Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Monday, Apr 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The House is in session today, but not the Senate. Follow along with ScribbleLive…

Muttering, resignation follow new appointment

Monday, Apr 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller

Tony Smith, 48, a RiverForest resident and executive director of the Oak Park-based W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, has been appointed as the state’s new state school superintendent.

Smith replaces outgoing superintendent Christopher Koch, who served in the position for eight years. With more than two million students, Illinois’s K-12 school system is among the largest in the nation.

The Illinois Board of Education voted unanimously to approve Smith’s contract, which will take effect on May 1. He will be paid a starting salary of $225,000, according to a Chicago Tribune report. Smith has ties with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Last year, he was appointed to Rauner’s transition committee for education policy. […]

But the unanimous vote and laudatory statements from [State Board of Education Chairman James Meeks] doesn’t necessarily translate into the state board’s complete equanimity with the decision. Board member Steven Gilford told the Tribune that he was “very disappointed that Dr. Koch is going to leave the agency” and that “I don’t think it’s really the right decision for this agency.”

* Gilford wasn’t the only unhappy board member…

A key member of the Illinois State Board of Education has formally resigned over concerns about the way new state Superintendent Tony Smith was hired.

The Chicago Tribune reported that resigning board member James Baumann said there was no national search and only one candidate for the state’s top schools position.

Smith was appointed by the board of education last week and takes over May 1. He is the former head of Oakland, California, schools and has ties to Gov. Bruce Rauner.

He also was Rauner’s recommendation to the board. The Republican governor recently appointed five new board members to the nine-person board.

* Meanwhile…

A law aimed at curbing late-career pay raises for educators continues to sting some suburban school districts with six-figure costs.

And now a new proposal from Gov. Bruce Rauner raises the prospect of more penalty costs to school districts if pay for teachers or administrators nearing retirement rises above the rate of inflation.

Under a law approved last decade, school districts have to pay the additional pension costs that result from giving teachers or administrators end-of-career pay raises of more than 6 percent a year. The law is aimed at preventing big pay bumps that drive up pension costs for the state. Pension benefits are based in part on employees’ salaries in the final years of their careers. […]

Rauner, a Winnetka Republican, proposes abandoning the 6 percent threshold. Instead, the governor wants school districts to pay for pension costs generated by teacher pay raises that are higher than the Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation.

For 2014, the index was at about 1.5 percent, and it’s hovered around there in recent years, peaking at 3.2 percent in 2011, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

* Related…

* ADDED: IFT Press Release: Governor Rauner to give keynote on “economics of education” after slashing crucial programs, threatening 32% cut to higher education

* ADDED: WGN news coverage of IFT press release

* Hopes dim for school funding formula overhaul’s passage: Despite a revamp to ease partisan and regional opposition, Illinois lawmakers now see little chance of passing legislation this session that would overhaul the state’s outdated school funding formula for the first time in two decades.

* Rauner’s dangerous talk of Chicago schools bankruptcy: Does he understand that scaring unions to the table may be good and effective theater, but actually pushing CPS or other governmental units into bankruptcy might blow up with lots of collateral damage? No one seems to know. One source familiar with Rauner’s ways likens him to the “Animal House” character who has a devil perched on one shoulder and an angel on the other, each urging him to take different steps. Rauner’s dislike of unions is so deep he may have lost objectivity.

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*** UPDATED x1 - NWMC didn’t advance *** Makanda: Oops!

Monday, Apr 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Some commenters were flabbergasted when Makanda’s village board unanimously passed Gov. Bruce Rauner’s “Turnaround Agenda” resolution earlier this month. The tiny village is a very liberal town and the former residence of US Sen. Paul Simon.

Well, it turns out that village board members aren’t anti-union, they just lack reading comprehension…

Makanda’s village president said the board did not mean to endorse Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed local right-to-work zones where he seeks to allow voters to decide whether to disband closed union shops in the communities where they live.

Village President Tina Shingleton said board members thought they were simply signaling the village’s desire for more local control and autonomy from the state when it passed a two-page resolution supporting Rauner’s so-called “Turnaround Agenda.”

She said the board had no intention of making a political statement about collective bargaining when the April 6 vote made Makanda one of 19 local governments to have endorsed the resolution. It is the first community to sign off on the resolution in heavily unionized Southern Illinois, where even many conservatives are proud union members of, for example, the coal mines, steel mills, state prisons and public schools. […]

“None of us are anti-union and we don’t want to see jobs taken away from anybody,” she said, noting that she is currently in the process of determining whether a vote to revoke support of the resolution in whole or part is in order.

But how could they miss this language?…

Whereas voters in our community should be allowed to decide via referendum whether or not employees should be forced to join a union or pay dues as a condition of employment…

Sheesh. And some believe state legislators are lazy.

* Meanwhile, the IFT has a list of upcoming Rauner resolution votes…

Effingham County (Effingham)
Monday, April 20 at 4:00 p.m.
101 North 4th Street

Mt. Zion (Macon County)
From Mayor Robinson: Gov. Rauner’s Turnaround Agenda has been removed from the Village Board’s agenda for this Monday (4/20/15) and will not be discussed.

Naperville (DuPage County)
Tuesday, April 21 at 7:00 p.m.
400 S. Eagle St.

Campton Hills (Kane County)
Tuesday, April 21 at 6:30 p.m.
5N082 Old LaFox Roedl

Vernon Hills (Lake County)
Tuesday, April 21 at 7:00 p.m.
290 Evergreen Drive, Vernon Hills

Wauconda (Lake County)
Tuesday, April 21 at 7:00 p.m.
101 N. Main Street, Wauconda

*** UPDATE *** I asked the Northwest Municipal Conference if they’d taken a position on the governor’s draft resolution…

Rich:

The topic of the turnaround agenda was placed on the Northwest Municipal Conference Board’s April 8 agenda for discussion. There was no call from our members to advance a supporting resolution.

Larry Bury
Deputy Director
Northwest Municipal Conference

Not what the governor’s office wanted to hear, I imagine.

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*** UPDATED x2 - Fritchey: More needs to be done *** Alvarez to divert low-level drug crimes

Monday, Apr 20, 2015 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Finally, Alvarez stops acting like a conviction-hungry prosecutor and starts behaving more like a state’s attorney…

People busted repeatedly with minor amounts of marijuana could face treatment rather than prosecution under a set of “sweeping” reforms Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is set to announce on Monday.

The county’s top prosecutor will announce the “first of its kind alternative prosecution program” during a press conference at her office Monday morning, according to a news release.

The program is designed for nonviolent individuals charged with Class 4 felony drug possession and intends to link repeat offenders with social service agencies “for treatment rather than pursuing criminal penalties,” according to the release. Its goal is to begin addressing chronic drug use as a public health issue. […]

Alvarez spokeswoman Sally Daly said the state’s attorney intends, in most cases, not to prosecute misdemeanor marijuana charges brought against people with no significant history of violence. Individuals with three or more arrests or citations for misdemeanor marijuana possession will instead be referred to drug school, she added.

* More from the AP…

Alvarez’ office says Class 4 felony drug possession cases accounted for 25 percent of all felony cases in Cook County last year. On top of that, there were 15,000 misdemeanor cases for possession of small amounts of cannabis.

*** UPDATE 1 *** Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey…

“While today’s announcement by Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez is a welcome departure from past practices in her office, more needs to be done at the local and state level to address the inequities of our criminal justice system.

I appreciate that States Attorney Alvarez is finally moving in the right direction by reforming low-level drug possession laws that have not made practical or economic sense for decades. But seven years in office is a long time to finally recognize that our criminal justice system operates unjustly and without accomplishing its stated goals. That is why I have been arguing for, and obtaining, changes in our law for several years.

During her tenure in office, tens of thousands of Cook County residents, disproportionately minorities, have been victim to our outdated drug laws, subjecting them to unnecessary arrest records while costing County taxpayers countless millions of dollars for charges that were ultimately dismissed.”

*** UPDATE 2 *** From Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle…

I am pleased to see that the State’s Attorney has finally recognized what many of us have been saying for years – that our failed drug policies are resulting in the unnecessary detention and incarceration of thousands of people, primarily young men of color, who are accused of non-violent low-level drug offenses each year.

That’s why I have spent the last four years leading a collaborative effort with all of the public safety stakeholders in Cook County, as well as the Illinois Supreme Court, to lower the population of the Cook County Jail by implementing systemic reform throughout our system. Today, as a result of our hard work, the population of the jail is just over 7,800 – the lowest it’s been for more than two decades.

While I hope that the State’s Attorney’s policy changes will result in fewer people in our jail and courts, the fact is that we cannot rely on policies that are subject to change based on public pressure or who is in office. Instead we must change our laws to ensure that reforms are permanent and not subject to the discretion of one actor in a complicated system.

I will continue to work with all of our partners at the state level to change drug laws and policies so that we treat addiction as a public health issue rather than a public safety issue by keeping non-violent addicts out of our jails and prisons and placing them into community-based programs. I hope the State’s Attorney will join me in supporting these legislative efforts in the Illinois General Assembly.

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