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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Let’s make Illinois families healthier and its communities stronger. The American Heart Association supports a tax on sugary drinks that also puts money back into the communities most affected.
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.
