* Click here for some additional background. WAND last year…
Thousands of health care workers in Illinois are worried about their job security due to unreasonable waiting periods for the state to approve or renew their licenses. State lawmakers believe the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation must be held accountable.
IDFPR is responsible for the routine licensing of your health care providers, but lawmakers and industry leaders argue the state agency is failing in that role.
“Applicants tell us that there’s no real way for them to obtain status updates on their applications or renewals,” said David Porter, the senior vice president of health policy research and advocacy for the Illinois State Medical Society. “There’s virtually no chance to be able to connect with someone at the department by phone or email who could provide such updates.” […]
IDFPR officials told lawmakers that they have spent months trying to find a replacement for the state’s outdated licensing system. Secretary Mario Treto Jr. said the department recently landed a master contract, but the deal is no longer on the table.
* WCIA in May…
Some people looking to renew their license through the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) have had to wait months.
“This has been going on for years, and people’s lives shouldn’t be played with,” House Minority Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna), said.
In the past, the agency has cited their outdated licensing system for delays. To address that, Governor Pritzker signed legislation in December giving the agency ninety days to enter a contract with a vendor to obtain a new one.
But that deadline has come and gone. […]
Now, the deadline has been pushed to June. In an email to WCIA, the agency said “IDFPR is working through the procurement process towards securing a new state-of-the-art online licensing system; however, as stated during the subject matter hearing on May 8, 2024, the state procurement code prohibits discussion of active procurements. The Department will provide updates to the public as they become available.”
* Today from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation…
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) announced today the launch of the Comprehensive Online Regulatory Environment (CORE), its new online licensing system, for the first set of IDFPR-licensed professionals. The new online process eliminates the need for paper applications, gives applicants more control over their application materials, and helps prevent deficient applications from being submitted. In addition to creating a streamlined online application process, CORE features a simplified review process for all license applications received by IDFPR.
“Everyone wanting to earn a living in Illinois in the 21st century should have tools of the times available so they can be licensed and get to work as soon as possible,” said IDFPR Secretary Mario Treto, Jr. “Combined with our steps to streamline our current processes, CORE demonstrates our commitment to fulfilling that mission for the betterment of Illinois, and I look forward to our team fully transitioning our services to this new system over the next two years.”
Today’s launch of CORE marks the first completed step of a planned, multiphase approach by IDFPR over the next two years that will ensure applications for more than 300 license types and records for more than 1.2 million professionals are properly transitioned. IDFPR’s CORE is a result of its work with Tyler Technologies, a leading provider of integrated software and technology services for the public sector. CORE is built on their State Regulatory Platform Suite, which allows regulatory agencies like IDFPR to oversee professional and occupational licenses.
Starting today, new applicants seeking initial licensure for three license types (clinical psychologists, nail technicians, and music therapists) will submit their applications online using CORE. IDFPR selected these three license types to test and ensure CORE’s functionality, while preparing to add all other professions licensed by IDFPR across five additional phases over the next two years. The next phases are:
“Today, we write the first chapter of the next success story for all of Illinois,” said Acting Director of Professional Regulation Camile Lindsay. “While all great stories take time to complete, we know how this one will end: redefining the professional licensing process so even more qualified workers can provide essential services to the people of Illinois.”
To create a streamlined review process, CORE features a user-friendly interface with improved communications. Prospective licensees will be notified directly within the system when applications are received, reviewed, and licenses are issued by the Department—eliminating the need for paper mail and email responses from the Department. In addition, enforcement services (including complaint intake and review, document tracking, and investigations) will be transitioned to CORE. IDFPR will make user guides available online as more services are added to CORE, while continuing its diligent work in reviewing and issuing licenses to qualified applicants under its current processes.
“We are pleased to work with the IDFPR to improve the professional licensing process in Illinois with Tyler’s software,” said General Manager, Tyler Illinois Deanna Gronlie Cook. “Our State Regulatory Platform Suite is fully configurable, making it easy for users to add license types, rules, and processes when new legislation or regulatory requirements are enacted. We are confident this application will enhance the licensing process for various professionals in the state.”
IDFPR will make an announcement when each CORE implementation phase is completed. More information about professional licensing in Illinois may be found on IDFPR’s website: idfpr.illinois.gov.
…Adding… Rep. Bob Morgan…
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* Click here for the mayor’s official budget recommendation briefing. Click here for the mayor’s budget address as prepared. Tribune…
Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday will propose Chicago’s largest property tax hike in almost a decade as part of his $17.3 billion budget plan for next year.
The $300 million increase that would hit Chicago homeowners, landlords and other property owners is a major flip-flop from Johnson’s campaign vow not to employ the widely unpopular, and often politically toxic, revenue-raising tactic. It is also one his team justified as necessary in order to balance a projected $982.4 million shortfall in 2025, along with sweeping tax increment financing funds and eliminating hundreds of vacant positions across city government. More than half of those will come from the Chicago Police Department.
In unveiling his second budget proposal as mayor, Johnson acknowledged his earlier red line against raising property taxes, but blamed his predecessors for the city’s financial predicament and said the primary alternative — layoffs — would be devastating to the city’s workforce.
“Look, this a very difficult decision, but to be quite frank with you … we’ve just have had irresponsible administration after administration that has kicked the can down the road, and now it’s in front of my door,” Johnson said about his backtrack when talking to reporters Tuesday about the tax hike. “This was a very excruciating process, but it’s one that I recognize in this moment that the alternative is just not acceptable.”
His own budget forecast published a year ago predicted the coming deficit almost to the dollar. Instead of mitigating the upcoming damage, he waited several months to do things like impose a hiring freeze that was nowhere near freezing levels.
* More…
But keep this in mind…
Former WBBM-Ch. 2 investigative reporter Pam Zekman on Oct. 21 sold her six-bedroom, Prairie-style house in Uptown’s Buena Park area for $1.5 million. … Zekman … first listed the house on May 7 for $2.1 million, and she reduced her asking price later that month to $1.89 million. … The house had a $15,883 property tax bill in the 2023 tax year.
If you click here and scroll through, you can look up the property tax bills of comparably priced homes in Naperville. Those taxes are far higher.
* NBC 5…
In order for a proposal to pass, Johnson needs 26 votes by Dec. 31. As of Wednesday, 14 alderman signed onto a letter to Johnson yesterday, sharing their community’s demands and concerns and saying they would not support a budget that includes a tax hike.
“We cannot support a budget that includes a property tax increase,” the letter read in part. “Period. The recently released poll shows that 90% of Chicagoans oppose increasing property taxes as an action the city could take to raise revenue. Of those 90% of residents, 79% strongly oppose raising property taxes. This is a non-starter for us and our constituents.”
The letter also supported a renewed ShotSpotter contract, finalizing a a contract for Chicago firefighters and keeping the police budget intact.
More from that poll…
Whew.
* Gov. Pritzker was asked about this topic today. Prepare yourself for a very long answer…
Q: Mayor Johnson is set to announce a property tax hike today. You have previously said the state has provided enough assistance so that municipalities can lower property taxes. Do you think that’s true in Chicago today?
Pritzker: I would not characterize my comments the way you just did. Enough assistance? [Beginning of optional reading skip] I think that all of us who believe in a better public education for kids across the state of Illinois believe that there are more resources needed for public education, and we’ve been doing that every single year that I’ve been in office. And indeed, I think the total amount of new funding that’s been provided since I took office is more than $4 billion. We’ve added $350 million each year, except for one where we had a lot of federal funding coming in at the beginning of the pandemic, where the state was also challenged. But in addition to that, hundreds of millions of dollars more to education that are not part of the evidence based funding model. So more than the 350 a year.
So as to the question of whether the state should provide more money to local governments, in other ways, I’ve been doing that literally every year in every other way. Schools is one major important part of the issue of property taxes, right? Illinois, just to remind you, this is maybe a longer answer than you wanted, but just to remind you when I came into office, Illinois, the state, was providing 24% of education funding. That’s the worst in the country when I came into office. The rest of it being provided by property taxes, vast majority and a little bit 10% or so from the federal government. Today, we’re up in the 30s, so we’ve gone from 24% to better. The average state is providing 46% of funding from state government, so we have a long way to go, but in the meantime, we’re doing a lot better than we’ve ever done before, putting more resources into schools. And what does that do? It allows local governments to at least abate the pressure to increase property taxes. Many have not taken us up on that, which is just disturbing to me. I know that there’s a need for more funding that people feel like, you know, there isn’t ever enough, but property taxes are already too high, and so the more that attention can be given, and that is by local school boards, including the one in Chicago, but the local school board when it is fully convened and elected, but across the state of Illinois, it’s local school boards that impose property taxes related to schools, and honestly, they’ve received more money than ever before from us. I think that they should take that seriously and try to abate the increases in property taxes.
[End of optional reading skip]
Q: [Tries to refocus the governor on the mayor’s announcement today]
Pritzker: Well, yeah, the city’s in a little bit different position. But look, I you know, property taxes are too high for everybody. I mean, if you’re asking me that question, I think that’s an easy one for everybody. And I understand, though, that there is stress in the city budget. You know, they’ve got to figure out. I have talked about the need for efficiencies, the need to make sure that you’re not, you know, haven’t put your ARPA dollars entirely into your operating budget. And I don’t know what the percentage is for the state, for the city rather, but it’s, it’s a reasonably high percentage. And so that obviously caused problems. We tried not to do that at the state level. We also have, you know, tight budgets, and you know, we’ll continue to but I would like to see some recognition that property taxes already are a burden.
Q: Would you support layoffs and furloughs instead of property taxes?
Pritzker: I can’t tell you what all the levers are. I know that’s been talked about. I you know, nobody wants to lay anybody off. That’s a hardship on the people who get laid off, for sure. I can tell you that when we were faced at the state level, just to go back to a day when it was really hard during my term in office, was when the pandemic hit, and we were in the spring of 2020 and putting forward our FY 21 budget. We had a budget we passed, and then going into FY 21 it was clear, it seemed clear, that we needed to make cuts at that point because, you know, revenues were falling off a cliff, and we didn’t have what ended up being the American Rescue Plan Act. And so we found $700 million of cuts to make. I mean, that is not easy. I’m not suggesting anybody wants to do that, but we did it. We did it without laying people off. But you know, we did it, and I know I don’t want to see anybody laid off. There are lots of solutions to these problems that need to be brought to the fore. I’m sure the mayor is examining all those. I have no idea what he’s saying in his speech today about that.
…Adding… Predictable…
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* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
One of the most important legislative debates next year will be about reforming, restructuring and finding a way to fund Northeast Illinois’ public transportation system. Statewide taxes could possibly be raised to pay for this, so you should pay attention no matter where you live.
Gov. JB Pritzker has said he’s not endorsing current legislation which would force the consolidation of the various transit systems. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning has two separate proposal about how to accomplish a reorganization ahead of an impending “transit fiscal cliff” of $730 million in FY26 that will rise to $1.2 billion over the following five years.
The public appears open to at least the concept of consolidation, according to a new poll conducted by Global Strategy Group for the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, which supports transit agency consolidation. The polling and consulting firm works for Gov. Pritzker’s campaign, among several others in Illinois.
According to the poll of 600 likely voters conducted September 16-19, respondents backed the general idea 46-21. That’s more than two-to-one, but a third (33 percent) didn’t know enough to say.
Transit riders supported consolidation 55-20, non-riders supported it 34-23, Chicagoans supported consolidation 54-27, collar county voters backed it 53-19, suburban Cook County folks approved it 49-21 and labor union households supported consolidation 42-18.
But this isn’t really surprising. People naturally favor broad concepts like consolidating government agencies, even if they know nothing about the specifics. And that sentiment intensifies if they’re told consolidation will save big bucks.
72 percent told the pollster that potential consolidation savings of $200-250 million a year was a convincing argument. The savings range is claimed by the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, but the Regional Transportation Authority says they have no idea where those savings numbers are coming from.
Half of Chicagoans, by the way, gave the Chicago Transit Authority a favorable rating, while 48 percent had an unfavorable view of the system. That’s somewhat surprising, given all the negative press about the CTA over the past few years. The group refused to provide full toplines or crosstabs.
Also last week, leaders of the Chicago-area public transit agencies gathered together on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program and for the umpteenth time publicly rejected any managerial reforms while demanding a $1.5 billion increase in taxpayer funding.
That didn’t go over well with Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago), who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, is sponsoring the consolidation bill and has held numerous hearings on the topic.
“I have said from the beginning that we need to provide adequate funding for public transit,” Sen. Villivalam told me. “It is good for our local economy, public health, quality of life, mitigating climate impact and much more.”
However, Sen. Villivalam continued, “With that said, I have heard from colleague after colleague. The appetite to vote on this unprecedented amount of funding without reform is just not there. Period.”
More from Villivalam: “We need specificity on how they plan on using funds to make public transit more safe, reliable, accessible, coordinated, environmentally conscious, and economically strategic. There must be accountability and transparency.”
He’s not wrong on any of this. And the word “coordinated” is important because the transit agencies have long resisted a seamless payment system and synchronized scheduling, which is a major benefit of Germany’s transit system governance, known as verkehrsverbünde.
Germany’s regional transportation associations don’t actually operate that county’s innumerable transit systems. Instead, the associations simply enforce and oversee unified fares and ticketing, and they synchronize the transit systems’ schedules. That might possibly be where the reforms here are heading, and a fact-finding trip to Germany is apparently in the works.
Even organized labor is taking a look at the German model, I’m told.
Despite strong public statements this year against consolidation from the Illinois AFL-CIO and the Chicago Federation of Labor, organized labor has worked over the past few months to bring together a multitude of smallish transit unions to quietly work on a solution.
Bringing those union locals together wasn’t an easy task by any means, because unions often side with their employers’ Statehouse positions. The pitch from above was to organize against any attempts to divide and conquer them by peeling off a few of the larger unions to support a solution that would benefit some and not others. That approach is apparently working.
The union locals want lots more money for transit. But the German governing model is something that could work for them because the various agencies would continue running their systems. Still, it’s way too early to say the unions could jump on board.
…Adding… I get letters…
Rich,
We are writing in response to your recent post about the poll conducted by Global Strategy Group on behalf of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition. With regard to the results that suggest that Illinoisans support consolidation of the public transit systems by a 2:1 margin, we are pleased you acknowledged that generally people do favor broad ideas like consolidating government agencies, even if they know nothing about the specifics. As you well know, with all things “Springfield,” the devil is in the details.
We reviewed the poll questions and believe they were intentionally vague. For example, we have no doubt if asked simply if individuals support “unifying the CTA, Metra, Pace and RTA into one organization to improve service, safety and frequency of trains and buses thus attracting more riders,” it would be easy to answer in the affirmative. But important background data was missing, such as
• Would the make-up of the new governing board dilute suburban representation into policy and financial decisions?
• Does the consolidation and reform plan require tax or fee increases for Chicago, Cook, or suburban riders?
• If consolidation occurs, would suburban riders become burdened with subsidizing the Chicago Transit Authority’s $5 billion deficit?
In our opinion, important questions were not asked in this poll, including:
• If you are a suburban rider, do you support giving majority control of transit decision-making for the entire six-county region to Cook County and the City of Chicago?
• If you are a suburban rider, do you support tax or fee increases to help address the Chicago Transit Authority’s $5 billion deficit?
We are glad you are following this issue and we agree it will be a primary topic of discussion in the 104th General Assembly. But when Global Strategy Group begins its own poll memo with “Without any background information…” it calls the validity of the poll into question.
We are all aware that poll questions can be written to deliver a predetermined response, and the vague nature of this poll brings up a lot of questions about who was polled, where they live, what issues influence their responses, etc. Moving forward we hope for improved transparency on the important issue of public transit in Illinois.
Sincerely,
Senator Donald DeWitte, Minority Spokesperson, Senate Transportation Committee
Senator Seth Lewis, Minority Spokesperson, Appropriations- Infrastructure & Public Safety
Senator Craig Wilcox, Minority Spokesperson, Senate Labor Committee
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