Kraft Heinz announced Wednesday that it will move Oscar Mayer and the company’s U.S. meats business from Madison, Wis., to Chicago — a move that will add 250 jobs to Chicago’s Aon Center.
Kraft will eliminate an undisclosed number of jobs at its Champaign plant as it moves its cheese production operation to other facilities.
“We are planning to move cheese production from our Champaign, Illinois, facility to other factories within our network,” Michael Mullen, senior vice president of corporate and government affairs for Kraft Heinz, said in a statement. “The move will take approximately 24 months to complete and will make Champaign a center-of-excellence in dry and sauce production. As a result of this decision we do expect there to be job losses in Champaign.”
State Sen. Kyle McCarter spent more than $33,000 on a campaign consultant in the four months before he announced his bid for Congress against Republican U.S. Rep. John Shimkus.
While that kind of spending isn’t unusual in the lead-up to a run for political office, the Republican from Lebanon tapped his state campaign account for the consulting work — a move that experts say likely would be prohibited under federal campaign laws if the work went toward his race for Congress. […]
“It’s not related to Congress,” McCarter said of the spending. […]
A review of records filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections shows that between June 1 and Sept. 29, McCarter wrote three checks worth a total of $33,675 to Downers Grove-based Isaiah Consulting.
By contrast, McCarter previously used Isaiah for three campaign mailing jobs worth a total of $1,232.
It’s not a lot of money at all, but, again, the FEC can be evil meanies.
The Rauner administration is vehemently pushing against SB570, which lawmakers are to take up in overtime session next week. The bill would limit the power administration’s have over managing a state program in time of financial crisis. Advocacy groups have blasted Rauner for changing rules to the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) leading one group to erect billboards warning of Rauner’s “dangerous cuts.”
– In a memo obtained by POLITICO Illinois, the administration describes “high costs and unintended consequences” of the bill. “If enacted on January 1, 2016, the bill would add $220 million in program costs for the duration of Fiscal Year 2016 and have an annualized cost in excess of $800 million,” the memo says. READ THE MEMO: http://politi.co/1GLp6vr
* From the governor’s office…
Hi, Rich –
Hope you’re well.
I wanted to pass along the attached memo and the following statement to you. The statement is attributable to me.
“Unfortunately, rather than passing a budget, the Majority wants to politicize this issue. But with a huge price tag for taxpayers and a number of unintended consequences outlined in the memo, the bill presents a real problem for centrist Democrats, especially those who portray themselves as fiscal conservatives. The bill doesn’t just roll back a single emergency rule — it mandates nearly a billion dollars of annual spending regardless of available resources and threatens the viability of the program over the long run. Additionally, even if they pass this - there’s still no money to pay for CCAP so it won’t fix the underlying issue. Bad for taxpayers, bad for child care. It is a plainly political bill that would create as many problems as it pretends to solve.”
Though the fiscal impact is indeterminable at this time, the amendment would provide the Department with little or no flexibility to manage the Child Care Program and live within established appropriations.
* Groups including Mrs. Rauner’s Ounce of Prevention sent their own letter today. The full response letter to legislators is here. Excerpt…
- 80,000 Illinois families are able to enter and remain in the work force
- 69,000 skilled early childhood education workers are employed in early learning facilities
- 46,450 employers in Illinois rely on CCAP to ensure their employees have a safe place to leave their children and are able to come to work every day
- CCAP generated $2.6 billion in revenue in 2014. For every 100 jobs created in child care, 56 are created in other industries. For every $100 spent on child care, $213 is spent in the economy
* However, nowhere in that letter was anything addressing the new DHS cost claims. So, I circled back to our pal Emily Miller at Voices for Illinois Children. Her response…
Hi Rich,
By now you have received a memo from a group of organizations encouraging lawmakers and the governor to support SB570, a bill that reverses dangerous cuts to child care implemented unilaterally by the Rauner Administration on July 1, 2015.
Notably absent from that memo is direct repudiation of numbers the administration put forward in its own memo issued this morning. That was intentional. The administration’s memo does not include information regarding how they arrived at their numbers - it simply states numbers as though they are factual.
For example, advocates cannot dissect claims of program costs when we are unsure what baseline is being used—are we comparing program costs from before the Governor’s devastating cuts, or after the cuts, when the administration turned away 15,000 children in the first month of the changes?
And what is the baseline for the annualized costs? The pre-cut levels? The post-cut levels? These are questions advocates do not know the answers to, and since we are unwilling to make numbers up, we are unable to refute the Governor’s claims as a result.
What we do know is that while the legislation would require restoring funding for the operation of the child care program, the cost of NOT funding the program is far greater than $220 million, or even $800 million (numbers used in the administration’s memo) due to the devastating impact that the Rauner Administration’s actions are having on working families. That is why advocates have for years called on Illinois lawmakers to identify revenue to sustain the program at the level necessary to meet the identified need.
No serious policymaker can honestly say investing in quality child care for working parents doesn’t save the state money in the short-and long-term. That’s why the coalition joined together to assess the real value of the CCAP program in Illinois. And that’s why we unanimously support the passage of SB570.
Thanks.
Emily Miller
Director, Policy and Advocacy
Voices for Illinois Children
* Related…
* Survey: Rauner’s Child Care Cuts Hitting Families, Providers Hard: Nearly 2,500 families from 100 child care centers in Illinois have lost access to state subsidized daycare because of the Rauner administration’s cuts to the program, according to a new survey of child care providers in the state.
It wasn’t business as usual Monday morning as hundreds showed up to march through Chicago’s Financial District for this week’s #MoralMonday protest, where demonstrators gathered to fight Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed budget. […]
“People are taking to the streets and shutting down the Board of Trade today because we can’t cut any more services,” Buck said. “We are in crisis and that is why we are here today.”
Dude, you didn’t shut down the Board of Trade. You blocked a doorway for a few minutes.
I am no longer a nonprofit executive director and I took a hiatus from Capitol Fax for my own sanity. I started reading it whenever I need an emetic.
I contacted our luminaries on behalf of my daughter who is a CPS sophomore. I politely urged them to put politics aside and provide the needed financial support for CPS. I know it probably isn’t going to happen, but I have a kid in AP US History, so I have to feign some sort of belief in our political system. I was amused by Governor Rauner’s “reply.”
Dear David,
I appreciate you taking the time to reach out to my office about public education funding in Illinois. My staff is reviewing your message. Please know I value your opinion and thank you for sharing it with me. Hearing from people in Illinois gives me a better idea of what is impacting local communities across the state. Knowing those opinions helps me make decisions for you in Springfield.
Please feel free to contact me in the future. My office phone numbers are (217) 782-0244 and (312) 814-2121.
Sincerely,
Governor Bruce Rauner
I truly appreciate the Governor making decisions for me. It allows me more time to perfect my guppy fish at feeding time impression.
Anyhow, I thought you would appreciate the sentiment.
Synopsis As Introduced
Calls upon the leaders of the State of Illinois to recognize and continue to defend the importance of bacon and other pork products, along with the pork producers, to the economy, job growth, and the consumer preference of the people of Illinois.
Against the backdrop of a recent report linking processed meat to cancer, six Republicans introduced a resolution last week showing their support of bacon and other pork products.
Asked Tuesday if the proposal stems from the World Health Organization report warning about the health effects of eating certain meat products, state Rep. Steve Andersson of Geneva said, “You betcha. It was in direct response to that.”
Members of the newly rendered bacon lobby include Andersson, Avery Bourne of Raymond, Grant Wehrli of Naperville, Mark Batinick of Plainfield, Reggie Phillips of Charleston and Keith Wheeler of Oswego.
The report is problematic and extensive mainstream and social media coverage has been sensational, unquestioning, and often flat out wrong.
Let’s start with the fact that of the 22 scientists from 10 countries on the panel, 15 voted for the conclusions that were published and 7 disagreed or abstained. Usually these panels seek consensus and one prominent food safety scientist I discussed the results with was surprised at how far they were from consensus. Why the significant dissent and why publish such far reaching conclusions designed to change lifestyles and damage livlihoods with a vote of only 68%? And why publish only a summary? Where is the full report? […]
Many media reports equated the meats with cigarettes because they are both Group 1. As an NPR listener and donor I was shocked to read this headline on their website “Bacon, sausage and other processed meats are now ranked alongside cigarettes and asbestos as known carcinogens.” After several days they changed it. […]
So why didn’t they say so in the document so uneducated reporters would know better than to equate cigarettes with bacon? And why not explain the risk? I want to know what the odds are that I’ll get cancer if I eat two slices of bacon with my eggs every morning. The WHO panel says that eating 50 grams of processed meat (less than 2 slices of cooked American style bacon) per day increases your odds of colorectal cancer 18%. And they leave it at that. What the heck does that mean?
The Center For Disease Control (CDC) says that over a lifetime your risk of colorectal cancer, the focus of the WHO research, is under 5%. Two slices of bacon will up the odds to less than 6% not 23% (5% + 18%) as some math challenged reporters have told us.
Heck, according to CDC data, the incidence of colorectal cancer is significantly higher in Pennsylvania than in Maryland. Should we conclude Maryland is bad for your health and evacuate everyone? […]
The panel based its conclusion by studying existing studies, a practice called meta-analysis. Many media reports claimed they looked at 800 studies, but that’s not exactly true. They started with 800 and eliminated all but 15 red meat studies and 18 processed meat studies.
Conclusion? Noted legislative bacon fan and liberal Democrat Rep. Greg Harris ought to join the bacon caucus and co-sponsor this resolution.
*** UPDATE *** From Rep. Steve Andersson…
Rich,
After your comments on the blog today about the Bacon caucus, Rep. Greg Harris called me in the spirit of bipartisanship and asked to be added to the Resolution. Done and done!
* This story in the Sun-Times about how Kim Foxx hasn’t yet disclosed an in-kind contribution of a poll done on her behalf by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle months before Foxx opened up a campaign account is a bit on the technical violation side.
The governor has been trying like crazy to drive a wedge between the mayor and Madigan and hopes the CPS crisis will turn up the heat on Emanuel to make the break and side with the governor in favor of his pro-business reforms. In fact, Rauner has predicted that the state budget stalemate will end in January, when a simple majority is needed for passage and Chicago will be desperate for money to avert the need for thousands of teacher layoffs.
But Emanuel’s lavish praise for Madigan at Tuesday’s groundbreaking underscored the speaker’s point: Rauner’s divide-and-conquer strategy is a bust.
“He has not and I don’t think he will” drive a wedge between himself and Emanuel, Madigan said.
“The mayor and I share too many common interests. We’re both Chicagoans. We’re both dedicated to the interests of the city of Chicago, to the Chicago school system. And we’re very dedicated to the principles of the Democratic Party.”
No doubt there’s significant stage-managing here, as subscribers know.
But Rahm’s in this precarious position because Madigan ain’t making anything up. This fight is all too real to MJM, and he apparently believes that Emanuel is with him.
* Anyway, I just remembered that Oscar’s third birthday is November 18th, the same day that the leaders are meeting together for the first time since late May. If they won’t fix things for Illinois’ sake, or Chicago’s sake or their own sake, maybe they could do it for the puppy?…
…Adding… I misremembered. Oscar’s birthday is the 22nd, not the 18th. I’m a bad dad. And this impasse ain’t never gonna end.
Lake County officials who eulogized Fox Lake Police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz as a hero in the days after he died from a fatal gunshot wound, said Wednesday evidence now shows he staged his death as an apparent homicide to cover years of financial exploitation of the police Explorers post he oversaw.
George Filenko, commander of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, called Gliniewicz’s actions the “ultimate betrayal” that included intentionally leaving a staged trail of police equipment at the crime scene in an attempt to mislead police to believe his death was a homicide.
Filenko made the comments during an exclusive Daily Herald interview before a news conference to announce the investigation’s findings that Gliniewicz took a large sum of money from Fox Lake Explorer Post 300. Thousands of dollars was used by Gliniewicz for personal purchases, including travel expenses, mortgage payments, gym memberships, adult websites, facilitating personal loans and unaccounted cash withdrawals, Filenko said.
“There are no winners here,” Filenko said. “Gliniewicz committed the ultimate betrayal to the citizens he served and the entire law enforcement community. The facts of his actions prove he behaved for years in a manner completely contrary to the image he portrayed.
Filenko said Gliniewicz was using the Explorer fund “as his personal bank account.” He added that $250,000 flowed through the account over seven years, and investigators estimated Gliniewicz took about “five figures.”
Police also say that the investigation into what happened was not over. The investigation “strongly indicates criminal activity on the part of at least two other individuals,” Filenko said, but he added that officials would not comment further on that.
The only hero of this story might be the county coroner, who tried to do his job while the police screamed about how he was hurting their investigation by releasing information.
[House Speaker Michael Madigan’s press secretary Steve Brown] was asked about former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, who now serves in the governor’s administration as chief operating officer. Rauner has named Lingle among his “superstars” who would help fix the state’s financial mess. Lingle’s hire caught headlines both because of the high-profile nature of having a former governor on board — and her salary. At some $200,000 a year, Lingle is earning more as a Rauner aide than she was as governor of Hawaii.
– Brown suggested — and we’ve heard whispers of this in the past — that Lingle’s hiring had something to do with ties to a close Rauner adviser and strategist Nick Ayers and “dark money” that flowed from groups tied to him and attacked Lingle opponents. Background on that here: http://bit.ly/1RSlisr. Ayers is a Georgia-based political operative and past head of the Republican Governors Association.
– Ayers’ Target Enterprises, which handles campaign ads, was one of the biggest payees during Rauner’s record-breaking, $65 million campaign for governor.
– An audience member asked Brown what evidence he’s seen of her work in the Legislature: Brown said so far she organized a parade for the state fair.
– The Governor’s office slices into “pitiful” Brown: “It’s perplexing why high ranking House Democrats continue to unjustifiably attack top females in the Rauner administration,” spokesman Lance Trover said in a statement to POLITICO Illinois. “It is especially pitiful coming from someone who doubles as a lobbyist while serving as the Speaker’s spokesman. No wonder he’s pathetically protecting the old boys club.”
Brown was out of line. She doesn’t do legislative work, so he wouldn’t really know what her duties are.
Even so, this administration’s staff has singled out several Democrats for attack many times in the past. Just because Lingle is a woman doesn’t make her exempt. This is 2015, not 1955.
Then again, the Democrats have complained about those administration attacks on them, so turnabout should be avoided.
What I’m trying to say here is that everybody ought to just take a chill pill or something and try to show at least a modicum of respect for the other side.
…Adding… Text from a friend…
I was there. Brown made it very clear that she doesn’t work in the legislature, “So I wouldn’t be in the same meetings she is in and know what she does.” That part of the quote didn’t make it.
* Back in January, the AP asked the state’s business leaders what they’d like to see out of the incoming Rauner administration…
Company leaders are typically among the fiercest proponents of tax cuts. But while many say they’d like to see changes such as the elimination of the state’s franchise tax, they also say the state has few options to generate much-needed money. “You can’t continually cut state government,” [Dennis Larson, executive vice president of the Central Illinois Builders] said. […]
But whatever happens, it needs to happen soon, Illinois Manufacturers’ Association President Gregory Baise said.
“Manufacturers want certainty. They want a tax structure that they know is going to be in place and they can plan,” Baise said. “We may not like the answers the governor is going to come up with. We understand that.” […]
First, “bring our revenues in line with expenditures,” Illinois Chamber of Commerce President Todd Maisch said. “But No. 2, show really every citizen of Illinois that the political process can work.”
Credit to Baise for staying on message since then. Maisch has since dropped his demand that the governor fix the budget first and show us how to make the process work and has instead gone all-in on the impasse.
* State construction money isn’t being distributed and there’s still lots of untapped bonding authority out there…
Illinois, once a top issuer of municipal bonds, has been absent from the debt market for a year and a half despite having more than $4.8 billion of untapped bond authorization left from a $31 billion, partially bond-funded “Illinois Jobs Now!” program the state enacted in 2009.
Money on hand from state bond sales shrank to $552 million at the end of fiscal 2015 from $2.68 billion at the end of fiscal 2014, according to Moody’s. […]
Metra, the Chicago area’s commuter train operator, said about $400 million of projects, including improvements to 16 stations, two rail yards and a major bridge replacement program, are on hold due to the lack of state bond money.
Our state could use those jobs. And those are easily measurable jobs, not some ideological pie in the sky hoped-for return on anti-union “reforms.”
A package of fees and taxes meant to pay off the “Jobs Now” bonds has fallen short of its revenue target. This is largely due to underperformance of a video gambling tax as some communities, most notably Chicago, blocked the gaming machines.
The package is expected to generate $830 million this fiscal year, short of legislative projections from 2009 that it would raise $943 million to nearly $1.2 billion annually, according to the Chicago-based Civic Federation.
Chicago wants a casino, so it hasn’t approved video gaming. In the process, it has passed up millions of dollars in revenue, which it can’t afford to leave on the table.
The dome of the Illinois State Capitol won’t be adorned with the usual festive string lights this holiday season, a victim not of the Grinch but the ongoing budget impasse between Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic legislative leaders.
Secretary of State Jesse White, whose office maintains the historic building, announced Tuesday that the dome will go dark this year because while a “nice tradition” the Christmas lights are “nonessential” as he tries to save money as the state enters its fifth month without a full budget.
The office has yet to make a decision about decorations inside the Capitol, where a giant Christmas tree and menorah are usually displayed in the rotunda.
White spokesman Dave Druker estimated the lights cost roughly $7,300 to put up each year — a pittance relative to the nearly $3 million the office says it owes Springfield’s municipal utility company.
Each year since the 1960s, workers from the secretary of state’s office have hung 260-foot strands of lights from the Capitol dome to the building’s roof. It normally takes a crew of 12 from 2 1/2 to three hours to install the lights. The strands use 25-watt bulbs that were commonly used for Christmas lights in the 1950s and ’60s. Two years ago, White’s office said more modern, LED bulbs might be used at some point, but there was no timetable for it.
White’s office has said it is an ongoing battle to deal with the effects of the state not having a budget in place. The office already announced it would not mail notices to people when it’s time to renew their license plate stickers, a move that will save $450,000 a month in postage costs. The savings will allow the office to stretch out money remaining in its postage account “for a few months longer” and enable the office to continue mailing the renewal stickers themselves along with titles and license plates.
The office also has been dealing with vendors who no longer want to do business with the state because they are not being paid for the work they do. The office even warned that power could be turned off at the Capitol because the state cannot pay its utility bills. However, Springfield’s City Water, Light and Power said a power shut-off is not imminent.
Gov. Bruce Rauner didn’t spend much time in Urbana on Monday, but he did spend some money at Black Dog Smoke & Ale House before attending a fundraising event in Champaign. […]
At least two of the Black Dog customers said they were there because they had heard he was coming and wanted to deliver a message.
Julia Schmidt of Champaign said she wanted the governor “to hang in there” during his budget dispute with Democrats in the Legislature.
“I wanted to come down here and thank you for doing the good job you’re doing,” she said.
“That actually means a lot,” Rauner said. “I don’t hear that all the time.”
* The murder of 9 year old Tyshawn Lee in Chicago has garnered a lot of media coverage today. It has also prompted a press conference by Voices for Illinois Children and other groups…
This morning, the day after nine year old Tyshawn Lee was murdered in the Gresham neighborhood in Chicago, Voices for Illinois Children was joined by the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago and a community representative from the Local School Council of Scott Joplin Elementary in Chicago, IL, Tyshawn Lee’s school.
Voices for Illinois Children issued the following statement:
This morning we join Chicago in mourning the unnecessary, violent and traumatic death of nine year old Tyshawn Lee.
As advocates, Voices for Illinois Children and the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago fight alongside policymakers to invest in programs that our children and families need to succeed.
In communities, afterschool programs are symbols of hope, and the support youth receive can be life-changing. Afterschool programs like Teen REACH keep youth safe and get them on track for high school graduation, college and career success.
But since July 1, no state dollars have been spent on Teen Reach afterschool programs, including two programs in the neighborhood where Tyshawn lived. That means that many communities have been without afterschool programs that keep their children safe between the hours of three and six–the afterschool hours considered ‘prime time for juvenile crime’ by law enforcement.
The safety of children and families is not a partisan issue. Ultimately, it’s important to remember and understand that all of us, regardless of political persuasion, care deeply for the children and families of Illinois.
But now is the time to prove that we care. We have to put aside things we don’t agree on and move forward on what we do agree on—we all want families and communities in Illinois have the tools they need to succeed. It’s time for lawmakers and the Governor to work together to pass a budget with new revenue to invest in programs like afterschool in order to move Illinois forward.
They’re not blaming the child’s death on the lack of after school programs, but it is a powerful reminder that those programs help get kids out of harm’s way when classes end.
Illinois is now in its fifth month without a budget.
State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington) told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin, he doesn’t see the Gov. Bruce Rauner backing down any time soon.
“The Democrats are literally scared for their lives when it comes to the next election cycle,” Brady said. “The ability Governor Rauner has to personal finance campaigns and to raise money from other interested parties has got them very much in dismay.”
Tuesday, Nov 3, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Exactly what is the ‘Credit Union Difference’? Just ask Mae Powley, Manager of Pontiac-Dwight Prison Employees Credit Union.
“We really enjoy getting to know our members personally. We consider them part of our extended family. Members are friends, not just account numbers.”
From those who consider their credit union as a trusted place to help meet daily budgetary needs to those who are on the other side of the counter helping fellow members build strong financial futures, credit unions are all about “People Helping People”. So when Mae talks about the credit union as an extended family, she lives it. That’s because she is a member herself along with 1,100 other current and retired Illinois Department of Corrections employees and their family members – and has served alongside them as manager for the past 42 years.
Credit unions are able to better serve their communities because of their not-for-profit cooperative structure and leadership of a volunteer board elected by and from the local membership. Illinois credit unions: putting the “people” behind their fundamental philosophy.
* From the Illinois Policy Institute’s news service…
Illinois’ Governor wouldn’t say how many prospects there are to possibly buy a manufacturing plant in Bloomington-Normal but said one thing that’s keeping potential buyers away is Illinois poor business climate. During a stop with the McLean County Chamber of Commerce Governor Bruce Rauner said his administration is looking for a buyer to take over the plant being vacated by Mitsubishi. However, Rauner said finding one to seal the deal is difficult because of the cost of doing business in Illinois and somethings have to change.
“Our property taxes are too high. Our corporate income taxes are not competitive, but workers comp, tort system and just the regulatory burden and the red tape is punishing for businesses and especially for manufacturing firms.”
Our corporate income tax rate was slashed back in January, but he’s not wrong about the other stuff.
“I’ve been working my tail off trying to get a buyer for the Mitsubishi plant,” said Rauner. “We’ve got people interested, but they look at (the state’s) regulations and taxes and they think, ‘Oh, I don’t know …’”
After his talk, Rauner declined to give a specific number of potentially interested buyers or specific reasons causing their hesitation to proceed.
“I don’t know if it would be right for me to say why people are hesitant … so far we haven’t had success,” Rauner told reporters, noting there are fewer jobs today in the state than 16 years ago.
“We are bleeding our manufacturing base in Illinois at a fast pace,” he said. “It’s our regulations and our taxes. Our property taxes are too high. Our corporate income taxes are not competitive. Workers’ comp, our tort system and the regulatory burden and red tape are punishing for businesses, especially for manufacturing firms. That’s what we’ve got to change.”
Look, I know people in general don’t like corporate incentives. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t rule anything out, particularly for this plant. The governor has suspended the EDGE credit going forward. He might want to rethink that.
You go to war with the army you have, not the one you want to have or believe you ought to have. He has some weapons in his arsenal and he ought to use them, because we’re not a so-called “right to work” state so favored by international manufacturers these days, and we’re not gonna be.
The only public health clinic in Illinois’ poorest county is in a former synagogue off a largely abandoned main street, a bright spot with multicolored windows where seniors can get flu shots and moms get help feeding their kids. But today the lights are off and the doors locked. A sign on the door apologizes for the inconvenience: Because of the impasse over the state budget, we are only open on Wednesdays.
A few blocks away half the sheriff’s department has just gotten pink slips. Counselors at the only place to get mental health care in miles are working for free as the waiting list for help grows. And about 20 miles up the road from Cairo, Illinois’ southernmost tip, the man in charge of keeping highways clear this winter can’t afford to buy road salt, but figures he wouldn’t be able to pay drivers to spread it anyway.
For many people in Illinois, the five-month disagreement over a state budget has been barely a blip on the radar, a sideshow of political wills between a new Republican governor and a heavily Democratic legislature.
But for residents in the low-income counties tucked between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers - a mix of farmland and forest where Southern accents are more common than stop signs - it’s a far different story. Here people and private industry are scarce and getting scarcer, and residents rely on government for everything from health care to jobs and feel the impact severely when the public sector falters.
The problems in that county are not new. But the impasse is making them worse, not better. Go read the whole thing.
* The Ottawa Times has been reporting lately about the “top down” process to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Frank Mautino. Turns out, however, as most of us who do or watch this process for a living know, it goes both ways…
State Republican officials say they’re asking state representative candidate Jacob Bramel to end his campaign to clear the way for a former candidate who announced months ago that he would not run in the 2016 election.
Bramel, though, vowed Monday to move forward.
He met with Republican Jerry Long, last year’s candidate for the 76th District House seat, and two GOP officials late Sunday afternoon near the pool tables at Shakers Lounge in Ottawa. They requested he abandon his campaign.
Reached by cellphone Monday, Long, a union truck driver and a small business owner, barely allowed a reporter to introduce himself before saying that he was declining to comment. In 2014, Mautino narrowly defeated Long by 336 votes.
Bramel said Long asked for the meeting at the bar, but Bramel didn’t know that two representatives of the House Republican Organization, Joe Woodward and Anthony Sarros, would be there as well.
You may disagree with it, but the chamber leaders have been picking candidates in targeted races for decades. It’s pretty universal.
* Republicans loyal to Gov. Bruce Rauner, including legislators and the Tribune editorial board, have been lambasting former Gov. Jim Edgar lately for causing today’s budget problems by devising a pension payment ramp that pushed the solution into the future. Edgar responded on Rick Pearson’s Sunday radio show…
Edgar noted the pension law marked the first time that the state was required to pay the employer’s share of public pension costs for state workers, judges, teachers outside Chicago and elected officials.
“People are rewriting history a little bit on this,” Edgar said of the criticism he has received.
“We just came out of recession. We couldn’t put a whole lot of money in that — that down the road the payments were going to have to increase,” Edgar said. He added, “Everybody knew that and were on warning you have to prepare for that. Unfortunately, what happened was things I couldn’t control after I left office.”
Edgar noted pension holidays by his successors, a downturn in the stock market after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the Great Recession all combined to put Illinois in a hole with a nation’s worst unfunded public employee pension liability of more than $100 billion.
“You had to stay disciplined,” said Edgar, who noted the legislation passed with bipartisan support in his re-election year and led to support from credit-rating agencies and newspaper editorial boards.
One of those editorial boards was the Tribune’s, by the way.
Gov. Rauner laughed off an attack from Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, who called him a “sociopath” during a Friday fundraiser attended by House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.
Asked about the comments during a Monday stop in Bloomington, Rauner laughed before revealing his coping mechanism for the name-calling.
“Uh, yeah. I don’t know how I can say … I’ve just tried to work hard to help people my whole life, and that’s what I’m doing as governor,” Rauner said. “And that’s what I did for years trying to help teachers in Chicago and principals in Chicago, and you know, in politics rhetoric sometimes gets overheated and impolite and all I can do is ignore it.”
The lack of a state budget hasn’t stopped Illinois lawmakers from ordering up thousands of taxpayer-paid copies of coloring books, brochures and other print-based promotional perks in recent months.
According to the results of a public records request, members of the General Assembly have placed 542 orders for printed material since the fiscal year started July 1 without a budget on the books.
The list of the 141 lawmakers participating in the program crosses party lines and includes many of the same Republicans who have been calling for cuts to state programs to help balance the budget.
State Rep. Jeanne Ives, for example, ordered 500 activity books and 13,000 cards to distribute in her suburban Chicago district.
“This is just ridiculous. How dare you? You should be ashamed of yourself,” Ives told me in a phone conversation last week. “You are so misguided on what you’re focusing on. You’re incredible. Incredible.”
She says there are many other examples of waste in state government, including the current structure of the General Assembly, in which lawmakers who chair committees receive $10,000 annual stipends even if those committees rarely meet.
Nonetheless, I asked her if she thought it was hypocritical for her to charge taxpayers for promotional coloring books at a time when the state doesn’t have a budget.
“Not at all,” Ives said.
“Go back and rewrite your article, sir. Because you know where some of those coloring books ended up at? At my kids’ Catholic school. That’s right. I sent them to a Catholic school. The teachers were thrilled to have this book that portrayed Illinois and some facts about it in an interesting and engaging way. So why don’t you go and print that, too,” Ives said.
Actually, the revelation of how a legislator gave some taxpayer-funded materials to her kids’ private school was worth printing.
If legislative leaders and Gov. Bruce Rauner are going to meet in public on the budget stalemate, who should set the agenda? The answers you get depend on which party you’re asking.
The same civic advocacy groups who asked for a public meeting to be held want a “bipartisan agenda” to guide it. State Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant (D-Shorewood) agrees that one person shouldn’t determine what’s going to be discussed.
“There’s a lot of issues, a lot of budgetary items, and I really hope that they’re each given an opportunity to submit what they would like to talk about,” Bertino-Tarrant said.
State Rep. Ron Sandack (R-Downers Grove) disagrees, saying it’s the proper role of the governor for Rauner to set the agenda for a meeting with legislative leaders.
“That’s just the way it is, whether it’s Gov. Rauner, Gov. Quinn, Gov. Blagojevich, et al, that’s the person who should set the agenda, call the meeting, and get things going,” Sandack said. “If we’re going to squabble over an agenda, man, we really have lost our bearings.”
OK, first of all, Rauner didn’t actually “call the meeting.” The goo-goos called it. If we had waited for the governor to call the meeting, it wouldn’t have been called.
And what’s the big deal about a bipartisan agenda? Does literally everything have to be set by the governor? Perhaps that’s been part of the problem here all along?
“Somebody said, let’s have a big group, let’s get all four of the leaders and you in a room and turn the TV cameras on. Oh, great. Talk about posturing. Now everybody’s going to posture. What human being likes to negotiate in front of a camera and make a compromise on TV? People don’t do that. Whatever. I don’t think it’s going to matter much,” said Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) Illinois.
OK, I don’t totally disagree, but then why did you even agree to the meeting? And why did you say back then that you were “happy” to host the public meeting, and why did you call the development “excellent news”?…
Over the last few weeks, I’ve met with each of you individually to try to move beyond this impasse. I believe it’s time for all of us to meet as a group, and thanks to the invitation of a few advocacy groups, I understand everyone has availability on Wednesday, November 18 from 9:30 AM to Noon and is interested in a public meeting. This is excellent news.
“It’s frustrating to see the only folks who are being funded are due to court orders, but we really don’t want to do our business that way,” said ISU President Larry Dietz. “It’s very difficult to run any of the universities for essentially a third of the year not knowing what your budget is going to be. We often hear, ‘Why don’t you run the university like a business?’ Well, I don’t know any business that doesn’t know what its revenue stream will be.”
President Dietz has obviously never met a business owner facing some unexpectedly tough (or good) times.
Consumer tastes change, economic climates change, people make mistakes, and sometimes stuff just comes down out of the blue.
For months now, Gov. Bruce Rauner has said he won’t negotiate a state budget unless his “Turnaround Agenda” demands are met.
In the meantime, he has slashed funding for the child care assistance program, homeless services have been decimated, mental health services are going without cash, universities are struggling and even the Meals on Wheels service for the elderly is cutting back deliveries.
But one of the most important things missing from the debate over that “Turnaround Agenda” is how much money the governor’s proposals will truly save state and local governments. Is it really worth all this pain?
There is simply no hard, reliable, trustworthy data out there because numbers from both sides of the debate on union-related subjects like the prevailing wage are so steeped in ideology.
Among other things, the governor is demanding that local governments, including school districts, be allowed to opt out of paying the prevailing wage on construction and other projects. The amount is set by county and all publicly financed projects must pay those wages. Unions say killing off the prevailing wage won’t save much if any money because productivity will drop when inexperienced, low-wage employees are used to replace trained construction and trades workers.
But, just for the sake of argument, let’s take the proponents at their word on this particular topic.
A June, 2014 study conducted by the Anderson Economic Group for the far-right Illinois Policy Institute, the Illinois Association of School Boards, the Illinois Chamber and the Illinois Black Chamber found that eliminating the prevailing wage would’ve saved local school districts $126.4 million in 2011 (that’s in 2013 dollars, by the way).
According to the state’s Commission on Governmental Forecasting and Accountability, local school districts extended (billed) $16.4 billion in property taxes in 2011. Adjust that 2011 amount to 2013 dollars to even it out with the Anderson study and we get $16.98 billion.
So, even if every single local school district throughout Illinois immediately stopped paying prevailing wage rates on construction projects (not gonna happen) and even if eliminating the prevailing wage does indeed save as much as the Anderson study projected (doubtful), school districts could’ve saved a grand total of 0.74 percent of their property tax budgets, which is not much more than a rounding error. Now figure, in reality, savings of at most half that amount and we’re looking at about a third of a percentage point. That’s not even a rounding error.
Not to mention that the total percentage saved from allowing local governments to opt-in to eliminate the prevailing wage in their actual operating budgets is quite a bit smaller because to get an accurate count you’d have to add in revenues from local sales taxes, state and federal money, etc. Charitably, are we talking maybe a quarter of a percentage point saved here? If that?
Whenever you make a huge investment of time and effort, you should always calculate what’s known as the Return on Investment, or ROI. As far as the prevailing wage goes, this doesn’t look to my eyes like a good enough ROI to continue refusing to negotiate on the budget.
I mean, really, you’re gonna shut down critical state services for months on end for a few million bucks—on a bill that the pro-union majority Democratic General Assembly will never support anyway?
Either change the proposal (perhaps to apply it to only smaller projects) or move along. The benefit is nowhere near worth the current pain.
And, by the way, I am not by any means saying that the governor has to be the only one who needs to start talking about a budget deal.
Legislative Democrats have completely eluded the topic of higher revenues all year. Yes, they say in general that they want a “mixture” of budget cuts and tax hikes. That’s nice and all, but if they truly support the programs they say they hold so dear, like child care assistance and need-based college grants, then they’re gonna have to pay for them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, voting to fund these programs without voting for any revenue to pay for them is like the college student who can’t get it in his head that having checks in his checkbook doesn’t translate into having money in his bank account.
Somehow, some way, we need to get our leaders to start facing reality.
It took Illinois Senate President John Cullerton 20 years to learn a very valuable lesson: When your attacks are making the other side stronger, stop the attacks.
It’s a lesson Gov. Bruce Rauner should heed now.
Cullerton was the original sponsor of a mandatory child car-seat law. A few years later, he passed a mandatory seat belt law.
In 1986, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that his seat belt law was constitutional, and the court appeared to overturn a 1969 opinion striking down the state’s mandatory motorcycle helmet law. So Cullerton announced he would introduce a helmet bill as soon as he could. A motorcycle helmet law seemed to be just over the horizon.
Fast-forward almost 30 years and the North Side Democrat is one of the most powerful politicians in the Illinois General Assembly—but the state still doesn’t have a helmet law.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. The accomplished legislator introduced his helmet bill year after year.
“The more Cullerton kept poking the bear, the bigger we got,” lobbyist Todd Vandermyde recalls. Vandermyde was a bulldozer operator in the early 1990s when he started working with A Brotherhood Aimed Toward Education, a loosely organized group that opposed the helmet bill. ABATE leaders ironed out their regional differences and used Cullerton’s bill to recruit members who didn’t want the government telling them they had to wear helmets.
Membership peaked at 20,000 motorcycle riders in the early 2000s. Rauner should know this story. He’s a motorcycle enthusiast who attends ABATE meetings all the time.
Meanwhile, Cullerton’s helmet bill was becoming more unpopular with his fellow legislators every year. Local ABATE chapters were springing up all over the place, and its hardcore members were becoming very politically active.
“They used my bill to build up their membership,” Cullerton says. It got to the point where he couldn’t even pass a bicycle helmet bill.
So about a decade ago, Cullerton finally realized that his efforts were counterproductive and he stopped introducing helmet bills.
Vandermyde went on to work the statehouse halls for his union. A social conservative, Vandermyde, like many trade union members, never cared all that much for public employee unions. He no longer works for the union, and he has endured cuts to his own pension benefits to save the union fund. It sticks in his craw that the courts have ruled that government employee pensions can’t be touched.
But he says he has watched in amazement this year as Rauner “galvanized and coalesced the labor movement” like never before with constant attacks. Rauner started with a months-long push for a so-called right to work law and then refused to negotiate the state budget until local governments are allowed to strip unions of their collective bargaining rights and remove prevailing wage protections for construction workers.
*** UPDATE 1 *** I posted the BlueRoomStream tweets below and then went back to my personal stuff that I had to finish up today. I eventually watched the video after somebody mentioned in comments that he didn’t hear the governor use the word “victim.” Tony is on the road, so I’ve asked him to give me a time stamp when he gets home because I listened to the remarks and didn’t hear “victim” either.
*** UPDATE 2 *** BlueRoomStream has retracted the “victim” tweet and apologized.
Sorry about that, kids. Those guys are usually rock solid. These things happen, I suppose. Talk to you tomorrow.
[ *** End Of Updates *** ]
* Wow. Just… Wow…
Gov. Rauner: speaking to crowd in Bloomington… "I'm the victim".
* I caught a cold this week and therefore a ton of weekday errands have piled up high, so I’m gonna have to knock them out on Monday. If I finish early there could be some afternoon blogging. We’ll see.
A social service agency known to many on [the EIU] campus is facing hardships because of the current budget impasse in the Illinois government. The Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Service relies heavily on state funding and without knowing the budget, the agency is sorting out their next steps.
This is the first time the agency has been faced with a threat of future closing.
Erin Walters, the executive director of SACIS, said the non-profit rape crisis center offers free and confidential services to those impacted by sexual violence. She said SACIS runs off of federal funds supporting their services, including grants. Walters said the agency has used up all their reserved funds to carry them along and that the state is supposed to reimburse them for their expenses.
Right now, the state has not given SACIS their reimbursement payments so SACIS has been running their reserved funds and taken out a loan to keep their services going. Without the federal dollars the agency would be close. […]
Walters said she does not see SACIS having any additional resources to support the services beyond December. She is working with the board of directors to determine if there are steps to take so they can make small changes to avoid closure.
I saw your post about Ashley, and I thought I would share one thing we are coordinating that can be of help to nonprofits struggling to provide services to those in need in the face of no budget and no payments. You may have heard of Giving Tuesday – the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (this year, December 1). The 92nd Street Y in New York started it a few years ago. It has spread across the country as a way to give back during the holiday season. Donors Forum has organized a campaign called #ILGIVE - http://www.ilgive.com/ - as a vehicle for Illinois nonprofits to the use the day to raise funds and connect with donors.
This campaign does not raise money for Donors Forum. It raises money for the nonprofits that sign-up to be part of it.
Our goal is to raise $6 million dollars on one day for Illinois nonprofits. Right now, about 250 nonprofits are signed up, many of which are ones that rely on state funding to serve Illinois families and communities - Erie Family Health Center, Easter Seals Metropolitan Chicago, Children’s Home + Aid, YMCA of Danville, Transitions Mental Health Services in Rock Island, to name a few.
Will this campaign close the budget gap most nonprofits are facing because of the state budget crisis? Of course not. It is, however, one tangible thing we can do to help in a time where a lot of us are feeling pretty ineffective at making a difference.
I would love to see the Capitol Fax community get involved.
· The nonprofits that read Capitol Fax can sign-up.
· Elected officials can spread the word to the nonprofits in their communities about this opportunity, and then promote the day to constituents, encouraging them to donate to a cause they care about on that day.
· Everybody can spread the word and give what they can on December 1.
It is not the end all, be all, but it can make a big difference to nonprofits and those they serve. Thanks for hearing me out. If you decide to share, feel free to list me as a contact for folks that have more questions and want to get involved. Let me know if you have any questions.
-Doug
Doug Schenkelberg
Vice President, Strategy & Policy
Donors Forum
In the latest lob of back-and-forth insults between Gov. Rauner and Mayor Emanuel, the governor stopped by a Lakeview grocery store to buy dead fish he vowed to send to the mayor.
It’s a jab at the old story of Emanuel sending a dead fish to pollster he was unhappy with in 1988. And that was a play off the scene in “The Godfather,” when the Corleone family was sent a dead fish as a message that their enforcer, Luca Brasi, was dead and “now sleeps with the fishes.”
On Friday, Rauner said he hoped two plastic-wrapped tuna steaks would send the same message, especially with regard to this week’s landmark property tax hike.
“This mayor has put in the biggest tax hike in Chicago’s history with no structural reform,” Rauner said. “I understand why he’s sensitive right now — he’s got a lot of angry constituents, and they’re angry for good reason.”
“Having supported workers’ comp before, in 2011 when we passed the last major reform of workers’ comp, there’s a place I’ll work with you. And I want to see a municipal part of that because, as one of the largest employers in the state, we have a vested interest in reform to workers’ comp.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner on Friday tried to inject some levity into his back-and-forth with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, telling told reporters he planned to send a piece of “dead fish” to City Hall.
Just hours after Emanuel suggested that the rookie Republican governor “stop name-calling and just do your job,” Rauner held a news conference at a North Side meat market, where he bought some double-cut pork chops, a beef tenderloin, and a piece of tuna steak.
The tuna, Rauner said, was “a gift for a special person.”
“I bought some fish, to send some dead fish to the mayor,” Rauner said. “I think he will deeply appreciate that, as only he can.”
* Things can always be worse. There’s Pennsylvania, for instance…
Though Illinois’ ongoing budget impasse is a credit negative for local governments, things are far worse in a state with similar problems. Moody’s investors services says Pennsylvania is experiencing similar issues during their ongoing budget impasse as Illinois but with a greater impact on local governments and schools.
A report from the investors service says school districts in Illinois are receiving most state aid but in Pennsylvania similar fund distributions are not being made which negatively affects local governments’ budgets. The report also says that community colleges and 4-year public universities are adversely affected in both states. In Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed the appropriations measure for K-12 school funding, but no appropriation for higher education has been passed and approved. Moody’s downgraded six public universities in Illinois Tuesday.
* Moody’s…
State aid for Pennsylvania school districts constitutes 10%-83% of operating revenues, and many schools already face financial pressure from charter schools and rising pension costs. Although Pennsylvania schools received their property taxes in September, districts more dependent on state aid are now relying on cash reserves and short-term borrowing to keep the doors open and pay fixed obligations. As of September, 17 school districts and two intermediate units instructing 169,000 students in the state have borrowed more than $346 million and face a combined $11.2 million in interest fees on these loans. Philadelphia School District (Ba3/negative) alone comprises $275 million of the borrowing, according to the state auditor general.
* The Question: Illinois is to Pennsylvania as ____ is to ____ ?
I am very sorry to hear of the circumstances facing Ms. Goodwin and her family. Thank you for sharing her story and helping illuminate the critical need for immediate passage of a state budget with adequate funding for supportive housing.
In communities across Illinois, affordable supportive housing is all that stands between 12,000 men, women and children and a return to homelessness or other settings far more expensive for taxpayers. These individuals are formerly homeless and/or have special needs such as a mental illness, intellectual and developmental disability, or chronic, debilitating physical illnesses like multiple sclerosis or HIV/AIDS. Because of issues with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse, veterans often are among the population served.
The absence of a state budget and resulting lack of funds for supportive housing threatens to drive these vulnerable people to the streets, jails, state institutions or nursing homes – alternatives to which they go when they cannot access these services. Taxpayers would then bear the cost of their emergency room visits, incarceration and other far more expensive crisis response measures.
The scenario could get even worse. If state policy makers don’t resolve the budget soon, local supportive housing providers could lose federal funding as well. Implosion of the state’s human services infrastructure – and the toll for Illinois communities – would be far-reaching and lasting.
For each dollar the state allocates for certain homeless supportive housing services, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development provides three. But Illinois providers must demonstrate by Nov. 20 that $7.6 million in state funds will be available in order to leverage the annual federal funds. If they can’t do that, they risk forfeiting $23 million – an entire fiscal year of federal funds.
Without state funds dedicated by the Nov. 20 deadline, there is no assurance the federal matching dollars will materialize over the next year. If the agencies managing supportive housing services lose that support, closures and wholesale service reductions will be unavoidable.
After food and clothing, shelter is the most elemental need; without the stability and safety it affords, individuals cannot overcome the challenges they face. Positive outcomes of supportive housing include housing stability and retention, improved quality of life and health outcomes, reduced homelessness and emergency room use, greater participation in behavioral health treatment, and lower healthcare costs.
We respectfully urge policy makers to immediately focus on approving a state budget with adequate funds for supportive housing. Failure to do so will prompt catastrophic consequences statewide, and it will significantly increase costs for taxpayers for years to come.
If I may be helpful in answering any questions you have about Illinois supportive housing, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. Thank for you for your time.
Sincerely,
Mike Bach
Executive Director
Supportive Housing Providers Association
The leading state Republican and the spokesman for the leading state Democrat differ on what they’ve compromised on. Governor Bruce Rauner says he’s narrowed down items on his agenda, including taking so-called “right-to-work” off the table. But the Governor insists on other reforms before agreeing to tax increases to shore up the state budget. Rauner said he won’t discuss publicly what his so-called red line is but told the Southern Illinoisan newspaper editorial board earlier this month that local control of prevailing wage and collective bargaining tied to a property tax freeze is important. Rauner also put emphasis on workers compensation reform.
“Workers comp is broken in Illinois. It’s one of the major drivers of businesses leaving the state. It’s a major cost driver inside government.”
Rauner says he’s getting pushback on his requested reforms because of special interests. Steve Brown, spokesperson for Speaker Michael Madigan, said Democrats have compromised on a variety of issues like freezing lawmaker pay and privatizing the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, among others.
“So, I think more than halfway is an understatement in terms of what the legislature has done with the Rauner agenda.”
Brown also say the General Assembly passed quote “significant” changes to workers compensation but Republicans criticized the workers comp measure passed earlier this year as not addressing what defines an injury eligible for payouts.
* I assume we’ll soon be seeing a Chicago Tribune editorial addressing this growing trend…
The state needs to get its fiscal act together because college students, domestic violence victims and low-income working families are among those hurt by the state not having a budget, participants at a rally held at Northern Illinois University said Thursday. […]
“Politicians are forcing domestic violence victims back to their abusers,” read the sign that Lynnea Erickson held at the rally. She is an abuse intervention services coordinator at DeKalb County-based Safe Passage, a nonprofit agency that assists victims of domestic violence.
Although the rally didn’t take a political side, Erickson said the governor, ultimately, is responsible for the the state’s budget impasse. She blames the state not having a budget for social agencies losing funding, cutting services and, in come cases, closing.
“The governor is holding social services hostage to negotiate the deal he wants for business,” she said.
*** UPDATE *** The fuming, thunderous Tribune editorial came faster than even I figured it would. Click here.
Friday, Oct 30, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
EXELON CEO CHRIS CRANE – “A PHENOMENAL YEAR FOR US”
Today, Exelon announced third quarter 2015 profits of $629 MILLION. Yes, you read that right. Exelon has made more than $2.0 BILLION in the first nine months of this year. And yet despite their good fortune, Exelon still demands a corporate bailout even as our state budget crisis goes from bad to horrendous. They have promised to return to the ILGA with a full court bailout push in 2016!
IN THE THIRD QUARTER, EXELON MADE NEARLY SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS A DAY or $284,873 AN HOUR
On this morning’s earnings call, Exelon CEO Chris Crane described 2015 and said, “This is a phenomenal year for us.”
OTHER EXELON NEWS: ALL ILLINOIS PLANTS TO REMAIN OPEN
Yesterday, Exelon announced that Clinton would remain open through at least 2017.
Exelon previously announced that because Quad Cities and Byron cleared the PJM auctions, Quad will remain open through at least 2017 and Byron will remain open through at least 2018.
The armored car company hired by the state demanded to be paid, or it would stop moving money for Illinois.
Tens of thousands of dollars flow through 29 different state driver’s license facilities in the Chicago area every day. For now, though, state workers will carry that cash to the bank. […]
FOX 32 News has learned the Secretary of State tried to persuade other armored car companies to step into the breach, but they all refused.
“Very few people want to do business with the state right now,” said a spokesman for Secretary Jesse White.
It’s now fallen to Secretary of State Police to get all that cash to the bank, which is an assignment they’re not trained for, using vehicles far less secure than an armored car.
Oh my goodness, THANK YOU, everyone! I can breathe a sigh of relief on the debts, so troubling , getting behind, wondering when an employer is going to call. It is not for the faint of heart when you have to sell your car to pay rent, but you learn to persevere.
We will get through this, but we never had a chance without your help… Thank you again I was actually jumping up and down on the bed with the kids a minute ago - so great to feel that way!
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* I caught a glimpse of Ashley Goodwin’s Twitter feed not long ago. She had tweeted something critical about the governor, so it popped up on one of my routine searches…
No jobs, no hope, Illinois is a joke, preparing for homelessness….
* Goodwin appears to be an intelligent woman who is struggling to understand how she got to where she is and how to get out. She and her family are literally on the verge of homelessness, but she and her husband can’t find work or government help. Her feed is definitely worth a scroll…
Ever since their Danville, Illinois, apartment building burned down three years ago, Anthony and Ashley Goodwin have been hustling to survive.
Anthony dug through the rubble for three days, searching for his wallet. But after working in tech repair and starting a resale business on eBay to stay afloat, the Goodwins have again found themselves in dire straits.
They don’t have enough money for rent. The gas has been turned off at their home. And Anthony walks three miles to the nearest Wal-Mart to buy groceries. Anthony, Ashley, their three-year-old daughter, Ana, and two-year-old son, Alex, face homelessness by mid-November.
They both want work, but there isn’t much to be found nearby.
“I can’t get a job at any of the 15 employers that hire unskilled labor in our community,” Anthony said. “The jobs aren’t there.”
The Goodwins are far from the exception in Illinois. They are not alone. […]
“If we could move out of Illinois, we would,” Ashley said. But her family can’t afford to leave.
The Goodwins have never taken government rental assistance, but their recent struggles have them calling state agencies every day looking for answers. There’s just one problem: Because Illinois doesn’t have a state budget in place, operations have ground to a halt at many social-service departments.
“The homelessness-prevention hotline is disconnected,” Ashley said. “That defeats the whole point of a hotline. It is really frustrating. For the first time in our lives, we are reaching out to the state for help, but there’s no one on the other end of the line.”
The broader context is the lack of jobs. Danville is not a great place to find work, and the family appears to have moved to Watseka, which, take it from me, isn’t much better.
Please share where you can - Trying to get help in Illinois is pointless, as most agencies do not answer, or are temporarily closed, there is nothing but a run-around and no answers from DHS or any other government agency.
I own my own mobile home in a small mobile home park, have lived here for two years, then had a recent change in income so we have gotten behing the last 2 and a half months, now, facing an eviction notice I recently received, I have come to realize just how the Illinois budget impasse has effected our lives.
I have a 2 and 3 year old and yesterday, according to United Way, since most agencies rely on the funds that have been frozen due to the impasse, I have run out of options so I need to prepare to lose my home that I own for a lousy $680 in back lot rent, because apparently, Illinois does not have $680. Not to mention our power is going to be shut off due to the impasse and LIHEAP (energy assistance) funds being frozen. All together, we have a $540 gas bill, they already shut us off, and our electric is $180, which will be shut off any day as well.
This has been an eye-opening nightmare, I have been calling every agency in the State, those that do answer, have no clue what to do as the funding is not available or try to pass me on to someone else who is even less help, but most don’t even answer, including the ever-worthless DHS “help line” at 800-843-6154, the number they give if you need help.. I have been calling every day for a week now, never get a person, no answer, and you cant even leave a message.
I am at a loss - something has to be done with this situation in Illinois. Someone has to look into what has gone wrong here. I have never gotten rental assistance in my life , yet am treated like I have no options, what is it all for?
The Sunday Spin: On this week’s show, airing from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. on WGN (AM-720) and wgnradio.com, Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson’s guests are… former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar, who marks the 25th anniversary of his first election as governor on Nov. 1.
You don’t have to wake up that early on Sunday to listen because they’ll eventually post it on their website. Should be interesting.
* Yes, let’s stop playing games and work on common sense, bipartisan reforms. Please!…
The governor put the brakes on capital development projects around the state. In fact, he made his remarks just steps away from the stalled Stevens Building project on the NIU campus.
“I’m sorry that DeKalb is suffering from no budget. They shouldn’t have to suffer,” said Rauner. “It’s wrong what’s going on. And what we’ve said to the Legislature is, ‘Stop playing games. Let’s vote on common sense, bipartisan reforms, let’s get a truly balanced budget so we can grow our economy and help great communities like DeKalb.’ “
Now, if he’d just follow his own advice we might actually get somewhere.
“It’s your city government, your county. You should decide how bidding gets done, how outsourcing, how contract gets done – also, how collective bargaining gets done. It’s your community, its your town … you should decide,” Rauner said.
Among the county’s economic highlights mentioned at the event is the enterprise zone designation it received from the state this summer.
The municipalities of DeKalb, Genoa, Sandwich, Sycamore, Cortland and Waterman look forward to bringing jobs and economic investment to the area by using special tax incentives the enterprise zone allows.
But the required certification of the zone is on hold because the Rauner administration said the state is losing too many jobs and the cost of doing business in Illinois is too high.
So, lemme get this straight. A local enterprise zone, which could be used to help the area’s business climate, is on hold because… the economy is bad…?
Friday, Oct 30, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Yesterday, Exelon announced that it will defer any decisions about the future operations of its Clinton nuclear plant for one year. This is encouraging news for Illinois. According to a report by the State of Illinois, the Clinton plant supports nearly 1,900 jobs and contributes $481 million to the state’s economy. Overall, Illinois’ nuclear energy facilities produce 90 percent of the state’s carbon-free energy, support 28,000 jobs, and inject nearly $9 billion into the Illinois economy every year.
Over the past year, Exelon has worked to educate policymakers on the economic challenges facing several of its nuclear plants and the potential that they could be prematurely closed. The General Assembly and Governor have been focused on the budget and have not had a full opportunity to consider this issue. The challenges have not gone away, but Exelon decided to continue operating Clinton at a loss for an additional year to allow policymakers more time to consider potential solutions.
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) recently began examining capacity market reforms. Such reforms could alleviate some of the economic pressures facing the Clinton plant. While MISO’s recognizing the need for market reforms is encouraging, if reforms are not timely implemented and economic conditions for the Clinton nuclear plant do not improve, Exelon will be forced to take steps to reduce its losses, which may include shutting the plant.
Policy reforms, such as the Low Carbon Portfolio Standard and a state implementation plan for the Clean Power Plan, that properly recognize and value the significant amount of carbon-free electricity derived from the nuclear fleet are still needed to level the playing field for all forms of clean energy and best position the State of Illinois to meet EPA’s new carbon reduction rules.
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office called Emanuel “just another tax-and-spend politician,” Thursday afternoon and at an event later last night in DeKalb, Rauner lit into the mayor for blaming Chicago’s financial woes on the General Assembly. “That’s not created by Springfield,” Rauner said. “That is a failure on the mayor’s part and a failure to take on reforms.”
– “It’s clear that less than 24 hours after passing the largest property tax hike in city history, the mayor is already laying the ground work for another tax hike because he is refusing to engage in passing structural reforms that will save Chicago taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars,” Rauner spokesman Mike Schrimpf said in a statement. “The mayor needs to get serious about whether he is going to be a reformer or just another tax-and-spend politician who wants to blame someone else for their failures.”
– Responding to … — On Wednesday, Emanuel told reporters: “It’s a very strange economic strategy to try and hurt your economic engine, that’s how you’re gonna grow the economy…Name me a governor in the other 49 states that is attacking the economic engine of their state. Is the gov of Washington state going after Seattle? Is the Gov of Oregon going after Portland?”
– It’s your own fault, Rauner says: “Unfortunately, in hearing the mayor’s comments in Chicago, it sounds like he’s trying to lay the blame for the failure of Chicago on other people, on Springfield,” Rauner said in DeKalb, according to audio obtained by POLITICO. “Chicago has been fundamentally mismanaged for years and the mayor is forcing a massive property tax hike — the biggest tax hike in Chicago history … and it doesn’t even fix the problem … even with that… there are going to be more tax hikes coming because Mayor Emanuel has not done fundamental structural reform for the long term.”
– Basically Rahm, you’re a ‘failure’: “He’s already admitted after this big tax hike he doesn’t have enough money to properly fund the pensions. He’s admitted he doesn’t have enough money to fund for the school year,” Rauner said. “That’s not created by Springfield. That is a failure on the mayor’s part and a failure to take on reforms.”
Please note that the governor said those things in DeKalb. I wonder if he’s ever said anything like that to the mayor himself.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From the twitters…
Rahm to Rauner: "Stop name calling and just do your job"
“My view is we (passed a budget) without rancor, but actually doing exactly what we need to do,” Emanuel said Friday. “I think what Springfield needs to do is not call names to anybody, you’re 120 days and counting behind schedule, 6,000-plus kids have been thrown out of daycare. The job to get done is to actually go back to the negotiating table and get a budget. Calling people names doesn’t get you a budget.”
“My view is, and I would just say this to the governor and the governor’s office: you’re 120 days behind budget, $6 billion and counting in not paying bills. Stop name-calling and just do your job.”
* The following e-mail appears to be in response to comments on this post from yesterday. Ms. Meyer makes some good points here, and they’re made with respect (it’s not often that a large and influential group responds to blog comments, after all), so keep that in mind when you comment, please…
Hey Rich,
I see we’re a hot topic of conversation on your comments [yesterday]. It seems a lot of your commenters are wondering what we’ve been up to and questioning how effective we’ve been during this budget crisis.
I thought I’d chime in to help with those wonders and questions.
· The Ounce has been publicly opposed to changes the governor has announced in child care and in other areas of the budget beginning with his budget address and as recently as Tuesday on your blog.
· We have participated in and helped organize action days, attended hearings, issued numerous calls to actions and have worked closely with all of our program and advocacy partners
· We have also kept in constant communication with the media to highlight the impact these cuts and restrictions are having on children and families throughout our state
· And, we have countless meetings with all levels of the government advocating for our cause – and yes, this includes Diana Rauner and all members of our Illinois policy team
· In addition to our advocacy work, we’re also service providers and as such our organization and the programs we support are affected
We continue to fight for child care and other early learning programs with both the governor and the legislature. Our message has been consistent and clear - the governor should repeal the child care changes and both the governor and legislature need to put aside their differences and resolve the 2016 budget impasse, including revenue to fund priorities like child care, home visiting and preschool.
The Ounce has been doing this good work for over 30 years. Our priority is to the children and families we serve. We’re working hard to make a difference for them. Do we feel our message is getting through in Springfield right now? I don’t think any of us in the early childhood field feel we’ve made a breakthrough…but we’re not giving up.
Megan Meyer
Manager, Marketing Communications & Media
Ounce of Prevention Fund
