the bill would show repeat gun offenders “we’re serious about holding them accountable.”
Johnson, however, noted he’s “uneasy” with some provisions of the bill, including reducing the sentencing for those charged with possession of 100 grams or more of cocaine, heroin or fentanyl.
“To be clear, the drug trade is what drives the gang violence in Chicago and lessening the consequence for high level narcotic dealing and possession makes me very uncomfortable,” Johnson said.
Republicans voted against the bill because of the sentencing reduction aspects.
* I’m old enough to remember the days when saying “B.S.” to a group of pastors in a church was considered disrespectful and very bad form…
Businessman and Democratic candidate for governor Chris Kennedy called Illinois’ current chief executive’s pro-business agenda “B.S,” while speaking to a group of South Side pastors Thursday.
“What we need is certainty. What we need is predictability,” Kennedy said, speaking at Bethlehem Star Church on South Cottage Grove. “What we need is a budget. Gov. Rauner, do your job. Get us a state budget.”
Kennedy formerly managed the Merchandise Mart, and he said he dealt with 5,000 companies during his 25 years there.
“Not one in 25 years ever said to me that they were worried about coming to Illinois because of the way we draw our state rep. districts,” Kennedy said. “None of them said they were worried about tort reform or workers’ comp or term limits. That agenda is B.S. when it comes to attracting companies to our state.”
As I’ve said many times before, Democrats should be pushing for remap reform. Right now, they’re counting on Gov. Rauner to lose in 2018. And if he wins and vetoes their map, they’re counting on winning the hat draw, which is a 50-50 proposition. Get the General Assembly out of drawing the maps or Rauner may draw the next one.
And no companies at the Mart were concerned with being sued? Or worried about the state’s high costs when their workers were injured? C’mon. I find that a little difficult to believe. And, even if it’s true, then maybe he should go talk to some Downstate manufacturers before the last one leaves Illinois. COGFA’s executive director Dan Long told me yesterday he believes one reason the state’s revenues are tanking so hard is due to the heavy loss of manufacturing jobs. The Merchandise Mart is important to Illinois, but it doesn’t reflect reality everywhere else.
*** UPDATE *** From the ILGOP…
“Chris Kennedy keeps repeating Mike Madigan’s talking points because he wants to be the Speaker’s chosen candidate. Only a Madigan machine politician would call term limits, fair maps and job-creating economic reforms ‘B.S.’”
* Governor, you’re no longer just a candidate. You can actually do something about administrative regulations now…
Illinois has regulations for the sake of regulations, and they’re hindering our economic growth. It's time to cut the red tape. pic.twitter.com/UCKmHPaPHl
Cullerton’s spokesman says, “We are in a holding pattern until we get an indication from Republicans that there is Republican support for proposals they helped put together.”
The governor says he wants evidence of deeper spending cuts before he’ll sign off on the “grand bargain” and its income tax increase, but Democrats say Rauner’s own budget proposal is seriously out of balance – even more than originally thought, given new estimates from the state’s nonpartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, which show next year’s revenues coming $329 million weaker than Rauner’s estimates of $32.7 billion.
Rauner’s proposed budget had a $4.6 billion dollar deficit, so the new revenue estimates mean that hole is now about $4.9 billion.
A state financial report released this week by the General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) projects that state FY18 revenues are $329 million less than Governor Rauner’s estimates of $32.7 billion. The drop means that Rauner’s budget blueprint is unbalanced by nearly $5 billion.
The Senate’s budget and revenue committee heads say the new estimates aren’t impossible to overcome, so long as the governor ends his behind-the-scenes antics that have derailed the Senate’s bipartisan compromises.
Senator Toi Hutchinson (Chair of Senate Revenue Committee)
“We know today that the governor’s budget is wildly out of balance - by $5 billion. That’s an alarming figure. What is abundantly clear is that not telling the truth about Illinois’ revenue crisis is disingenuous at best. The simple fact is part of the solution requires straightforward honesty with the public about the need for revenue.”
Senator Heather Steans (Chair of the Senate Appropriations I Committee)
“There remains a determination to strike a compromise to provide what Illinois needs more than anything else right now: stability. Fiscal stability, stability for countless service providers and stability for our business community. Taking another few hundred million dollars out of the formula is a hurdle, but I’m confident we can complete the task to address Bruce Rauner’s $5 billion out-of-balance budget design. To make that task easier, it’s helpful if the governor ends his ideological meddling.”
Senator Andy Manar (Chair of the Senate Appropriations II Committee)
“The drop in revenue makes Bruce Rauner’s phony budget $5 billion out of whack and counting. Every day Bruce Rauner interferes, it adds $11 million dollars onto the growing pile of debt and makes his budget even more out of balance. The Senate remains committed to doing the job to fix the chaos the governor’s created.”
We applaud Chance for his activism. The more pressure to help Chicago kids, to improve results at CPS, to close the gap in funding statewide between wealthy and poor school districts, the better.
But that inequity — built into a school funding model that relies on property taxes — has been worsening for 20 years, not just the two since Rauner’s inauguration. Illinois legislators have had the power to change the formula in the dozen years after 2002 when Democrats won the governorship plus majorities in the House and Senate.
Instead, Democrats let the gap in funding widen. They’ve had task forces and news conferences and recommendations and hearings and white papers. But no results. The last school funding proposal to gain some steam got out of the Senate but never even got a hearing in the Democratic-controlled House.
That history never seems to make its way into news conferences when schools CEO Forrest Claypool blames Rauner for a “racist” school funding formula.
Following Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposal to make the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum into a freestanding institution in his proposed state budget, Speaker Michael J. Madigan is introducing legislation to improve the administration of the library, advancing an effort prioritized by both Rauner and House Democrats.
“The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is a monument to one of Illinois’ greatest sons, and a symbol of our state’s place in American history, but the structure of its administration does not provide the museum with the clear leadership or flexibility the museum needs to fill its role as a world-class institution,” Madigan said. “This legislation puts the museum under the direct leadership of a board whose only responsibility is to the museum and this crucial piece of our history.”
Currently, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield is under the direction of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. While the library is widely recognized as one of the preeminent presidential museums in the country, it has been hampered by bureaucracy and mismanagement. Three different boards currently play a role in overseeing the museum. Madigan’s House Bill 136 separates the museum from the Historic Preservation Agency, placing it under the direction of an independent board appointed by the governor.
Streamlining the administration of the museum has been a priority for both Rauner and House Democrats. Rauner’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget proposal called for the museum to be separated from the Historic Preservation Agency. Rauner also told legislators in 2015: “To ensure the museum and library to be the world-class institutions they deserve to be, our administration is working in partnership with Speaker Madigan on a reorganization plan.”
Every year, the Tax Foundation publishes its “business tax climate” report, which scores states based on their tax policies. The report always gets a lot of press; in Illinois, which ranked 23rd with a score of 5.21 in the 2017 report, the press is usually accompanied by quotes from politicians and business leaders about how the state needs to improve its tax climate to be competitive with other states like Indiana or Wisconsin.
But should we listen?
Of course, even the Tax Foundation would probably agree that having a good “business tax climate” isn’t a goal in itself. Instead, a good climate is supposed to improve the state’s economy, and lead to more growth, more income, and more jobs.
You might think, then, that states with better “business tax climates” do better on those outcomes — the things we really care about.
Except they don’t.
What CTBA found (click here for charts) is that the Tax Foundation’s business climate scores “have only very marginal relationships to GDP per capita; growth in GDP per capita; median household income; growth in median household income; and growth in jobs.”
Of course, there’s another policy indicator that does track with a better economy. It’s per student spending on education.
But it will be hard to keep up spending on students if Illinois doesn’t have revenue because we cut taxes to have a better “tax climate” according to the Tax Foundation.
Leaders of Illinois’ public colleges and universities said Tuesday that their institutions can’t withstand further budget cuts and painted a picture of a system already badly damaged.
One president said the state’s higher-education system is approaching the equivalent of “junk-bond status.”
In a two-hour session, the university officials said they had eliminated thousands of positions, instituted furlough days, cut programs and now were assessing whether to undertake extraordinary measures, including eliminating instructional days and perhaps an entire college. […]
Southern Illinois President Randy Dunn said the university is reviewing whether to eliminate academic departments and possibly an entire college.
“If we have to go there, it will be significant and send a tectonic shock through southern Illinois,” he said. “… If you get away from the fiscal analysis, we have a public university system here in Illinois that in the higher education marketplace is just about to go to junk bond status.”
SIU President Randy Dunn on Wednesday said SIU cannot operate for another 20 months without state support “short of hollowing out” its core programs. […]
If Illinois does not pass a budget for another 20 months, Dunn said SIU would be forced to gouge the core of its campus programs, services, facilities and regional support projects through another round of budget cuts. He said “the lion’s share” of those reductions would be felt by the Carbondale campus and would go into effect before July 1.
This would come after a “pounding our regular operations have taken,” Dunn wrote in the column.
* Moody’s…
Moody’s has issued a short report (attached) noting the 21-month long budget impasse in the State of Illinois (rated Baa2/negative outlook) is continuing to have negative credit implications for the state’s public universities and community colleges through interrupted state funding for operations. The ongoing budget deadlock is increasingly forcing the state’s public universities to take considerable steps to continue operations and stem the tide of eroding unrestricted liquidity. The state’s community colleges have experienced similar, though less severe, operational and credit pressure.
In the past week, both Northeastern Illinois University (Ba2/negative) and Governors State University (Ba1/negative) announced significant steps to combat the continued absence of state funding for operations. Northeastern Illinois University announced it will eliminate 300 student employee positions and roughly 1,100 university employees will take an unpaid week off during the university’s spring break. The university has also continued hiring and spending freezes from the prior fiscal year. Governors State University announced steps that include the elimination of 22 academic programs and a 15% tuition increase for all undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs to take effect during the next academic year. In the last two years, the university has eliminated a total of 35 programs and it has cut 62 staff positions in 2016. Material programming reductions and staffing cuts, while necessary to keep the state’s public universities operational in the short-term, will further impair the universities’ abilities to sustain their strategic competitiveness and attract students for the upcoming fall 2017 class.
We believe the state’s public universities will likely take additional steps to mitigate budgetary and liquidity stress while continuing operations. While universities can pull a number of operational levers including academic program elimination, mandatory employee furloughs and reductions in force, these actions will further weaken the universities’ strategic positions. Illinois’ public universities are already coping with continued pressures on enrollment, operations and liquidity. Moreover the budget impasse has also left Illinois universities and colleges with far less MAP (Monetary Award Program) grants than anticipated for the state’s low income students.
The budget impasse has also taken a lesser toll on Illinois community colleges because property taxes are typically the largest revenue source for these schools, followed by tuition and state appropriations. Community college reserves have declined, but remain healthy for the community colleges that we rate. Illinois community colleges can also issue both short-term cash flow notes and long-term working cash bonds to boost liquidity. Despite advantages, many community colleges have made substantial cuts to expenditures or increased tuition to offset reduced state aid distributions that could hurt enrollment and long-term competitiveness. Community colleges also rely on the state for pension contributions, which is a longer term risk for the sector.
Finally, Illinois universities and community colleges remain exposed to demographic challenges that will suppress long-term demand for higher education in the state. Illinois will fare worse than its regional and national peers with decreasing numbers of high school students over the next 15 years, with high school graduates expected to be 14% lower in 2031-32 than 2016-17, compared to 3% lower nationally and 7% lower regionally. Illinois is already a net exporter of high school graduates with net out migration of nearly 17,000 students in fall 2014, the second highest of any state in the country. These demographic challenges add further pressure to the state’s universities, limiting their ability to grow student related revenues to mitigate the impact of state-level issues.
The governor said he didn’t agree with the ruling but would “honor” it. But later Wednesday afternoon, his administration appealed the court order. Mendoza’s office, however, says the state’s Department of Central Management Services re-submitted vouchers for 578 employees affected by the dispute, and they’d get paychecks on Friday. The comptroller’s office says the vouchers were submitted during a “brief window” between the governor saying he’d abide by the ruling and the appeal.
“We submitted the payroll per her request but are appealing because we are going to continue fighting Comptroller Mendoza’s push to cripple state government operations — part of the coordinated effort to shut down state government,” Rauner spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said in a statement.
The governor said Mendoza is working to “deplete those funds” to create a crisis by forcing a shutdown to get a “stopgap budget” or to get a tax hike without structural changes.
It takes a certain level of audacity to kick political opponents in the teeth the night they lose an election.
But that’s what Democratic Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza did on Nov. 8, 2016, and her aggressive, in-your-face approach hasn’t calmed in the months since. She ran promising to be an independent comptroller. But in less than four months, she has become in Springfield the most intensely partisan critic of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. She demands no such accountability of her fellow Democrats who have held majorities in the General Assembly for 15 years.
Mendoza beat Republican Leslie Munger, who was appointed to complete the term of the late Judy Baar Topinka. Traditionally a low-profile office, the comptroller is the state’s bookkeeper. The Illinois Constitution assigns the comptroller two primary duties: take in the bills and pay them.
Mendoza is no circumspect bookkeeper.
Since election night, she has blamed Rauner for all of state government’s dysfunction.
Standard & Poor’s surveyed pension obligations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, San Antonio, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Dallas, Houston, Columbus, Indianapolis and Austin.
Chicago performed the worst across the board — registering the highest annual debt, pension post-employment benefits costs as a percentage of governmental expenditures and the highest debt and pension liability per capita.
The burden in Chicago is $12,427-per-person, double New York city’s $6,115-per-person.
Chicago also had the lowest weighted pension fund ratio, the worst pension contribution vs. required level and the lowest funded return for a single fund.
That dubious distinction went to the Chicago Police Annuity and Benefit Fund, which had assets to cover just 25 percent of its liabilities in fiscal 2015, down from 26 percent the year before.
In response to recent local acts of anti-Semitism and reports of increased hate crimes nationwide, Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday will announce a multipronged effort to boost the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes through stronger laws and better education.
Rauner will detail his four-point plan at a downtown dinner benefiting the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, according to his office. He tapped the state director of public safety and the secretary of education to help carry out the proposal.
* Press release last night…
Governor Bruce Rauner announced today at the Illinois Holocaust Museum Humanitarian Awards dinner a number of steps the administration is taking to combat hate crimes and growing anti-Semitism in Illinois.
“We cannot stay silent on hate. We cannot stay silent when families in our community are in danger. The promise of ‘Never Again’ requires us to take action,” Governor Rauner said. “Illinois is a leader in standing up to hate crimes and anti-Semitism, but we can and must do more.
In a memo to Illinois Director of Public Safety Rodger Heaton and Secretary of Education Beth Purvis, the Governor outlined a number of objectives to protect minority communities from hate and violence. Those objectives are:
· Strengthening Illinois’ Hate Crime Law
The Illinois Holocaust and Genocide has proposed legislation to increase penalties for acts of vandalism against houses of worship and religious centers. The administration is working with the bill’s sponsors on HB 2390, and the governor will sign the agreed bill when it reaches his desk.
· Improve Law Enforcement Training and Response on Hate Crimes
In conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League, the Illinois State Police (ISP) and the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, the administration will develop a statewide standardized training plan for state troopers and local police departments. Illinois will also strengthen its partnerships with the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation to protect religious minority institutions across the state.
· Expand Anti-Hate Education in Schools
Illinois was the first state in the country to require students learn about the Holocaust as part of their curriculum. The administration will work with Illinois State Board of Education to create a dedicated portal to anti-hate education in support the state’s requirement to educate our students about the Holocaust.
· Strengthen Illinois’ Landmark anti-BDS Law
Illinois was also the first state in the country to pass legislation to fight the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement by restricting state pension funds from investing in countries that boycott Israel. Other states followed Illinois’ lead, but went a step farther in prohibiting state contracts with companies that boycott Israel. The administration will work with the General Assembly to strengthen Illinois’ landmark by prohibiting state contracts for companies that boycott Israel.
“In a time of rising hate crimes and anti-Semitism, we need to remember that America is the flagbearer for freedom of religion,” Governor Rauner added. “We should do everything we can to prosecute those who look to incite hate and violence against others because of their religion.”
* Another press release last night…
Attorney General Lisa Madigan today sent a letter to Governor Rauner calling on him to restore the state’s Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes to combat a troubling increase in hate crimes.
In her letter, Madigan urged the governor to immediately appoint a diverse group of individuals to fill the 20 vacant positions on the Commission due to the pressing need to have a fully functioning commission to combat increasing reports of hate crimes, that include recent bomb threats, against people in Illinois.
“Appointing members to this commission is a critical responsibility that the governor has ignored for too long,” Madigan said. “We must bring Illinois’ vibrant and diverse community of leaders and advocates together to help combat growing hate and discrimination in our communities.”
Madigan sent her letter after convening a recent summit with Illinois civil rights leaders for communities of color, women, people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, Muslims, Jews and Christians on hate crimes. Leaders at the summit detailed increasing experiences of hate and discrimination and voiced their need to have an active and engaged Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes fulfill its mandate to coordinate statewide efforts to combat these unlawful acts.
Data from the Chicago Police Department shows that hate crimes reached a five-year high in 2016 and are outpacing that level in 2017, according to reports. In addition, the Southern Law Poverty Center reported over nearly 1,100 hate incidents nationally in the month after last fall’s election. Just this week, a new wave of bomb threats was made against Jewish Community Centers in Illinois and across the county.
…Adding… The hate crimes commission has been plagued for years with division. Remember this from 2006?…
Five Jewish members of Illinois’ hate-crimes commission have resigned in protest over another commissioner who is an official with the Nation of Islam. Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, rails against Jewish and gay people this week in front of commissioners. Chicago Public Radio’s Catrin Einhorn reports.
And from a pal…
I’m trying to find Lisa Madigan’s letters to Pat Quinn asking him to fill the hate crimes commission for the six years it sat empty under him.
Can’t seem to locate them. Curious.
* Related…
* Sneed: Rauner opens up on religion in launching hate-crimes plan
Gov. Rauner's campaign is surveying his email list: "What issues are important to you?" I guess "passing a budget" falls under "other." pic.twitter.com/aOs4fRooxM
The hole in Illinois’ general funds budget deepened to $9.6 billion in fiscal 2016, an increase of $2.7 billion from the previous year and the biggest deficit in at least 10 years, according to the state’s annual audit released on Tuesday.
As a 20-month impasse over the budget continues between Illinois’ Republican governor and Democrats who control the legislature, the state’s finances are in a freefall.
While the fiscal year that ended on June 30 marked the 15th straight year the state budget ended in the red, the deficit has grown 43 percent just since fiscal 2014. The fiscal 2016 gap surpassed a $9.1 billion deficit reached in fiscal 2012.
Illinois, the only state to lack a complete budget for two consecutive fiscal years, is operating on court-ordered spending for healthcare, social services and payroll, as well as ongoing appropriations covering pensions and debt service on bonds. A massive bill package to end the stalemate is on hold in the state Senate.
A few things about those highlighted passages above.
Today I veto House Bill 4146 from the 99th General Assembly in order to protect Illinois taxpayers from an unbalanced and therefore unconstitutional budget.
The Speaker of the House and President of the Senate have admitted that the General Assembly’s budget is unbalanced. The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget concurs, calculating that this budget is nearly $4 billion out of balance.
Instead, the state ended up in a $9.6 billion hole. GOMB later revised its estimate of how much the Democrats’ budget was unbalanced, but, man, what a disaster this is.
* Second, when Gov. Rauner says he can’t find a balanced budget in recent history, he’s not stretching the truth. Fifteen years of spending not matching revenues. Whew. What a mess.
* Third, that previous record deficit peak forced a state income tax hike. And then it expired. And now here we are.
The Illinois Science and Technology Coalition (ISTC) today released new data showing record growth in entrepreneurial activity at the state’s universities as part of its Illinois Innovation Index, which reports on the key metrics of the state’s innovation economy.
The report found that during the past five academic years, students and faculty at Illinois universities created 804 startups through technology licensing, entrepreneurship programs, competitions and other university initiatives, according to the self-reported data.
Just imagine what those numbers could be with a higher education system that isn’t constantly worried about day to day survival during a long governmental impasse.
• Illinois universities produced more than 800 startups from 2012 to 2016, nearly 100 percent more than 2009–13, the first period measured by this survey.
• Approximately 76 percent of startups founded from 2012 to 2016 are still active or were acquired, and 81 percent of those, nearly 500 companies, remain in Illinois—the highest level recorded since the survey began.
• Capital raised by university startups also surged in 2016, with nearly $630 million in funding raised from 2012 to 2016 compared with $345 million from 2011 to 2015. Of the companies that were founded in Illinois and received funding, almost 8 in 10 are still in Illinois.
• The national I-Corps program, which continues to grow in Illinois, is catalyzing the formation of startups and connecting them to vital early- stage funding. I-Corps startups are more than seven times more likely to receive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding than other startups.
• Illinois universities are leaders nationally in several tech transfer metrics such as disclosures and patents, but growth in these areas has lagged behind the national average in recent years.
• New data provided by PitchBook shows that alumni from Illinois universities started more than 1,100 companies and raised more than $9 billion in funding over the past five years. Alumni founders came from diverse fields, with no one field accounting for more than 10 percent of all founders.
* Back to the press release…
University of Illinois President Tim Killeen, who also serves as chairman of the ISTC Board of Directors, said the findings reinforce the critical role that universities play as engines of progress.
“Our universities are incubators of the breakthrough discovery and entrepreneurial spirit that combine to create the new businesses and jobs of tomorrow,” Killeen said. “I am proud of the ongoing gains reflected in this year’s Innovation Index and the collective commitment our universities share to build on that momentum to move Illinois forward.”
The increase in startup activity during the last five years can be attributed to significant university efforts to increase and better align the resources available to student and faculty entrepreneurs across campus. These resources include courses, programming, competitions, mentorship and seed funding delivered through centralized university entrepreneurship centers and technology parks.
One such resource that has grown recently is the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program, which is facilitated through several Illinois universities. The program aims to help entrepreneurs commercialize their innovations by validating commercial opportunities, providing business training and fostering connections to private partnerships and additional funding.
Angry about the prospect of losing 13 school days at the end of the year and the fact that a long-term funding for city schools remains elusive, the Chicago Teachers Union intends to ask its governing delegates to consider a single-day strike on May 1.
“We’re very much thinking about how we put pressure on the state and local governments to fund schools,” CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said. “For us, everyone isolated in their own living room feeling bad about it, being laid off one day at a time, is much less effective than all of us together out in the street showing our unity with a clear message about the revenue funding our schools.”
The CTU has lodged complaints about losing four training days already in unpaid furloughs, and now its leaders have set an agenda item for Wednesday’s House of Delegates meeting to open a discussion into a strike on May 1, International Labor Day. A final vote on whether to have a one-day strike would be expected in April.
The agenda item on the House of Delegates meeting for Wednesday night reads “Resolved that the CTU delegates will conduct discussions and hold meetings in their workplaces about a May 1st strike for revenue in solidarity with labor and immigrants, with the aim of taking a vote in the regular April 5th House of Delegates meeting on whether or not to recommend a one-day strike to the CTU membership.”
On the “bright” side, maybe this can save enough money so CPS can ditch a June furlough day.
Pension costs for state government workers reached an all-time high in 2016, consuming 25 percent of the state’s general budget. Today, more than $8 billion of the state’s yearly $32 billion budget goes to pay for pension costs, sapping tremendous amounts of money from social services for the developmentally disabled, grants for low-income college students, and aid to home health care workers.
A large portion of those costs are driven by major factors that push up pension benefits: early retirements, generous cost-of-living adjustments, and limited employee contributions. But there are other pension perks that contribute to the unsustainable growth in pensions. Government workers’ ability to roll over and accumulate unpaid sick leave is one of those perks. Teachers and other members of the Teachers’ Retirement System, or TRS, are one group of workers in Illinois who benefit from unpaid sick-leave accumulation. Under current pension rules, teachers can accumulate up to two years of unpaid sick leave. Upon retirement, that sick leave is applied to teachers’ years of service, which in turn boosts their pension benefits.
In total, over 73,000 retired teachers and other school workers are taking advantage of this perk, which will cost taxpayers nearly $3.4 billion over the next three decades.
The sick-leave perk can boost retirees’ pension benefits significantly. Over 6,800 TRS retirees will receive over $100,000 in additional pension benefits, and the top 10 beneficiaries of the sick-leave perk will see their lifetime pension benefits boosted by $350,000 or more.
While sick leave is necessary for working teachers, letting unpaid sick leave accumulate for the purpose of boosting pensions is an expensive perk that taxpayers cannot afford.
To see how it works, take a look at benefits for a 60-year-old educator with 32 years of experience and a $98,000 final average salary.
Without the sick leave boost, the retiree would receive $68,992 as a starting pension, or 70.4 percent of the final average salary, the institute calculated.
With two years of sick leave credit, the starting pension would be $73,304, or 74.8 percent of the final average salary.
However, if the sick leave perk was eliminated, the educator would likely continue to work two more years to maximize retirement benefits, teacher union officials believe.
Using the same 2 percent annual raise assumed in the report, that educator would now retire at 62 with a final average salary of $102,000 and a starting pension of $76,296. Because the salary is higher, the taxpayer-funded employer contribution also is higher. […]
“If you get them to retire two years earlier, you can replace them with lower-costing new hires,” said Larry Frank, director of research at the Illinois Education Association, one of the state’s main teacher unions. “And if they can accrue the sick leave, (taxpayers) don’t have to pay two years’ worth of substitutes.”
“This is clearly part of a coordinated activity, coordinated pattern between the attorney general, our comptroller and, frankly, our speaker, who coordinates it all, to create a crisis and shut down state government,” Rauner said Wednesday.
We’ve been able to head off Comptroller Mendoza on a number of things she’s tried to change or funding that she’s tried to cut off. We’ve called her out on it and exposed it and pressure through the press and others have had her back down on a few things she’s tried.
I asked the administration an hour ago for a list of the things they’ve stopped. I’ll let you know if there’s a response.
This one is tough, she’s doing it in the court. And we lost in court. Our state judges are, you know, sometimes part of the problem.
* Rauner was asked about that comment today and said…
Well, today I’m not going to talk more about our state judicial system. We’ll save that for another day.
OK, but the judge who ordered the state to continue paying all its employees during the impasse, a ruling Rauner supported, is the same guy who just ruled in favor of Mendoza.
Why did the attorney general do this now, when the Senate was getting close to a grand bargain?
That argument was much better when AG Madigan filed her initial lawsuit in St. Clair County back in January. Today? Not so much. The grand bargain is a train wreck at the moment.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From Maura Possley at Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office…
The Governor is clearly desperate to shift blame onto anyone but himself. He needs to stop the baseless finger-pointing and do his job.
*** UPDATE 2 *** From Comptroller Mendoza…
The only person who’s goal it is to shut down state government is Governor Bruce Rauner. In March of 2013 HE stated that if he could have a “do-over” and shut down state government, he would.
Today, on International Women’s Day, Gov. Rauner accused me of taking my orders from the boys. There’s only one person that tells me what to do and that’s my mother. And today I honor her by continuing to stand up to him, the biggest bully in the state.
Despite his best efforts to use state employees as political pawns, I beat his attempt to short employee paychecks. They will be paid on time and in full.
I would ask Gov. Rauner to please take off the tinfoil conspiracy theory hat, stop criticizing judges and insulting employees’ intelligence. He should instead focus his energies on fulfilling his constitutional duty to propose a balanced budget for legislators to consider.
“This is just more delusional babble that seems to be happening with more regularity,” [Madigan spokesman Steve Brown] said. “I don’t know whether that suggests some bigger problems in the Rauner administration or what, but it’s clearly delusional babble.”
Chance is right. This is a wildly complicated mess years in the making. And you have Democrats and Republicans dug in deep, shaking heads and pointing fingers. And you have a stalemate.
And in the weeds of this financial nightmare are the children of Chicago, and they’re being overlooked by politicians and union leaders and all manner of adults who refuse to budge.
And the whole (expletive) thing is embarrassing.
Maybe the missing ingredient was a guy like Chance, a celebrity with the money to put some skin in the game and a voice loud enough to say to our political leaders: “What on Earth are you doing?”
* If you click here, you’ll see two budget proposal outlines. The first column is the Senate Republicans’ plan, the second is the Senate Democrats’ plan.
Now scroll down and you’ll see this. Remember, the SGOP proposal is on the left and the Senate Democrats’ proposal is on the right…
As you can see, the Senate Democrats want about $800 million in unspecified cuts to operations, grants and undefined whatevers, while the Republicans want “only” about $600 million in unspecified cuts.
* As we’ve already discussed, the governor said this yesterday…
“From what I’ve been told, based on what’s in the package so far, they don’t make any real spending cuts,” Rauner said. “So the budget’s not balanced. That’s one challenge. I’ve said please try to get that done - that’s pretty critical.”
There are some cuts in the Senate proposals, but there’s also a whole lot of what could be described as magic dust.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan today urged members of the Illinois Senate’s Criminal Law Committee to pass legislation to eliminate the statutes of limitations for felony criminal sexual assault and sexual abuse crimes against children.
Madigan testified today before the Senate Criminal Law Committee in support of Senate Bill 189 to eliminate Illinois’ statutes of limitations that can allow child predators to go unpunished. Joining Madigan in testifying was Scott Cross, a survivor, Sen. Scott Bennett, the bill’s sponsor, and St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly.
The bill passed unanimously and heads to the full Senate for consideration.
“Children who suffer sexual assault and abuse often spend a lifetime trying to recover from the violations they have experienced,” Madigan said. “There should be no limitation on the pursuit of justice for felony sex crimes committed against children. We must ensure survivors are able to come forward in their own time and receive the support they need and deserve.”
“Dennis Hastert inflicted unbelievable pain on the lives of the youth he was entrusted to care for, yet he got a slap on the wrist,” Scott Cross said. “As a teacher and coach, Hastert silenced his victims through the power he had over them. As he ascended to political power and seemingly became untouchable, the pain and suffering of survivors got buried. He had the power, prestige and law on his side. As hard as it is to talk about the events of the past, the laws in Illinois - and across the country - have to change.”
“As a former prosecutor, I have witnessed firsthand the devastating physical and emotional impacts of child sex crimes. It is because of these experiences that I believe we must have the ability to prosecute the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes whenever the survivors come forward – even if that is years after the crime,” Bennett said.
“There is no time limit for the pain and trauma endured by child victims of sex assault, and there should be no time limit for our ability to reach just for them,” Brendan Kelly said.
As more child survivors of abuse and sexual assault have come forward to describe the difficult process that they have endured in reporting, states across the country have eliminated statutes of limitations for these crimes. Nationwide, 36 other states and the federal government have removed criminal statutes of limitations for some or all sexual offenses against children.
Currently no statutes of limitations exist in Illinois for murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, arson, treason, forgery or the production of child pornography. Under current state law, the most egregious sexual offenses against children must be reported and prosecuted within 20 years of the survivor turning 18 years old. Two exceptions include cases in which the crimes were committed on or after Jan. 1, 2014 and either corroborating physical evidence exists or a mandated reporter failed to report the abuse.
“When I was abused, I knew exactly what was happening. As a young man, the challenge that you deal with and the suffering, the pain and torture, I still deal with that almost 38 years later,” Cross, now a banker in Wheaton, told committee members. “It’s not something you talked about. You didn’t do anything about it. It was an awful situation.
“I’m here today because I’m trying to move forward and have other voices move forward, that it’s OK, don’t keep that silence.” […]
“There’s no good reason to provide a legal loophole to protect sexual predators from prosecution,” he said. “The Illinois General Assembly should provide sexual predators no safe harbor under the law based on arbitrary deadlines established by the stroke of a pen.
“It should offend everyone’s faith in the judicial system that Illinois’ laws today would still allow child molesters to avoid prosecution for heinous acts of sexual abuse because survivors didn’t come forward in time. It took me 36-plus years to come forward.”
On average, Cross said, it takes a victim 42 years “before they’re able to deal with this.”
“With children, it won’t come as any surprise, that it is almost always somebody in a position of trust because that’s how they’re able to develop that relationship,” said the Attorney General. Cross explained by saying, “And that’s why you don’t say anything. You remain silent. You know these people too well and it becomes - it’s my word against his, and you’re so, so hesitant to speak out to anybody because of the trust factor.”
Cross says he’s trying to move forward with his life, but it hasn’t been an easy journey. “The guilt that you have about not being able to stop it back then in 1979, and here it’s 2017 and we’re talking about it today,” said Cross.
SB 189 passed unanimously in the committee on Tuesday and now heads to the full senate.
Right now, there are 36 states that do not have statutes of limitations on child sex crimes.
Assuming the union has authorized a strike; such striking employees are not subject to being fired for striking. The Illinois Public Labor Relations Act gives most public employees the right to strike and prohibits retaliation against employees who elect to withhold their services. However, replacement workers can be hired to maintain services during a strike, and if the strike is over economic issues such as wages or health insurance, such replacement workers may be permanent. In such circumstances, striking workers would have preferential rights to vacancies, but only if such vacancies occur.
The administration will argue an AFSCME strike is over economic issues such as wages and health insurance costs. AFSCME, though, says a strike, should one occur, would be over the administration’s refusal to continue bargaining on a new contract, which would put it under unfair labor practices by the administration.
“I don’t see how there can be any question over the fact that we’re striking over the fact (Rauner) won’t come back to the bargaining table. He won’t negotiate,” [AFSCME deputy director Michael Newman] said.
[Michael LeRoy, a labor law expert at the U of I in Urbana] said it would ultimately be up to the courts to decide if a strike was over economic issues or unfair labor practices.
“All of these judgments are made after the fact,” he said. “What happens if you are unemployed for five years while the courts are figuring this out?”
Gov. Bruce Rauner said Tuesday that Senate Democrats must make “real spending cuts” in their proposed budget compromise, just hours before his agency directors refused to offer suggestions for reductions when asked by Senate committees. […]
“From what I’ve been told, based on what’s in the package so far, they don’t make any real spending cuts,” Rauner said. “So the budget’s not balanced. That’s one challenge. I’ve said please try to get that done - that’s pretty critical.” […]
But some of Rauner’s Cabinet members would not cooperate later Tuesday when Democratic-controlled Senate committees asked for suggested spending reductions. The committees invited the heads of various agencies administering education, human services, juvenile justice, public health and more to say what programs and services they’re ready to cut if the Republican governor won’t support the grand bargain.
“Our hands are tied. We do not know where to go,” Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant of Shorewood, the Education Committee chairwoman, told State School Superintendent Tony Smith.
Smith pledged cooperation but declined to answer specific questions on the orders of James Meeks, the chairman of the State Board of Education.
At one of several similar hearings, state Senator Patricia Van Pelt of Chicago grilled Public Health director Nirav Shah. She asked if he could suggest cuts to help make up the shortfall, but Shah declined.
VAN PELT: “So are you saying you can’t cut? I’m asking you for one cut. Can you give me one cut?”
SHAH: “I’m not prepared to discuss any. It is worth noting that our proposed budget, as it stands, does contain several budgetary reductions.”
Shah went on to outline about $3.8 million dollars in cuts, a tiny fraction of the deficit. Rauner says he could support the grand bargain if it was a “good deal for taxpayers.” But Democrats say they’ve already negotiated away as much as they can.
Wednesday, Mar 8, 2017 - Posted by Advertising Department
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I want to thank Judge Robert LeChien for his ruling late Tuesday night affirming the authority of the Illinois Comptroller’s Office under the constitution to pay the state’s bills from the most appropriate funds. This is an important victory reinforcing my office’s role as a check and balance on an over-reaching governor.
Because of Governor Rauner’s failure to meet his constitutional responsibility to propose a balanced budget, we’re carefully managing increasingly scarce resources. That means prioritizing funding for State employee salaries and those who need it the most in our State, especially seniors, people who need medical care, and children.
For years, state maintenance and garage workers were paid from the facilities maintenance and garage funds. The legislature voted to appropriate money from those funds and The Governor signed that appropriation. But then The Governor began stashing cash in the garage and facilities maintenance funds, which he began referring to as “Government Shutdown Prevention Funds” and demanded our office raid the General Revenue Fund to pay those employees.
Pulling from the GRF makes no fiscal sense and it would mean healthcare workers, caretakers for the disabled, and mental health counselors who’ve waited months to get paid, would needlessly have to wait longer.
Those garage and facilities maintenance funds are $93 million in the black. The General Revenue Fund is $12 billion in the hole thanks to The Governor’s failure to propose a balanced budget for three years. The Governor’s demand to take money out of the overdrawn fund instead of the fund the Legislature appropriated it from is part of a public relations hoax he designed to scare state employees. State employees can see what he’s up to.
Judge LeChien ruled that The Comptroller has the discretion to require CMS to use the appropriated funds to pay their employees. We eagerly await CMS resubmitting their vouchers in compliance with the judge’s order so that they do not delay their employees getting paid. If Governor Rauner refuses to resubmit the vouchers, state employees can take that as further proof that his goal all along has been to build up his self-proclaimed “government shutdown prevention funds” at the expense of hard-working state employees’ paychecks.
I hope Governor Rauner takes his loss in court as a teachable moment. Instead of trying to sabotage perceived rivals and waste taxpayers’ money, he should focus on the one and only way out of Illinois’ financial crisis: A balanced budget.
First Governor Rauner killed the Senate’s ‘Grand Bargain,’ and now it looks like he’s orchestrating a government shutdown and socking money away that has been used by the previous Comptroller for payroll. While he talks publicly about collaboration, it’s a siege mentality that’s guiding his actions.
His most recent shenanigans are another attempt to distract from the financial devastation he has wrought on the state through a failure in leadership. If you did not already have enough proof, please refer to the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report our Office released today.
*** UPDATE *** AG Madigan’s legal filing is here [Fixed link- again]. From that filing…
Plaintiffs’ sole legal theory upon which the preliminary injunction rests is that the failure to appropriate funds sufficient to pay employees the amounts required by their CBAs, or the tolling agreements they entered into after those CBAs expired, constitutes an impairment of contract in violation of the Contract Clause of the Illinois Constitution. But in State v. AFSCME, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the failure to appropriate money could not impair the obligation of contract because the CBAs were always subject to appropriation, and the appropriation power rests solely with the General Assembly.
In denying the People’s motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction, the circuit court distinguished State v. AFSCME on the ground that the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision was limited to an assertion of rights under multi-year CBAs governed by the Public Labor Relations Act, and that plaintiffs here seek to enforce rights under their tolling agreements. The circuit court’s analysis, however, completely ignores the Illinois Supreme Court’s principal rationale based on the Appropriations Clause “([W]e hold that the arbitration award violates Illinois public policy, as reflected in the appropriations clause of the Illinois Constitution, and section 21 of the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act,)” and miscomprehends the nature of the tolling agreements, which did nothing more than continue the parties’ rights under the CBAs, which by their terms were subject to appropriation, S.R. 169.
And here’s a statement from AG Madigan’s office…
There is no legal basis for the St. Clair County order, and it has allowed the Governor and the Legislature to continue to avoid the difficult decisions required of them to enact a budget. As a result, serious and irreparable damage has been done to the state and its universities, students, social service providers, nonprofit organizations and companies that provide goods and services to the state. Illinois now has no spending plan in place, and no transparent process for the billions of dollars that are being spent through the court’s order.
We are now asking the Illinois Supreme Court to review this case immediately and require the Governor and the Legislature to follow the law and fulfill their constitutional duties to enact a budget.
Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan on Wednesday plans to ask the Illinois Supreme Court to take up an appeal of a state worker paycheck case after a Downstate judge sided with Republican Gov. Rauner last month.
* Press release…
The Rauner Administration released the following statement following the Attorney General’s extraordinary motion to stop state employee pay. The following is attributable to Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly:
“Today’s extraordinary action by the Attorney General coupled with Comptroller Mendoza’s effort to stop paying nearly 600 employees makes clear there is a coordinated effort on the part of Democrat insiders in Springfield to force a government shutdown.”
“The Madigan Family’s unannounced filing is an obvious and disturbing effort to force a government shutdown and cause a statewide crisis. Lisa Madigan’s shameless motion to block state employee pay is intended to protect the broken system the Madigans’ control from those who believe it’s time for change.” – Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
Last night, Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a motion to the Illinois Supreme Court to block all state employee pay. Madigan’s unwarranted action threatens to shut down state government, putting the vulnerable at risk.
Today the Illinois Republican Party released a new ad – “Family First” – calling out the Madigan Family for putting themselves ahead of taxpayers, state employees, and vulnerable people who rely on state services.
Mike and Lisa Madigan have worked behind the scenes to destroy Illinois for decades. The Illinois Republican Party is committed to shining a light on their corrupt, insider tactics.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Tuesday said he’s worried Illinois “won’t do very well” if the proposed U.S. House Republican Obamacare replacement plan becomes law.
The governor’s comments were his first since congressional Republicans unveiled their changes Monday. The plan would cut federal funding to Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled paid for with state and federal dollars.
In Illinois, about 3 million, or 1 of every 4, residents are on Medicaid, including about 650,000 people insured under Medicaid expansion. The state is getting an estimated $14.1 billion in federal money this year to support traditional Medicaid and Medicaid expansion.
The House GOP plan would switch state reimbursement from a federal match to a limited amount of money, blowing a big hole in a state budget that’s already severely out of whack amid a record impasse in Springfield.
Rauner referred to the proposal as “a pretty significant shift” but said he hadn’t had a chance to “analyze every piece” of the legislation.
The annual consumer complaints report released Monday by Attorney General Lisa Madigan confirmed a trend among some Illinois consumers who still do not know how to protect themselves from consumer debt and identity-theft crimes.
With 2,783 complaints out of the nearly 24,000 received in 2016, consumer debt complaints including mortgages, collection agencies and banks took the first spot of the list; that group of complaints has remained on top since 2008.
Identity theft occupied the second place for the ninth consecutive year, with 2,391 complaints.
Education-related complaints occupy spot number six — one higher than last year — with 1,691 complaints.
* The full top ten list with the number of complaints…
1. Consumer Debt (mortgages, collection agencies, banks) - 2,783
2. Identity Theft (government document fraud, credit cards, utilities, data breaches) - 2,391
3. Promotions/Schemes (phone scams, investment schemes, lottery scams, phishing) - 2,387
4. Construction/Home Improvement (remodeling, roofs and gutters, heating and cooling, plumbing) - 2,094
5. Telecommunications (telemarketing, cable and satellite TV, phone service and repairs, cell phones) - 1,851
6. Education (for-profit schools, student loan debt, loan counseling) - 1,691
7. Used Auto Sales/Motor Vehicles (as-is used cars, financing, warranties) - 1,648
8. Internet/Mail Order Products (Internet and catalog purchases, TV and radio advertising) - 955
9. Motor Vehicle/Non-Warranty Repair (collision, engines, oil changes and tune-ups) - 677
10. New Auto Sales/Motor Vehicles (financing, defects, advertising) - 668
* The Question: What’s your biggest complaint these days?
The teacher pension crisis that threatens to end the Chicago Public school year three weeks early on Tuesday caused yet another major break in the once-close friendship between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Emanuel branded Rauner the “emperor who wears no clothes.” Rauner’s spokesperson fired back that the 5 foot-8-inch mayor of Chicago sounds like someone who has a “Napoleon complex.” […]
“In the last 48 hours, everybody has come to the conclusion that the emperor wears no clothes. The governor. There’s nobody else [he can blame]. He can’t blame Mike Madigan. He can’t blame John Cullerton and the Grand Bargain. He can’t blame me. He can’t blame Chance. And…everybody’s now seen what he stands for,” the mayor said after a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a new riverfront office building.
“We’ve gone three years without a governor who has introduced a [balanced] budget. Governor’s State now is cutting 22 academic programs. Kids from the state of Illinois are leaving the state to go to college when we used to be a net gain. Ounce of Prevention and other social service agencies are suing the state. More people are leaving our state…and this is all under his tenure.” […]
“Sounds like someone has a Napoleon complex,” said the governor’s spokesperson Eleni Demertzis. […]
“The emperor wears no clothes. Gov. Edgar gave him recommendations. Gov. Ryan gave him recommendations. I have given him recommendations. Everybody has tried to give him advice. Everybody walks out with the same thing, including Chance the Rapper. Just do your job,” the mayor said.
Among the eight other participants, whose names the BGA obtained either from a sign-in sheet or when they introduced themselves to the others in the room: a Cook County judge, one of Brown’s neighbors and two individuals with apparent ties to Brown’s office - a man named Christopher Hodges and a woman named Zoe Neely.
A Christopher Hodges has worked in the clerk’s office since 2004 and is a manager making $56,000 a year, according to 2016 payroll records. A Facebook profile page that identifies Hodges as an employee of Brown’s office has a photo of the same man who attended the seminar. The Facebook page also states Hodges is a “servant” at Brown’s church, King of Glory Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, on Chicago’s South Side.
Neely is identified on LinkedIn as Zalita Zoe Neely. Her mother is Madina Neely, who has been employed in the clerk’s office since 2008 and has worked as Brown’s scheduler, according to sources. According to payroll records, Madina Neely was an office assistant in 2015 making $37,000 a year but last year made $63,000 as a manager.
None of them could be reached for comment. Brown’s spokeswoman Jalyne Strong declined to answer questions about their employment or on the seminar as a whole. […]
Brown talked about the basics of running a campaign, including how to set up an organizing committee and file petitions, as well as how to shake hands and dress appropriately.
“You definitely do not go to the store with rollers in your head and a scarf on your head if you’re a woman,” she said. “You want to always dress up, even on Saturdays.”
She recommended ways to get involved in the community and meet people, particularly emphasizing churches as a good starting place to gain supporters and spread your message. She said candidates should start attending services first once a month and then more frequently as the election approaches, eventually every Sunday. […]
Brown also warned people of sabotage on several occasions, saying volunteers or other members of your political campaign could be working for or bought out by an opponent. Even printing companies can be “political,” Brown said, claiming that one time a printing firm printed the wrong address on petitions, which could have gotten her thrown off the ballot if she hadn’t caught the error.
“It’s a dirty game,” she said. “It can either lift you up or tear you down.”
The BGA reporter paid for the training with a credit card via PayPal and the fees appear to go to a company called “Candidates360,” although there is no business registered by that name with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office or the Cook County Clerk’s Office. […]
“You don’t want to go on camera if there’s something negative,” Brown said. “You stick your press spokesperson out there for the negative things.”
Overall base revenues fell $423 million in February. Like a broken record, monthly declines reflected weaker income taxes along with poor federal sources. Unfortunately, February’s lackluster performance was widespread with only a couple sources managing to show gains. One less receipting day likely contributed to the decline, though certainly not the primary culprit. […]
To date, gross corporate income taxes are off $482 million, or $422 million net of refunds. Gross personal income tax is down $375 million, or $456 million if refunds and diversions to the education and human service funds are included. Public utility taxes are down $67 million, in part due to a one-time accounting change at IDoR. The highly volatile inheritance tax is down $58 million. Vehicle use tax is behind $3 million, while cigarette tax is off $2 million. […]
To repeat comments from previous briefings, with continued dramatic falloffs month after month in federal sources, receipts are behind last year’s dismal pace by $565 million. Absent an infusion of resources that could be committed to reimbursable spending, the outlook for a meaningful recovery for federal sources remains grim.
After declaring his talks with Gov. Bruce Rauner accomplished nothing, Chance the Rapper donated $1 million to Chicago Public Schools on Monday — wowing his large fan base and creating an epic public relations nightmare for the Republican governor.
Chance, whose combined Instagram and Twitter following tops 7 million people, ripped into the governor after meeting with him on Friday. […]
Later Monday, Rauner’s office noted that he and his wife had donated some $7 million to Chicago schools in the past.
“While the Rauners are passionate donors to our schools, individual contributions will never be enough to address the financial challenges facing CPS,” Rauner spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said in a statement. “It would be helpful if CPS officials came to Springfield and joined in serious good faith discussions about the long-term stability of all of our schools.”
While I totally agree that CPS ought to be doing a whole lot more to help pass some of this stuff, bigfooting a young rapper with money donated over 20 years is a bit much.
* Meanwhile, the governor said again today (click here) that Chicago should either bail out its own schools temporarily with a one-time infusion of TIF money (ironically enough, a position shared by the Chicago Teachers Union) or the pension reform proposal tied to that $215 million for CPS should be separated from the grand bargain and passed right away.
* In other developments, the Sun-Times went out of its way today to suggest that Chance was somehow being controlled by the powers that be. But scroll way down into the story and you’ll finally see the denials…
Top mayoral aides insisted Monday that Emanuel had nothing to do with Chance’s decision to go toe-to-toe with Rauner. Emanuel even tried to reach out to Chance over the weekend to coordinate with the music superstar, only to be ignored.
The mayor did manage to reach Ken Bennett, only to be told that Chance was not interested in coordinating with Emanuel.
“The mayor likes to be in control of everything. He has his own plan to save CPS and this is not part of it. But, Chance is his own man. He’s trying to solve this himself. Ken is not involved,” said a mayoral confidante, who asked to remain anonymous… “We’re not behind it at all and neither is Ken Bennett,” the aide said.
Chance’s aggressive advocacy of Chicago public schoolchildren seemed to throw the governor off his game as there was no immediate way to blame his involvement on House Speaker Mike Madigan, Rauner’s usual all-purpose foil.
Exactly. So, instead, tie him to Rahm - the second most unpopular Democrat in Illinois.
Remember, it was Gov. Rauner who reached out to Chance with that congratulatory tweet on Grammy night. It was Rauner who agreed to a sitdown with the guy. It was Rauner who exchanged private phone numbers with him last Friday and then talked again to Chance over the weekend. This wasn’t some scheme hatched at the Grammy’s to entrap the governor. The governor did this on his own.
With no relief in sight, Illinois’ finances deteriorated at an alarming rate in fiscal year 2016 as net deficit totals spiked to a staggering $126.7 billion, according to an annual report released on Tuesday by the Office of Illinois State Comptroller Susana A. Mendoza.
The State’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, paints a worsening outlook for the State’s financial future on this unsustainable path.
Mendoza said the CAFR findings reflect a lawless fiscal climate.
“Volumes of research go into this report, but I can summarize our State finances in one word: Abysmal,” she said. “During Governor Rauner’s first two years in office, our State moved from a budget impasse to a budget crisis. This third year of his administration has the makings of a complete financial meltdown. His failure in leadership has been so spectacular that, no aspect of the State has been spared. The numbers back that up.”
The 375-page report released publicly Tuesday provides numerous insights into Illinois’ ongoing financial decline:
The State’s total net deficit increased by $5.7 billion from $121 billion in June 2015, to $126.7 billion as of June 2016. The lion’s share of that liability is a pension shortfall of $116 billion;
The General Fund’s deficit increased by $2.7 billion, from $6.8 billion to $9.5 billion;
The State is spending less on its neediest residents: spending on health and social service programs dropped by $834 million in FY2016;
The 2015 expiration of the temporary tax increase cost the State $3 billion in revenue in FY2016;
As of June 2016, the State’s total outstanding bonded debt is $30.7 billion. The State paid $1.5 billion in interest on its borrowing in FY2016;
We are forced to spend more on debt service ($3.6 billion) than on public protection and justice ($3.1 billion);
The backlog of delayed payments to Illinois doctors and hospitals for treating patients on state health insurance, under Section 25 liabilities, has more than doubled from $1.9 billion to $4.3 billion.
While bond sales have provided the State a temporary lifeline, the cost of borrowing is going up. The State’s general obligation bond ratings were not favorable last June and both Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings have since downgraded their ratings to BBB with a Negative Outlook.
Three years ago those bond rating agencies said the state was on the right track out of this mess. But they now universally point to Governor Rauner’s failure to propose a balanced budget – or to hold budget proposals hostage to passage of his various unrelated pet projects – as the main cause of Illinois’ downward financial spiral: “Illinois’ fiscal crisis is, in our view, a man-made byproduct of policy ultimatums placed upon the state’s budget process,” Standard & Poor’s wrote in its most recent critique.
Mendoza said without principled leadership and a complete budget that provides for a sustainable financial future, the outlook remains bleak.
“The Governor is required by the State Constitution to prepare and submit a balanced budget to the legislature, but last month he handed the General Assembly a proposal in which expenditures exceeded revenues by $7 billion. Then he killed what was supposed to be a bipartisan Senate ‘Grand Bargain’ that could have provided a path to a better financial future. With 90 percent of State spending managed by court order, no plan to normalize our fiscal situation, and his recent establishment of ‘government shutdown prevention funds,’ it looks like Governor Rauner is trying to drive our State into bankruptcy,” she said.
The governor’s proposed expenditures exceeded revenues by $4.6 billion. If nothing was done, then spending would’ve been about $7 billion higher than revenues, but that’s the whole idea of a budget plan - to match spending with revenues. Rauner obviously didn’t do that, but this is a mistake that’s also been made by Senate President Cullerton and a few Chicago reporters. The comptroller shouldn’t do it. The actual facts are bad enough.
*** UPDATE *** From Eleni Demertzis in the governor’s press office…
“As a decade long member of the General Assembly, Comptroller Mendoza was a leader in passing the very policies that helped plunge our state into its dire fiscal situation. The governor continues pushing for a truly balanced budget along with changes to our system that create jobs, strengthen schools and provide for our human services.
Instead of issuing press releases and pointing fingers, Madigan’s Comptroller should be urging her former colleagues in the General Assembly to help us pass a truly balanced budget and much needed structural changes.”
Dr. Ronald Lynch runs a family dentistry in Jacksonville. He says approximately 20 percent of his patients are state workers. Because Illinois is still running with no budget, the state has not been paying its employees’ health bills on time — and the delays are growing.
Lynch says he’s currently waiting on about $170,000 in bills from the state of Illinois. That’s all from care he’s already given to patients who work for the state. The last payment he received from Illinois was for work he did in November of 2015.
That means a state employee went to see Lynch just after the Kansas City Royals won the World Series, and Lynch has only recently gotten paid for it.
Some dentists around the state have already resorted to asking state workers to cover the cost of care up front. That way, they argue, at least the burden is spread over many patients, not funneling into their dental practices.
That reasoning is behind new legislation forwarded by an Illinois dental industry group. The proposal would make it easier for dentists who work in the same insurance network as state workers to stop taking on the liability of all these unpaid bills. […]
It may help practices like Lynch’s, but not all. Dr. Elizabeth Knoedler is a dentist in Springfield with Prairie Dental Group. She says 60 percent of Prairie’s patients are state workers, and most of them would not be able to afford to pay out of pocket, and then wait the many months to be reimbursed by Illinois.
* The bill is SB 634 and has bipartisan co-sponsorship. From its synopsis…
Amends the State Employees Group Insurance Act of 1971. Provides that the failure of the State of Illinois to adequately reimburse a dental provider for a period of 6 months from the date a claim was submitted may be considered by the provider to be a material breach of any associated participating provider contract utilized by the State for its employees. Provides that a dental provider who has an existing contract that provides services to State employees under this Act and who has not received timely reimbursement for services for a period of 6 months: (1) may consider the associated provider contract null and void for the State of Illinois; (2) may opt out of the obligation to provide services under the terms and conditions of the associated provider contract without penalty by the State or the administrator of the dental plan including any provision that allows for termination from any other commercial plans administered by the dental insurer without cause; and (3) shall, upon providing notice, be deemed an out-of-network provider from that time forward. Effective immediately.
Monroe County Board Chairman Bob Elmore announced Tuesday that he plans to run for state representative as a Republican in the 116th Illinois House district.
The district currently is represented by Rep. Jerry Costello II, D-Smithton.
Elmore, a retired businessman who resides in Waterloo, said state lawmakers “have created an anti-business atmosphere and have made poor policy decisions.”
He said his campaign slogan is “Let’s Make Illinois Great Again.” […]
Elmore said Costello should not have voted in favor of Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, to again serve as House speaker.
“We need to give the voters a choice,” Elmore said. “Do they want to keep going the same way, or change the direction?
President Trump won that district by 36 points. Costello has a great ballot name and works hard, but this isn’t gonna be an easy race. Also, Elmore’s Monroe is the largest county in the district, counting for about 37 percent of ballots cast last year.
After two years of funding cuts from Springfield and no end to the state budget stalemate in sight, Governors State University will increase tuition 15 percent and cut 22 programs, the south suburban campus announced.
The move comes as the campus of about 6,000 students copes with a 50 percent decrease in state funding for the 2016-17 school year. Board of Trustees members approved the changes at a meeting Friday, spokeswoman Keisha Dyson said.
Among the programs to be cut is the bachelor’s degrees in Economics, and the master’s program for education.
The tuition increase is the first in two years, and the school has cut a total of 35 degrees and certificate programs during the past two years. Last year, 63 staff positions were cut. During the 2016 fiscal year, GSU saw its state funding decrease more than 70 percent, to $6 million.
The last two years, the school has received about $18 million from the state total, less than the $24 million it received in just fiscal year 2015 — the year Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner took office, and the last year the state Legislature passed a budget.
The problems at GSU obviously long predate the Rauner administration. But things have only gotten worse since then.
More than half of Illinoisans say state government spends too much money, and should close its budget deficit by only cutting spending – not raising taxes. This is according to a new poll of likely Illinois voters, released today by the non-partisan Illinois Policy Institute.
The state has been without a full year’s budget for almost two years. The Illinois General Assembly is expected to take up a budget proposal from the Illinois Senate, called the ‘grand bargain.’ This proposal would enact massive tax increases and accomplish little with regard to transformative spending or economic reforms. The poll results show the main components of the ‘grand bargain’ are significantly out of step with how Illinois voters would like their elected officials to end the historic budget impasse.
“The poll results are clear: Illinoisans from both sides of the political aisle are fed up with tax increases and do-nothing legislation sold to them as ‘reform.’ They know state government spends more than it should, and they feel the pain of high income and property taxes,” said John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute.
The poll was conducted by Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, and surveyed 600 likely voters from across Illinois on Feb. 28 and March 1. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed self-identified as either moderate or liberal, and 42 percent described themselves as Democrats. The poll has a 4 percent margin of error.
Key findings from the poll:
80 percent of Illinoisans surveyed supported spending cuts as a vehicle to balance the state budget; more than half of Illinoisans said spending cuts should be the only tool used to close the budget deficit.
7 percent of Illinoisans surveyed said the state should raise taxes without cutting spending.
70 percent of respondents said property taxes are too high; only 2 percent of respondents said property taxes are too low.
60 percent of Illinoisans surveyed ranked state income taxes as too high.
81 percent of Illinoisans said the state is headed on the “wrong track.”
Generally speaking, would you say that things in the STATE OF ILLINOIS are headed in the right direction or would you say that things are seriously headed off on the wrong track?
Right direction 11
Wrong track 81
Don’t Know/Refused 8
Generally speaking, when it comes to how much the state government spends overall, which of the following comes closest to you opinion…(ROTATE READING 1-3 or 3-1)
State Government spends too much 57
State Government spends about the right amount 15
State Government doesn’t spend enough 21
Unsure (DO NOT READ) 5
Refused (DO NOT READ) 2
Generally speaking, when it comes to STATE taxes, which of the following comes closest to your opinion… (ROTATE READING 1-3 or 3-1)
State taxes are too high 60
State taxes are just about right 31
State taxes are too low 8
Unsure (DO NOT READ) 1
Refused (DO NOT READ)
Generally speaking, when it comes to PROPERTY taxes, which of the following comes closest to your opinion…(ROTATE READING 1-3 or 3-1)
Property taxes are too high 70
Property taxes are just about right 24
Property taxes are too low 2
Unsure (DO NOT READ) 3
Refused (DO NOT READ) 1
As you may know the state faces a significant budget deficit. The state constitution requires that the state have a balanced budget. Which of the following would you favor MOST to balance the state budget… (ROTATE READING 1-3 or 3-1)
ONLY cut state spending and do NOT raise taxes 51
Cut some state spending and raise some taxes 35
Do NOT cut state spending and ONLY raise taxes 7
Unsure (DO NOT READ) 5
Refused (DO NOT READ) 2
Please tell me whether you agree or disagree with the following statement. (PROBE: Strongly/Somewhat agree/disagree) “Illinois state lawmakers should pass major structural reforms before passing any tax increase.”
TOTAL AGREE 79
TOTAL DISAGREE 14
Strongly Agree 48
Somewhat Agree 31
Somewhat Disagree 7
Strongly Disagree 6
Unsure (DO NOT READ) 6
Refused (DO NOT READ) 1
People always think that government spends too much and should make big cuts. Give them choices on those cuts, however, and they don’t generally love them.
