The Rauner Administration filed a brief in the Fifth Judicial District Appellate Court this afternoon addressing the duplicity of the Attorney General’s appeal in the state employee pay lawsuit. For over a year, AG Madigan benefitted from the very court order she is now attacking by paying her own staff over $23 million dollars in FY 2017 alone, bringing into question her motives.
In addition, the Rauner Administration’s brief highlights that the Attorney General does not know the consequences of what will happen if her attempt to stop state employee pay is successful, and is asking the court system to move forward in pulling the rug out from under tens of thousands of state employees. The Rauner Administration strongly opposes the Attorney General’s reckless attempts to precipitate a crisis.
General Counsel Dennis Murashko released the following statement about this filing:
“In the last year, Attorney General Madigan’s employees have been paid more than $23 million using the same court order she now is attacking. If the Attorney General were truly concerned about the General Assembly passing a balanced budget, she would not be using state employees as political pawns in her attempts to create a crisis and force a government shutdown.”
I don’t get it. She obeyed a court order to pay state employees and that’s somehow… what?
…Adding… If you take a look at the filing, you’ll notice a lot of stuff like this…
Her entire argument in this Court hinges on a Supreme Court decision she chose to ignore from March of last year until late January 2017, even though her office…
Um, the attorney general represents the people of Illinois. So, it’s the people’s filing, not “her” filing. There are, by my count 26 mentions of the word “she” and 57 mentions of the word “her.”
…Adding More… So, I just talked to someone in the administration who tried to answer my questions. The reasoning is this: The existing court order forces the comptroller to pay any employee salary vouchers that come to her office. It doesn’t force people like AG Madigan to actually submit the vouchers.
The attorney general’s office on Friday said the brief is a show of “snark” with “literally no law” behind it. The issue of whether or not to pay the office’s 750 employees has never been raised and there is no law in place to say Madigan shouldn’t pay her employees – many of whom are representing Rauner’s administration in cases, officials said.
“We have a legal and ethical obligation to follow the court’s order otherwise we would be in contempt of the court,” attorney general’s office spokeswoman Maura Possley said in a statement.
Gov. Bruce Rauner has been in office for about two years, but he suggested Thursday that the time has felt much longer given the protracted battle with Democrats that has left Illinois without a budget.
“I have been a politician for two years now, but it’s really dog years. It’s really 14 years,” Rauner told a community group in Decatur on Thursday. “This is a really hard thing.”
* The Question: How long does it feel to you? Explain.
MPC recently took a deep dive into the wonky world of administrative districts that oversee individual schools, and their findings—based on 2014 data, the most recent available—confirms our worst fears about the insidious impact of bureaucratic bloat:
* Illinois’ 850 school districts—only two states have more—collectively spend more than $1 billion a year, most in the country by far.
* That’s $518 per student—two-and-a-half times the national average of $210.
* By comparison, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin spend less than $400 per pupil, California and Florida less than $100. […]
The Illinois School Funding Reform Commission recently estimated the state would have to spend $3.5 billion over the next decade to achieve fair per-pupil funding for schools in every district.
Incredibly, Illinois could easily meet the commission’s goal without scrounging for another penny if district administrative spending was even close to the national average because that would free up at least $400 million a year for classrooms instead of offices. […]
* 220 of the state’s 850 districts, or 26 percent, have just one school, and those districts cost 67 percent more to operate than multiple-school districts.
* Also, districts comprised of only elementary or high schools spend about a third more on administration than unit districts that include both.
* The state’s largest unit district, Chicago, is barely afloat but full of bloat, according to the MPC study, spending $350 per student on general administration in 2014.
Illinois representatives approved a bill Thursday to prevent further privatization of health care jobs in state prisons.
The House voted 68-42 for the bill that was previously OK’d by the Senate. It will now be sent to Gov. Bruce Rauner.
The legislation was sparked by a decision last month by the Department of Corrections to privatize the jobs of 124 union nurses working in state prisons. They are due to be laid off June 15. Corrections said the move will save the state $8 million a year. […]
This isn’t the first time the General Assembly has gotten involved in the prison nurse issue. The Legislature passed a similar bill last year that was vetoed by Rauner. The bill died when the House failed to override the veto.
The Senate immediately sent the bill to the governor yesterday. He has 60 days to act, which would be before the June 15th layoff date.
It’s possible that a compromise could be found. One of the GOP complaints during debate was that minimum nurse staffing levels were set without regard to prison population. If that population declines, the prisons might have too many nurses. So, something may happen after the break. But the governor could then simply sit on that bill for 60 days, which would be after the layoff deadline, meaning his office will have to be part of any discussions.
* I missed this Ameya Pawar video when it was released earlier this month, but have a look…
* Script…
I live for family. For my daughter, my wife.
My father grew up in India with no running water, doing homework by candlelight.
I grew up in Illinois.
We’re not wealthy or famous. My student loans and child care cost more than my mortgage.
But our family helps each other. We’re for each other.
Illinois is like a family when we’re at our best.
Some politicians try to divide us by where we live, where we’re from, and what we look like.
They leave us fighting for our fair share.
But we’re in this together.
When jobs leave a small town, that hurts Chicago.
When city schools are denied the funding to create tomorrow’s workforce, that hurts the suburbs.
When roads and bridges are crumbling, that hurts all of us.
We can’t disconnect, and we don’t want to.
We’re one state. One family. And we deserve a New Deal
My name is Ameya Pawar. I’m running for governor.
Maybe a little long for online, but still pretty good.
* Meanwhile, from the caption to a 2011 Youtube video…
Published on Jun 30, 2011
June 30 (Bloomberg) — Bruce Rauner, chairman and principal at GTCR Golder Rauner LLC, and J.B. Pritzker, founder of New World Ventures, talk about the outlook for venture capital investments and initial public offerings by Internet companies. They speak with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.”
As the House debate dragged into a second hour, some of the statements got pointed. Rep. Christian Mitchell, D-Chicago, referred to Gov. Bruce Rauner as the “sugar daddy” of the Republican Party who is demanding lawmakers approve his campaign promises in exchange for a budget. Rep. Scott Drury, D-Highland, said none of the Republicans “has had the spine to stand up to your leader.”
Rep. Peter Breen, R-Lombard, countered that “Republicans want to turn Illinois around. Democrats want to burn Illinois down.”
As we’ve already discussed, Republicans have in the past voted for stopgap funding bills.
* With that in mind Rep. Drury’s comments are worth expanding on here. Drury was one of the lone voices against the stopgap budget bill last year. And so the only Democrat not to vote for Speaker Madigan’s reelection rose to hammer the Republicans for being too afraid to stand up to Gov. Bruce Rauner…
I try to be the one in the chamber that calls it like it is. And I have to say, listening to the debate from the Republican side today is just grotesque. It is just absolutely grotesque.
And let me tell you why. First of all, there is no Republican plan… So to say the Democrats have a plan to burn it down and you have a path to prosperity? Well, last year, there was one person in this chamber who was talking about pressure cookers and letting things boil over and I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t on that side of the aisle. It was me. And the votes were 115-1, 116-1. But your leader, who none of you are willing to stand up to, said, “Today, you should vote this way.” And now your leader has changed his position and he says “Hey, that pressure cooker thing sounds good, let’s try it.”
So, it’s wonderful that you want to come here and pretend that you have some plan, and pretend that you have a backbone. But there is no one on that side of the aisle, no one on that side of the aisle in the last two years who has shown the spine to stand up to your leader. Allright?
There is one person on this side who has. And I can commiserate with you, I can tell you what it’s like, if you want to know what’s going to happen. But in a lot of ways it’s like the shackles being off.
So I encourage at least one of you, instead of talking about all the nonsense that you’re talking about, to grow a spine, do what you think is the right thing. But to stop sitting here and pretend that you have some sort of plan and that the Democrats don’t. Do you what you think is right. Just do you what you think is right. And maybe it’ll come back and shine on you. But as long as you have these lame excuses, I just don’t know how you sleep at night. I really don’t.
That transcription was sent to me by somebody who was greatly impressed with Drury’s speech. And Rep. Drury did make some good points.
State legislators in Springfield are moving to address gun violence in Chicago. The Illinois Senate [yesterday] passed stricter gun laws long sought by the Chicago Police. The legislation is meant to get judges to impose longer sentences on repeat gun offenders.
An earlier version of the plan to raise minimum sentences for some repeat gun crime felons stalled last month despite the high-profile backing of Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson. It’s almost always difficult to pass gun legislation in Springfield, where widely varying regional attitudes toward firearms complicate the politics. The broad nature of this proposal also drew complaints from different directions, which maintained it was too soft on drug criminals or too hard on minorities.
Over the last several weeks, Democratic Sen. Kwame Raoul of Chicago worked to ease some of those concerns among opponents, including Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office. Key to that effort was stripping provisions that would have softened penalties on certain drug crimes. Police contended drug sales fuel gun crimes, and Republicans said decreasing prison time for convicted dealers would send the wrong message as a heroin epidemic grips the suburbs.
“The governor is pleased to have reached an agreement on this important legislation,” Rauner spokesman Lance Trover said. […]
The legislation would increase the sentencing guidelines for judges deciding punishment for some repeat gun felons. Instead of a range of three to 14 years, judges would hand out sentences in the range of seven to 14 years. If they wanted to depart from that guideline, they would have to explain why.
The provisions that were taken out of the bill include those that would have lowered sentencing for those charged with more serious drug offenses. The initial language would have lowered the minimums depending on the charge. Provisions that would have lowered the offense classifications for drug offenses were also removed, the governor’s office and one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Raoul, said.
“What we were trying to do was take more of a judicious approach on those cases, not to let drug dealers off the hook,” Raoul said, while noting the negotiations with the governor’s office were productive.
“In my conversations with the governor’s office, historically, they have been clear that they want to work progressively, incrementally, on the criminal justice reforms so they had to proceed cautiously to do so,” Raoul said. “My preference would be to attempt to take a more aggressive bite out of the prison population. … I understand and appreciate that we’re doing this work on criminal justice reform. It’s not easy politically.”
An example of the change included a sentencing guideline that would have provided a range of six to 30 years for someone charged with manufacturing and delivering heroin amounts from 15-100 grams. It would have kept the same guidelines for those charged with between 15 and 400 grams of heroin — allowing for more drugs under the same sentencing guideline range.
The state’s attorneys deserve a lot of credit here. They didn’t argue for removing the penalty reductions, the governor did. In the past, they were always a stubborn obstacle to criminal justice reforms, but they’ve worked hard for the past couple of years to find ways to compromise.
As Illinois nursing home owners come under heightened scrutiny for improper patient discharges and inadequate staffing care, nursing home workers will picket at 10 nursing homes in the Chicago area on Friday, including Alden Wentworth on the South Side and Legacy Chalet on the North to stand up for fair wages, quality jobs, and patient care.
Over 10,000 nursing home workers at 103 facilities have, as members of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, been fighting to negotiate a new contract for over a year to improve the quality of nursing home jobs and address concerns over low wages and patient care. Yet, despite receiving about $1 billion in revenue each year and an increasing number of residents, for-profit nursing home owners have refused to significantly raise staffing levels and have actively worked to keep wages low.
The owners want the right to pay workers less than the minimum wage – despite the demanding nature of their work, the level of skill and training required and the crucial role workers play in safeguarding the well-being of seniors and people with disabilities in their care.
* From the JB Pritzker campaign…
TODAY at 3:30 PM: JB Pritzker to Join SEIU Healthcare Illinois Picket
* From yesterday’s statement reacting to Pritzker’s campaign announcement by United Working Families, of which SEIU Healthcare Illinois is by far the largest member…
BREAKING: Battle of the Billionaires […]
A real estate mogul in the White House. An investment banker in Chicago’s City Hall. And now the billionaires are battling it out for the Illinois Governor’s mansion, while more and more working people are left behind.
It’s time to build something different: politics for the people, not the plutocrats.
* So, I asked SEIU Healthcare what the heck was going on. I mean, your coalition calls the guy a “plutocrat” on Thursday and you picket with him on Friday? The union’s response…
Today, we’re focused on nursing home workers and their fight for living wages and safe staffing for their residents—not on an election that is a year away. At least four candidates who have declared for governor are supporting these workers, along with many others—and we appreciate that support.
UWF is an independent political organization made up of individuals and organizations—HCII is one of those organizations. None that we are aware of have made any endorsements—but most are here in the picket line supporting nursing home workers fighting for living wages and safe staffing.
* According to the union, Ameya Pawar, Chris Kennedy and Kurt Summers are also joining the workers on the picket line today and Daniel Biss has expressed his support but is out of town.
Having just about all the candidates for governor joining together on a work action is a pretty major event.
* I’m still not convinced that there’s a real fire here, but the story completely plays right into the public’s notions about how state government has always worked. WCIA TV’s Mark Maxwell continues to pursue the story about the old Barney’s Furniture store lease…
Business owner and Republican Procurement Board Chairman Frank Vala knew when he allowed a $2.4 million lease agreement to be approved that it would benefit the daughter and son-in-law of his longtime friend [and neighbor] Bill Cellini.
“I’ve known Mr. Cellini all of my life,” Vala said. […]
State documents filed in February 2017 list Claudia as the sole President of New Frontier Developments, even though she has lived in Dubai for several years. It remains unclear whether she plays an active role in directing the business. William Jr. is no longer listed as an executive.
WCIA has learned Claudia Cellini’s husband, Raffi Vartanian, is separately listed as a one-third owner of Climate Controlled Holdings, LLC. The company just opened for business in February of 2016. In 14 months, the infant corporation has managed to purchase a 62,000 square foot warehouse and immediately lease it to the state of Illinois at a remarkable premium. State documents reveal the privately held company began with a mere $15,000 cash on hand.
Climate Controlled Holdings bought the old Barney’s Furniture Warehouse for $575,000 on January 3rd, 2017. State documents were already being prepared to obtain a government lease five months prior — in September of 2016 — before the warehouse sale was even completed. Less than one month later, the state of Illinois had entered into a binding agreement to pay a minimum of $2.42 million to the upstart company in exchange for a 5-year lease of the facility. […]
Asked how long he’s known Claudia Cellini, Vala answered, “Since she was a little kid.” Vala confirmed he also knows about Cellini’s husband, Raffi, and says he’s even met him in person.
There was no formal vote to approve or disapprove, but the procurement board could’ve voted if it wanted to. According to the story, the board has never stopped a request during Rauner’s term.
* To be super clear here, none of this is illegal on its face. Bill Cellini did his time and he’s no longer involved with the company and there’s zero hard evidence that his kid or his son-in-law did anything at all improper here. The lease was put out for bids and the state chose the lower bid. Yeah, the lease price is high, but lease prices are rising for the state because it isn’t paying its bills. It couldn’t buy the property because it has no appropriation authority to do so. Everything can be logically and reasonably explained.
But, man, this story has almost everything to make it appear to be a perfect “Illinois way” saga.
Thumbs down to 646 days without a state budget. Each week, it gets increasingly difficult to grasp the fact that our legislators and governor are allowing our state to disintegrate financially. We are seeing our education system fall apart — as evidenced by Southern Illinois University being forced to trim $30 million from its budget and school districts suing the state for aid payments. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency emanating from Springfield. Remember the days when legislators would lock themselves in chambers until they hammered out an agreement?
No, I don’t remember those days because they never happened because doing so would be a felony.
The Illinois House wants to tap incoming but unallocated revenue to relieve struggling universities and human services.
The House voted 64-45 Thursday to authorize spending $817 million that is sitting in special funds during a two-yearlong budget holdup.
The stopgap funding deal approved by the House includes about $26 million for the Southern Illinois University System, plus additional Monetary Award Program, or MAP, grant funds that would benefit the campuses. That amount represents about 13 percent of the state appropriations SIU received in fiscal year 2015, the last year a full year’s budget was approved by lawmakers in Springfield.
“It is very encouraging,” John Charles, SIU’s director of government and public affairs, said after the vote. “We’re appreciative for everything that we get.”
Rep. David Harris, R-Arlington Heights, echoed the belief of many Republicans that passing another stopgap budget will take pressure off of lawmakers to pass a full, permanent state budget. He likened the lack of a budget to pressure building up in a tea kettle.
“(This) gives crumbs to those institutions and organizations that rely on us,” Harris said. “These stopgaps are relief valves. They are relief valves for the steam that is building up.”
More on that topic…
Rep. @Andersson4Rep By voting for this, the pressure is off us to get to a full budget. A full budget, not a stop gap budget is what we need
Yep. On the one hand, the Republicans want to take the pressure off the negotiations by paying state workers through infinity, but on the other hand they argue that some of the most vulnerable Illinoisans should be refused help in order to spur a budget deal.
Money for the lifeline budget comes from two special state funds intended to help education and human services. The two funds get a small part of income tax receipts as they are received by the state and are constantly replenished. The funds will have more than $800 million in them by the end of the fiscal year in June that cannot be spent unless the General Assembly authorizes it.
The money is just sitting there gathering dust while universities crumble and the social service network frays. If the Senate was making real progress on a grand bargain, I could understand holding off. But it obviously isn’t.
Though Republicans have previously supported some stopgap spending plans, they said the difference this time is that they were not involved in negotiations. They questioned some of the spending, saying money was being set aside for things that were not urgent, including a program designed to produce teachers to work in distressed schools.
The House Republicans weren’t involved in negotiations by choice. Their leader was invited to participate and he didn’t respond.
Rep. Steven Andersson, R-Geneva, said the bill also provides money to some programs that are no longer in existence, as well as a teacher-training program that Republicans contend has little to show for the money invested in it. Rep. Tom Demmer, R-Dixon, said the plan includes $10 million for those programs.
No doubt that part of this vote yesterday was about politics. House members can go home today saying they voted to help people. The Senate won’t return for two weeks, however. And the governor is indicating he’ll veto the bill…
Rauner has said he would not support another stopgap plan unless it included a permanent property tax freeze, a key portion of his political agenda.
Democrats have opposed such a freeze, saying it would starve local school districts that rely on those dollars. But they did approve a measure Thursday to expand some property-tax exemption programs, a move that could provide them some political cover to fight back against GOP claims they aren’t trying to give homeowners some relief.
That’s the political “tell” right there.
Besides that, all these property tax exemptions do is transfer the burden to other taxpayers. The money has to be paid one way or another, but Illinois politicians just love to narrow the taxing base whenever and wherever they can. It’s a big reason we’re in this mess today. Retirement income, food and medicine, services etc., etc., etc. are all exempted from taxation and that means others have to pick up the slack.
Gov. Bruce Rauner opposes turning over the money, saying he prefers passing a full budget, tied to non-budget measures he favors. Rauner said the House bill would keep public universities and social services “on the verge of collapse.”
But ask anyone teetering on the verge of a cliff: It’s better to be there than going over altogether.
Even if the Senate finally agrees on a grand bargain that includes new revenue, it is less and less likely the bargain will cover what remains of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends June 30. In earlier discussions, any income tax increase was to have been retroactive to Jan. 1, which would have provided some revenue for the current fiscal year. But doing that in April — or later — would require withholding a bite out of workers’ paychecks that’s just too big.
Without a budget in place, pain stretches across the state. Seniors with disabilities are losing services. Cutbacks on mental health services, substance abuse treatment and after-school programs will drive violence higher. Once-proud university campuses are reeling.
The state has the money to help. The Legislature and governor should speed it along.
* If this guy committed wrongdoing in New Orleans, then it’s a real problem. But no such allegation is made in the story, so I’m not sure what the dealio is because plenty of other people were fine with bringing Synesi here…
When former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas was recruited to revive the schools in hurricane-battered New Orleans, he asked for help from back home, newly obtained records show.
In a series of letters to Louisiana officials who oversaw the New Orleans district, Vallas vouched for Synesi Associates, an education consulting firm that recently had been started in Chicago by a former high school teacher named Gary Solomon.
“This out-of-state provider has a record of demonstrated effectiveness,” Vallas wrote in 2007, citing the “unique experience” of the firm’s staff.
Synesi landed two no-bid contracts worth nearly $893,000 in New Orleans during Vallas’ time running the Recovery School District from 2007 to 2011, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
Now, nearly a decade later, Vallas appears set to be named to a top leadership post at financially troubled Chicago State University.
And Solomon is scheduled to report to federal prison July 11 to begin an 84-month sentence. Solomon was convicted of bribing Barbara Byrd-Bennett, one of Vallas’ successors heading CPS, who arranged for Synesi and another of his companies to land $23 million in business with the Chicago school system.
Former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas has resigned from the Chicago State University board of trustees to apply for a top leadership position in the university’s administration, the Tribune has learned.
Vallas’ resignation comes ahead of an emergency board meeting Friday where university trustees are expected to fill two top administrative posts with the hope that sweeping change will help turn around the troubled school. The board has said it plans to name a new interim president and interim chief administrative officer, a newly created position.
Chicago State University Friday named Paul Vallas as temporary chief administrative officer and voted for its longtime dean of the Arts and Sciences as interim president.
Except for Nikki Zollar, the board vice chair and head of the presidential search committee,, the entire board voted for Rachel Lindsey as interim president.
Zollar also abstained from the Vallas’ vote.
Vallas was Gov. Bruce Rauner’s top pick to run the financially troubled Chicago State University.
“I’m excited to be back here in Monroe County. This is strong Republican territory here,” he cheered, motioning to a crowd of more than 22o supporters. Rauner had attended the county’s Republican Lincoln Day Dinner in 2013 as a prospective gubernatorial candidate and returned in 2014 for a short visit while on the campaign trail.
During his speech, the governor went on to thank the county for their support and for fighting for the party’s values. He briefly mentioned the state budget, but only as a means to transition into his agenda.
“Some people think the problem is about the budget,” he uttered in a sincere tone. “It’s partly about the budget, but it’s really about our future prosperity.”
To Rauner, that future prosperity includes bringing power back to the Republicans in Springfield — he confidently foretold at the dinner that eight more Illinois Republicans would unseat Democratic representatives in the 2018 elections. He also continued his call for pension reform, job growth, term SAT limits and non-partisan redistricting, among other topics. [Emphasis added.]
Rauner’s standard stump speech always includes that line these days about picking up eight Democratic House seats. He says it everywhere he goes.
“I am all in to make sure we pick up eight seats next November,” Rauner said [at the Piatt County GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner]. “And when we do, Republicans control the House of Representatives. … We can turn this state around dramatically if the House flipped to Republican control. … We’ve got a really good shot.”
It would actually take a nine-seat pickup for Republicans to take over the Illinois House
The Democrats have 67 House seats. So if the Republicans pick off 8 seats there’d be a 59-59 tie.
Personally, I’ve been praying for a 59-59 tie since the 1990s. Man, what great theater that would be.
* Ameya Pawar’s official response to JB Pritzker’s announcement sent to reporters…
“J.B. Pritzker is an accomplished investor and philanthropist and I welcome him to the race for governor. People are hungry for a governor who understands working families and my legislative record shows my commitment to protecting the middle class. I look forward to a healthy debate about the issues.”
* But this is what he sent to supporters…
Friend –
Moments ago, another billionaire entered the race for Governor. In a field of millionaires and billionaires, Ameya stands out as a voice for all of us – a leader with a strong track record as Alderman of delivering results for working families.
Big money politics shouldn’t limit what we can achieve as a state. When supporters like you speak up and chip in, we can fight back. Please show your support right now by donating $5, $10, $15 or whatever you can.
Ameya may not have a Springfield-backed Super PAC or a billion dollars, but what we’re building is far more powerful – thousands of grassroots supporters like you who are ready for real change.
The groundswell of support we see in town after town shows that voters are hungry for real change in Springfield. They’re looking for a progressive champion. A leader who isn’t afraid of taking on tough issues.
Now we need to keep this going to compete with our opponents’ big bank accounts and their special interest money. Can you chip in $5 or more to fuel our momentum?
Together, we’re sending a signal that people across Illinois are tired of the Trump/Rauner agenda, and ready to bring real change to Springfield.
I’ll post other reactions as they come in.
*** UPDATE *** United Working Families is a coalition that includes the Chicago Teachers Union, Cook County College Teachers Union and SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana. It sent out an e-mail today entitled “BREAKING: Battle of the Billionaires”…
It’s official: Billionaire investor J.B. Pritzker is entering the race for Illinois Governor.
If he wins the Democratic primary, he’ll square off against billionaire investor Bruce Rauner, who recently put $50 million of his own fortune into his re-election campaign.
Tired of being priced out of politics? Donate $5 or more a month to become a United Working Families member today.
A real estate mogul in the White House. An investment banker in Chicago’s City Hall. And now the billionaires are battling it out for the Illinois Governor’s mansion, while more and more working people are left behind.
It’s time to build something different: politics for the people, not the plutocrats. Become a member of United Working Families today.
Illinois is my home. This is where I’ve raised my family, where I started businesses and where I’ve created programs to improve the lives of people across the state.
What’s happening now in Springfield is offensive to our values and who we are as a state. Bruce Rauner’s failure as Governor isn’t just about numbers, it’s creating real damage every day to people across Illinois.
Now, let me address a question I imagine may be on your mind:
With Bruce Rauner as Governor and Donald Trump as President, why do we need another rich guy running for office?
My answer is that it’s a matter of values, and that Trump and Rauner are trying to destroy many of the things I’ve spent my life fighting for.
About a century ago, my great-grandfather Nicholas arrived in Chicago penniless. He worked hard — but he had help. A social service agency helped him find a place to live. A good public school helped him learn English. A state university allowed him to get a higher education degree.
You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don’t have any, and this state gave my great grandfather his bootstraps.
It’s what everyone in Illinois deserves, it’s what I’ve been fighting for my whole life, and it’s what I’ll be fighting for every day as your next governor.
Pretty sure that argument alone is not gonna do the trick. Your own thoughts about what he should say?
* This from a state Republican Party whose governor says he would be fine with a 4.99 percent income tax rate and a new tax on services…
Before even announcing his campaign for governor, J.B. Pritzker followed Mike Madigan’s lead and proposed raising the income tax to over 5 percent without any reforms to fix Illinois.
At the City Club in 2015, Mike Madigan said that raising the income tax back to 5 percent with no reforms was “a good place to begin.”
Now, as J.B. Pritzker prepares to plunge into the Democratic primary, he’s made clear he supports Madigan’s tax hike plan.
Behind closed doors, Pritzker told Chicago machine insiders that he supports raising the income tax to over 5 percent.
At a meeting with Democratic activists just three weeks ago, Pritzker told party insiders the following:
“Let’s remind everybody, the tax used to be 5 percent, and he let it lapse down to three and three quarters percent. And that’s what started a lot of the problems that we’ve got in the state. So, if you just put it back that’s $5 billion dollars. That doesn’t get you everything you need, but it’s a good way toward, you know, toward getting real revenue in the state.”
“Like a true machine politician, J.B. Pritzker mirrored the Madigan tax hike plan behind closed doors, before even announcing his campaign. It’s clear that Pritzker’s loyalty belongs to Mike Madigan and his plan for Illinois is higher taxes with no real reform.” - Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
Also, the doors weren’t closed. The media was inside the event.
But, hey. Politics!
…Adding… I thought they were referring to the Democratic committeeman’s event, but Yaffe says the recording was made during “a meet and greet put on by a state legislator from Chicago.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** The ILGOP has a new press release and a digital ad…
“Political insider J.B. Pritzker is the financial muscle behind Mike Madigan’s political machine, funneling over a million dollars to help him in just the last year. And like Madigan, Pritzker wants to hike the income tax to over 5 percent without any fixes to repair Illinois. One can only imagine the devastation Mike Madigan could do with a lapdog billionaire at his side. Pritzker puts the insiders first and the taxpayers last.” - Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Kirsten Kukowski
To welcome Pritzker to the race, the Illinois Republican Party is launching digital ads highlighting the Madigan-Pritzker plan to pass a devastating income tax hike with no reform to fix our broken system.
Pritzker Caught on Tax Hike Lie
Tells media one thing, insiders another
At his campaign announcement, J.B. Pritzker responded to tapes revealing his plan to raise the income tax to at least 5%.
His response to the media? The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Pritzker, “tells reporters state should start with taxing millionaires and billionaires first, not middle class.”
Except, he told Madigan machine insiders the exact opposite – admitting that his tax plan could not realistically be implemented for at least three years.
Pritzker said behind closed doors, “so lets just talk about this flat income tax, because we’re not going to be able to turn it into a millionaire’s tax, a fair tax – it’s gonna take us three years.”
“Pritzker kicked off his campaign by trying to cover up his real tax plan: a massive tax hike on every Illinoisan with no real reforms,” said Illinois Republican Party spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski. “The tape doesn’t lie. If he’s elected, J.B. Pritzker wants to take income taxes over 5 percent as soon as he takes office with no changes to bring down costs or grow jobs.”
*** UPDATE 3 *** From the governor’s campaign…
We’ll be frank – no one on Team Rauner is surprised by the news today.
J.B. Pritzker announced his bid for Governor and now joins a list of Democrats who want to be governor so they can raise your taxes while enacting no changes to control spending, reform government or grow jobs.
In fact, Pritzker has already said he wants to take the income tax to over 5 percent. Higher than it was under Pat Quinn!
We know they will all try to tell a different story. So, we’ve set up a fund to directly combat the anticipated attacks from J.B. Pritzker, Chris Kennedy, and any other candidate as they try to detract from their own questionable plans.
Your contribution today will help us keep Illinois voters informed of the truth.
Here on Team Rauner, we’re working to bring back Illinois and put our state’s families first. And now matter how hard the political machine tries to stop us, we won’t give up.
The entire tone of these Fix Illinois commercials seems meant to create the impression that Rauner is a newcomer to Illinois’ problems instead of one of the major problem creators for the last couple of years.
He’s not some new guy with great, new solutions running for office. He is the hard-line governor of the state that won’t pass a budget.
So, these dress-up commercials seem more that a bit disingenuous.
Maybe the Democrats should counter the governor’s commercials with commercials of their own.
Let’s see, Rauner dressed up as Norm the carpenter from “This Old House” (minus the protuberant stomach possessed by all real carpenters).
Who could Madigan dress up as for his TV commercial?
* The Question: Who could Madigan dress up as for his own TV commercial? Explain.
Indiana gained 20,000 Illinoisans on net in 2015, the most recent year of data available. From 2006 to 2015, Illinois lost more than 119,000 people to Indiana on net. That’s equivalent to Indiana annexing the entire city of Peoria.
Illinois also suffered a net loss of more than 11,000 people to Wisconsin in 2015, and nearly 86,000 people over the preceding decade. That’s almost as if the entire city of Waukegan moved 15 miles up the shoreline.
There is some good news for Illinoisans: The state now has more payroll jobs than ever, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it’s a question of where those jobs are being created that should concern political leaders. […]
Illinois has regained barely a sliver of the manufacturing jobs that evaporated during the Great Recession, and it’s lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs since the turn of the century. There are now far more jobs in sectors such as state and local government, leisure and hospitality, and business and professional services than in manufacturing. It didn’t used to be that way.
Indiana and Wisconsin, however, are seeing strong manufacturing comebacks. Both states have recovered a larger share of their manufacturing jobs than Illinois, and manufacturing workers see higher wages than their Illinois counterparts, when adjusting for cost of living.
A mostly empty warehouse at 2410 South Grand Avenue East in Springfield now holds neat rows of filing cabinets and pallets of paper records which belong to the Department of Human Services. The lease agreement binds Illinois to fulfill at least the first five years of the deal, which adds up to a minimum of $2.4 million.
Procurement Board Member Ed Bedore, an appointee of House Speaker Michael Madigan, tells WCIA the total cost could clear $11 million before the 10-year deal is over. Bedore estimated Illinois could have purchased the property for $700,000. It’s value is listed at $1.1 million.
The Procurement Policy Board is led by Chairman Frank Vala, a Republican appointee of Governor Bruce Rauner. Vala’s five-member panel had the chance to block the Rauner administration from overspending on an inflexible lease arrangement, but it never held a discussion about the terms of this lease. Rick Morales and former state representative Bill Black are the other two Republican appointees on the board. Larry Ivory was appointed by Senate President John Cullerton, a Democrat. […]
The Illinois Department of Central Management Services provided this statement in an email: “The lease was secured through the open, competitive bidding process and was fully reviewed by the Illinois Procurement Board.” WCIA is only aware of one other bid for this particular lease. Those familiar with the Procurement Policy Board’s discussions say the warehouse lease was never even discussed.
The DHS statement also claims the facility owners, Climate Controlled Holdings, LLC, made “additional enhancements” to the warehouse, upgrades the state could not afford to make without a full budget or a specific appropriation.
According to records kept by the Secretary of State’s office, Climate Controlled Holdings is registered to Mr. Thomas Storniolo at 20 North Clark Street in Chicago. The business appears to be a young entity. It was registered with the state in February of last year.
Storniolo’s LinkedIn page also shows him as the Controller of New Frontier Management.
WCIA reporter Mark Maxwell is new to town, so he apparently didn’t recognize the New Frontier Management name.
Old-timers will recognize it, however. That’s the company which used to be run by Bill Cellini and which leased a whole bunch of buildings to the state over the years.
* From a reader who knows how to do research…
Climate Controlled Holdings (CCH) has 3 members of the LLC and has a registered agent named Thomas Storniolo at 20 Clark Street, Suite 1600. One of the members of CCH is Andiamo Development LLC. The other two LLCs are registered in Springfield. Andiamo has the same registered agent and address. Andiamo is managed by 3GEN Management INC. 3GEN Management has the same registered agent and address and lists Jeffrey Richards, also of the same address as President of 3GEN Management.
On LinkedIn Thomas Storniolo identifies himself as the Controller/Secretary at New Frontier Management, Co. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-storniolo-3152a564/)…
New Frontier Management lists Thomas Storniolo as the registered agent and is also at 20 Clark Street, Suite 1600. The president is listed as Claudia Cellini. New Frontier Developments has the same registered agent and address and also has Claudia Cellini listed as the president.
In a 2011 article on Bill Cellini, Bernie Schoenburg writes “New Vista’s address is listed as 20 S. Clark St. in Chicago, an address shared by several other firms associated with the Cellini family.” (http://www.sj-r.com/x422405742/Cellini-business-interests-remain-extensive-documents-show) The focus of that article is partly on New Frontier Companies. New Frontier Company, on their website http://www.nfcompanies.com/, lists their address as 20 Clark Street, Suite 1600. The registered agent for New Frontier Company is Thomas Storniolo at 20 Clark Street, Suite 1600. The president for New Frontier Company is listed as William F. Cellini, Jr.
Additionally, you’ll see that the property was obtained January 3, 2017 for $575,000 (http://tax.co.sangamon.il.us/SangamonCountyWeb/app/saleSearchResults.action?pn=22-02.0-201-029&township=&saleClass=&saleYear=&fromDate=&toDate=&fromAcres=&toAcres=) Yet, it is listed on CMS lease inventory going back to October of 2016 for a lease starting February 1, 2017 (https://www.illinois.gov/cms/agency/property/leasing/Documents/October-2016-CMS-Lease-Inventory.pdf) In October, 2016 CMS is listing a lease starting Feb 1,2017 with CCH for a building they don’t even purchase until January 3, 2017.
The lease started before the property was even purchased by the new owners? That ought to raise some eyebrows. But it’s that Cellini family name which could gin this up even more. This may very well be all smoke and no serious fire, but it’s an easy thing to understand for Springfieldians who’ve seen these types of deals for decades.
CMS put out for bid three times the need for warehouse space before settling on the Springfield location. Only two landlords responded – apparently a sign of property managers’ reluctance to do business with the state of Illinois, which is more than $12.6 billion behind in paying vendors.
*** UPDATE *** From CMS Acting Director Mike Hoffman with all emphasis in the original…
Hi Rich –
First, this lease was handled in the exact same way as every other lease as required by law, which includes review and approval by the independent Chief Procurement Officer.
It was posted publicly on the Illinois procurement bulletin and reviewed by the Procurement Policy Board.
State and Federal law requires the safe keeping of these documents.
The Quinn administration was inappropriately keeping these documents in dilapidated facilities around the state including Dwight Correctional Facility. These facilities were not designed for storage of sensitive materials and some files were incurring damage from flooding, mildew and mold. In addition, DHS staff was unable to access many of these documents without having to travel and incur further costs.
Some of these storage areas also did not have the proper level of security to store these documents.
Under this administration, DHS made the decision to consolidate these documents in a more appropriate facility in Sangamon County – providing better access to the documents, greater security as well as a climate controlled space that would ensure the integrity of these documents as required by law.
Finally, the consolidation of these documents is an important first step in any future digitization effort. As far as the facilities that were used under the Quinn Administration, the storage of these documents at those sites precluded the sale or disposal of these locations of which the maintenance and upkeep costs taxpayers millions each year.
The initial requirement stated by DHS was 26,000 sq ft.
An RFP was put out twice with no responses.
By the time the third RFP was issued DHS’ space needs had already increased to 37,000 sq ft. and there were more sites scheduled to be consolidated which would increase their need even more.
As such, the option was exercised to take the full building of 60,000 sq ft.
It is important to note: that Climate Control Holdings was the only bidder who put forward two properties – CMS took the lesser of the two bids.
Rich, to your question about leasing before they owned:
The law allows CMS to enter into a lease as long as the party shows site control and/or option to buy – they had shown an option to buy.
The Democrat-controlled Illinois House is preparing another stopgap spending plan that would allocate more than $800 million to higher education and human services.
A House committee Wednesday afternoon approved the plan that taps into two special state funds intended to help education and human services. The vote split along party lines. The bill now goes to the full House.
The two funds get a small part of income tax receipts as they are received by the state and are constantly replenished.
“We have $800-some million dollars sitting in a bank account gathering dust, doing nothing, that could go out the door immediately to help our communities, to help seniors, to fund our higher education system,” said Rep. Greg Harris of Chicago, a top House Democrat budget negotiator.
The move came as Northeastern Illinois University announced it was canceling three days of classes in an effort to save on salary costs as it struggles to make ends meet without financial support from the state. School employees were already asked to take unpaid furlough days during the recent spring break.
Rauner, however, disputed the idea that the Democrats’ plan would help. He posted a video on his Facebook page and said stopgap budgets do little to address long-term issues but “keep universities, community colleges and social service agencies on the verge of collapse with no permanent lines of funding.”
The governor repeated an earlier pledge that he would not sign off on another one-time spending plan unless it also included provisions to “protect taxpayers” such as a permanent property tax freeze.
“Instead of focusing on stopgaps that serve the Springfield insiders, we should be coming together to pass real and lasting solutions to our problems,” Rauner said.
Yeah, well, the Senate tried to do that and was stopped dead in its tracks.
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said Democrats were watching the Facebook video during caucus.
“It’s reminiscent of the big staircase press conference he had at the end of May a year ago, where he denounced everybody. And then at the end of the day, he signed a temporary spending plan that included $400 million in spending for higher education that he had left out,” Brown said of the video. “I think history may serve as an example here. We are hopeful of getting a full budget done but that appears to be an elusive goal.”
Brown was referring to a news conference Rauner held on the Capitol staircase, surrounded by GOP lawmakers, in which he called the 2016 spring session a “stunning failure” while accusing Madigan of holding the state hostage. The Illinois Senate — just before the midnight adjournment — shot down a budget plan that was approved by the Illinois House. In June 2016, Rauner signed a stopgap budget and school funding bill — while calling it no solution, and not a balanced budget: “This is a bridge to reform. That’s what this is.”
That partial budget ran out on Jan. 1 — leaving social service agencies and universities in the lurch of the historic budget impasse. […]
The Facebook video was released as House Democrats wrapped up a caucus to discuss the measure.
A new survey conducted by United Way of Illinois documents the impact of Illinois’ record-breaking budget impasse on the human services sector and on people and communities across the state. Data shows that 69% of agencies have received no or only partial payment for services delivered in fiscal year 2017.
“We see the deep and lasting effects of this impasse every day in our schools, in our neighborhoods and in the state’s spiraling reputation. The lack of urgency from the state in coming together to work on a full budget is negligent given rising violence, population decline and the loss of jobs and talent,” said Sonja Reece, Board Chair of United Way of Illinois, the statewide association of 52 local United Ways and the largest non-governmental funder of health and human services in the state. “While stop-gap funding provided limited and temporary relief to some service providers, it did not repair the long-term damage imposed by the lack of a full budget, nor is it funding current service delivery.”
Survey data showed that 46% of agencies have been forced to reduce the number of clients served, with the highest reported declines in the areas of youth development, mental health and job training. “Hospitals, law enforcement, State’s Attorneys, housing and city/community staff are asking when services will start again as they have no other resources to take care of the quite dire situations in their communities,” said Kathy Weiman, CEO of Alternatives in Moline.
Twenty-five percent of respondents have been forced to completely eliminate programs due to the lack of payment from the state. The most significant program cuts were reported in the areas of criminal justice, job training and youth development—programs that were contracted by the state to reduce crime and violence and build the strength of the Illinois economy. “We know investing in our young people and in training for living wage jobs is key not only to solving social challenges like poverty and violence by providing opportunity, but also in growing the local economy,” said Wendy DuBoe, President and CEO of United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. “Additionally, waiting lists for services and a lack of psychiatric support for the mentally ill results in more expensive interventions down the line.”
Agency respondents reported taking a number of measures to continue delivering services contracted, but not paid for by the state, including eliminating staff, not filling vacant positions, increasing waiting lists and utilizing cash reserves. Survey data shows that private philanthropy cannot plug the hole left by the state, with only 1 in 10 agencies reporting they have replaced 25% or more of the funding owed to them by the State through additional fundraising efforts.
“Private philanthropy can never provide enough resources to solve for the delinquency of the state,” said Reece. “United Ways and generous Illinoisans are doing their best on the private end of the private-public partnership meant to maintain and build well-being in the state, but we currently have no public partner.”
The survey was conducted March 3-March 17, 2017, and responses were received from 463 human services agencies that represent every region in the state and every service category including youth development, domestic violence prevention, mental health, emergency housing, senior services and employment training.
By the way, that 69 percent who report receiving no or only partial payments for services in FY17 is almost double the 35 percent who reported the same thing in Fiscal Year 2016.
Chris Kennedy’s campaign for governor of Illinois announced today it has received over $1 million from over 3,000 individual contributors since launching his candidacy six weeks ago.
Kennedy has raised more individual contributions in the first six weeks of his campaign than Governor Rauner did between announcing his campaign and the Republican primary in 2014.
“Thousands of Illinois families have contributed to this effort because they know fixing our state’s challenges will take more than a big wallet,” Kennedy said. “Illinois has never been in worse shape than it is under Governor Rauner. We need a fundamental change in state government. Thousands of Illinois families have responded to our message because they want to restore the promise of the American Dream. I am ready to bring my unique set of experiences to build a stronger economy that works for every Illinois family, no matter where they live in our state.”
Sneed is informed Dem dollar powerhouse J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire businessman and major Dem donor, will officially announce his bid today to run for governor in the Democratic primary.
UPDATE: The Pritzker campaign later Thursday morning announced the time and place of the announcement: 2 p.m. at Grand Crossing Gym, 7655 S. Ingleside Ave.
There’s lots of snark potential there and I was all set to unleash a fusillade of it, but was then informed by a Pritzker staffer that the candidate has lost 50 pounds, so he has probably seen the inside of a gymnasium in recent weeks.
Grand Crossing Park and its surrounding community take their name from a historic train wreck which occurred less than a mile away from the site of the park.
Again, the snark potential is pretty much endless. But that same Pritzker person sent me a text message earlier today. The person hadn’t Googled the park or the neighborhood and wasn’t involved in the location choice, but said…
The community is still standing– they rebuilt it together after a historic train wreck. That’s a pretty decent job description for the next governor.
Not a bad analogy.
*** UPDATE *** From Sen. Daniel Biss…
“I welcome J.B. Pritzker into this primary race — one which will be a test for Democrats across Illinois. Do we want to perpetuate the broken politics that got us into this mess to begin with or do we want to write a different kind of future? Do we try to out-Rauner Bruce Rauner or offer a truly democratic alternative that empowers ordinary Illinoisans? I welcome the debate about whether the future of the Democratic party will be a vehicle for the very rich and machine politicians or one for the rest of us.”
