* Press release…
John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, today joined Attorney General William P. Barr and President Donald J. Trump to announce the expansion of Operation Legend to Chicago.
Operation Legend is a sustained, systematic and coordinated law enforcement initiative in which federal law enforcement agencies work in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight violent crime. The Operation was first launched on July 8, 2020, in Kansas City, Mo., as a result of President Trump’s promise to assist America’s cities that are plagued by recent violence. Operation Legend is named after four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while he slept early in the morning of June 29, 2020, in Kansas City. The first federal arrest under Operation Legend was announced on July 20, 2020.
As part of Operation Legend, Attorney General Barr directed the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, DEA, and ATF to significantly increase resources into Chicago, as well as Albuquerque, N.M., in the coming weeks to help state and local officials fight high levels of violent crime, particularly gun violence.
“A top priority as federal prosecutors is to reduce violent crime, particularly in a large urban area like Chicago,” said U.S. Attorney Lausch. “As part of Operation Legend, additional federal resources will assist our office and our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to increase prosecutions of trigger-pullers, drug traffickers, carjackers, and those who illegally traffic, use, and possess firearms. We will use these new resources and every other available federal law enforcement tool to reduce the unacceptable level of violent crime in Chicago.”
“The most basic responsibility of government is to protect the safety of our citizens,” said Attorney General Barr. “Today, we have extended Operation Legend to Chicago and Albuquerque to protect the residents of those cities from senseless acts of deadly violence by targeting those involved in gang activity and those who use guns to commit violent crime. For decades, the Department of Justice has achieved significant success when utilizing our anti-violent crime task forces and federal law enforcement agents to enforce federal law and assist American cities which are experiencing upticks in violent crime. The Department of Justice’s assets will supplement local law enforcement efforts, as we work together to take the shooters and chronic violent criminals off of our streets.”
Chicago is currently experiencing a significant increase in violent crime, with homicides up 51% over 2019. Over the weekend of July 17, more than 60 people were shot in the city of Chicago, with 14 fatalities. Similarly, Albuquerque is currently on pace to break 2019’s record for homicides in the city. On the weekend of July 10, there were four murders in Albuquerque within a 24-hour period.
In Chicago, the Department of Justice will supplement state and local law enforcement agencies by sending more than 100 federal investigators from the FBI, DEA, and ATF to the city. Under the leadership of U.S. Attorney Lausch, these investigators will complement the work already underway by existing joint federal, state and local task forces focused on combatting Chicago’s violent criminals, gangs, and drug trafficking organizations. The investigatory efforts will be advanced by more than 100 members of the U.S. Marshals Service Great Lakes Task Force, which will direct violent fugitive apprehension operations within Chicago to identify wanted gang members, violent criminals, and firearms violators. The Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is also committing 100 agents, already stationed in Chicago, to Operation Legend. HSI agents will conduct investigations into gangs, narcotics traffickers, violent offenders, and firearms traffickers.
To further support the Chicago Police Department in reducing violent crime, ATF has deployed its national Crime Gun Intelligence Mobile Command Vehicle to assist local law enforcement with analysis of crime scenes and spent shell casings through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). ATF will also make available additional resources to assist the city of Chicago in providing timely, efficient analysis of ballistic evidence from shootings in order to quickly disrupt violent criminals and prosecute those prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law. The Bureau of Justice Assistance will make available $3.5 million in funding to reimburse the Chicago Police Department and City of Chicago for the work of local law enforcement on the federal task forces supporting Operation Legend’s violent crime reduction efforts. The COPS Office has also made $9.375 million available to the Chicago Police Department to fund the hiring of 75 officers.
I’ll post react if it comes in.
…Adding… Durbin and Duckworth…
U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today released the following statement regarding the Department of Justice (DOJ) announcing an expansion of Operation Legend to Chicago, Illinois. Operation Legend is DOJ’s violent crime reduction initiative with the stated goal to provide support and assistance to state and local law enforcement partners as they work to combat violent crime, and gun violence in particular. Durbin and Duckworth are set to speak with U.S. Attorney John Lausch about Operation Legend today.
“After needless threats from the President, we’re relieved the Trump Administration says they plan to work with local officials and authorities in Chicago rather than undermine local law enforcement and endanger our civil rights, as their agents have done in Portland. We will continue closely monitoring the Administration’s efforts to ensure they follow through with this commitment.
“More than three years ago, we sent President Trump a letter suggesting a range of ways in which the Federal Government could work in partnership with local officials to provide support and resources to assist in public safety, violence prevention, and economic development efforts in Chicago. While we are hopeful that today’s announcement means the Administration has reconsidered and will take a more positive approach, President Trump still has not replied to our letter nor followed through with our suggestions. We reiterate that these steps would be more effective in reducing violence in Chicago than any effort the Administration may take to replicate the destabilizing role it played in Portland.”
In their 2017 letter which they reiterated yesterday, Durbin and Duckworth recommended that the Trump Administration take steps to assist local violence prevention efforts, including:
• enhancing Department of Justice (DOJ) programs that improve community policing;
• directing DOJ to promote mentoring and job training programs for youth and formerly incarcerated individuals;
• improving mentoring and violence prevention initiatives and boosting funding for recidivism reduction programs;
• directing DOJ to abide by its commitment to help implement policing reforms recommended by the Department’s Civil Rights Division;
• closing gaps in the FBI gun background check system and in federal firearm laws that enable straw purchasers and gun traffickers to flood Chicago’s streets with illicit guns;
• prioritizing career and youth training programs to address lack of economic opportunity in neighborhoods hit hard by violence; and
• redirecting resources that are being devoted to construction of a border wall and committing those resources instead to the efforts discussed above.
The expansion of Operation Legend will consist of an increased federal law enforcement presence in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and in Chicago, Illinois. This federal law enforcement presence will consist of experienced investigative agents from FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals, and HSI, focused on providing support to existing violent crime task forces.
*** UPDATE *** Mayor Lightfoot…
The President reached out to Mayor Lightfoot this evening to confirm that he plans to send federal resources to Chicago to supplement ongoing federal investigations pertaining to violent crime. The conversation was brief and straightforward. Mayor Lightfoot maintains that all resources will be investigatory in nature and be coordinated through the U.S. Attorney’s office. The Mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans.
94 Comments
|
* Greg Hinz…
A key Illinois House committee chairman is rejecting calls from Springfield Republicans for public legislative hearings on whether ratepayers got bilked in the ComEd bribery scandal—and, if so, what to do about it.
In a statement, House Energy Committee Chairman Ann Williams, D-Chicago, said that while she voted against the “smart grid” legislation of 2011, which raised rates and is at the core of the scandal, now is not the right time for the Legislature to respond.
“A legislative committee is not the appropriate place to investigate a criminal matter currently under the jurisdiction of the U.S. attorney’s office,” Williams said. “As was the precedent during prior corruption cases, the House Energy & Environment Committee will not hold hearings that could impede or interfere with an ongoing federal investigation.”
Williams, a member of the House Progressive Caucus, which occasionally has clashed with Speaker Mike Madigan, declined to elaborate when asked whether any interference would be minimal. ComEd already has confessed in its deferred-prosecution deal with federal prosecutors to improperly giving jobs, contracts and other financial inducements to benefit Madigan.
* Others, however, are holding hearings. For instance, this is from the ICC…
In response to the Deferred Prosecution Agreement revealed by the Department of Justice on Friday, the Illinois Commerce Commission requested Commonwealth Edison executives to appear before the Commission during its Open Meeting on July 29, 2020. Since the beginning of the new administration, the Commission has been committed to fostering a culture of transparency, accountability and inclusivity at the agency. This includes holding utility companies accountable for their compliance with ethics reforms required by a law enforcement agency. At the open meeting on July 29th, the Commission will have an opportunity to ask ComEd executives about the ethics reforms that the company says it has implemented.
The Illinois Commerce Commission is the state agency charged with reviewing all utility costs on behalf of consumers to make sure those costs are allowed under the law and reasonable. Pursuant to that duty, the Commission will take action to ensure that ComEd is not paying the $200 million criminal penalty at the expense of Illinois’ electricity consumers. Additionally, under Illinois law, utilities like ComEd cannot charge consumers for the costs of the company’s lobbyists. The Commission will continue to take steps to ensure that law is followed.
* Mayor Lightfoot…
The conduct admitted to by ComEd in the Deferred Prosecution Agreement unveiled today is deeply disturbing. The Department of Justice is appropriately holding ComEd accountable for their criminal conduct. As a significant vendor for the City of Chicago, ComEd must also be accountable to the taxpayers and residents of Chicago. As Mayor, I have made transparency, reform and accountability pillars of my administration. And, as a former federal prosecutor myself, I know the thorough and meticulous work that goes into the scale of this kind of investigation and this type of agreement.
As a City, we are committed to ensuring that all Chicagoans can access high quality, reliable services at rates that are affordable for all our residents, particularly our most vulnerable. It is also critical that consumer voices are heard in response to today’s announcement, which is why the Committee on Environmental Protection and Energy will hold a public hearing on July 30th to hear directly from ComEd leadership as well as from residents. Chicagoans deserve fairness and transparency from all who are paid with taxpayer dollars, and my administration will do everything in our power to ensure that expectation is a reality.
8 Comments
|
* CBPP…
As states revisit their spending plans for the 2021 budget year, which began July 1 in most states, they are making deep budget cuts to offset huge revenue shortfalls triggered by COVID-19 and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The initial state and local cuts enacted in spring and early summer caused sizable harm through layoffs, furloughs, and cuts to vital public services. Unless federal policymakers provide a new round of flexible fiscal aid, the harm will only worsen.
With business closures and layoffs sharply reducing state income and sales taxes, we estimate that state shortfalls will total about $555 billion through 2022. That’s a sharper drop than even in the worst three years of the Great Recession and its aftermath of a decade ago, and it doesn’t include the added state and local costs to confront the virus, such as more testing centers and hospital capacity. States must balance their budgets even in recessions, so state policymakers face enormous pressure to fill these shortfalls however they can, including with damaging cuts. […]
Some states have found ways to shield K-12 public schools or health services from their initial cuts, but that’s likely unsustainable. Policymakers will find it nearly impossible to protect these programs entirely over time, since education and health make up more than half of state spending nationwide. Indeed, several states have already slashed crucial health programs, such as substance use treatment and prevention.
More federal aid would enable states to reverse many of these cuts and minimize further cuts next year, when revenues likely will still be significantly depressed. That would limit further damage from the crisis, which has especially hurt people of color and economically struggling communities. It also would help lay the groundwork for state and local economies to recover more strongly.
The current crisis is simply too large for states to handle on their own. Federal aid in the Families First Act and CARES Act, both enacted in March, helped, but only about $100 billion of it is flexible enough for states to use to offset revenue shortfalls and limit cuts in services. Even after accounting for states’ “rainy day” reserves, which were a historically high $75 billion when the crisis started, about $380 billion in potential shortfalls remains through 2022.
Chart…
Note: Illinois’ rainy day fund is about 85 cents.
14 Comments
|
* Block Club Chicago…
Citing Stephen Douglas’ racist past, the Park District has moved to rename Douglas Park for Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
In a special meeting Wednesday, the Chicago Park District Board voted unanimously to move forward with the process to rename the West Side park for Frederick Douglass, opening up a 45-day comment period for Chicagoans to weigh in.
The long-awaited renaming could signal a tide of change as officials assess other statues, parks and street names honoring racists and controversial figures in the city.
In 2017, West Side youth began asking the city to rename their neighborhood park to honor abolitionist Frederick Douglass instead of slavery advocate Stephen Douglas. A park in a neighborhood that’s about 90 percent Black shouldn’t memorialize a white supremacist, they reasoned.
For three years, the city largely ignored their efforts.
I didn’t realize this until today, but Stephen Douglas changed the spelling of his name when he was in his 20s. He was born Stephen Arnold Douglass…
The younger Douglas would drop the second “s” from his name in 1846, the year after the publication of Frederick Douglass’s first autobiography; it is unknown if these two events were connected.
16 Comments
|
Research issues
Wednesday, Jul 22, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* NRCC…
Hey –
Betsy Dirksen Londrigan’s ComEd lobbyist donors are back in the headlines.
Which raises the question: Will Betsy give back the thousands of dollars the corrupt Magidan-cronies donated to her campaign?
(See here, here, here and here.)
Or will she hold onto the dirty dollars and keep hiding in silence?
[VIEW ONLINE]
–
Carly Atchison
NRCC
Regional Press Secretary
* Champaign News-Gazette…
21 Comments
|
* The governor made a bit of news at his news media briefing today…
I also want to provide an update for our residents who are at risk of losing their housing. Because of this pandemic. Since March we’ve protected millions of Illinoisans by banning residential evictions. Today I’m extending that moratorium through August 22.
I take this step today because I want to ensure that we have support in places in place so that we have support in place for those who are most vulnerable. As many of you know, we worked with the General Assembly to put in place two programs to help those whose housing is insecure, one for renters, and one for homeowners. Each distributing $150 million.
Starting the week of August 10, applications will open for renters. And then the week of August 28 for homeowners. Through the fall recipients will be awarded grants of $5,000 for renters, and up to $15,000 for homeowners. And meanwhile we continue to explore partnerships and ways that we can provide additional support for many people their ability to weather this crisis hinges on their ability to keep a roof over their family’s heads. It’s not enough to say that we want to build a more just and equitable state on the other side of this pandemic. We have to take tangible action to get there. Today marks another step forward, though, frankly, our work is not done.
I’ll be back with the Q&A in a bit. Please pardon all transcription errors.
* Before taking questions, Pritzker said this…
Before I take questions I also want to take a moment to address the violence that too many residents are experiencing in their communities. As Governor I have and will continue to invest in communities that have been neglected for far too long.
Earlier today, I also spoke to the head of the Chicago office of the FBI to convey my long standing position I welcome legitimate resources from the federal government to reduce violence and help our residents stay safe. That can mean getting illegal guns off the street or investigating criminal enterprises, and I welcome the support for our local and state efforts to reduce crime.
But let’s be clear. That also means we must invest in our schools, in our physical and mental health services in workforce development programs that build up opportunity where years of disinvestment have hollowed it out. If you want to fix a problem, you start with the roots of the problem.
But what I will not stand for are efforts that undermine civil rights and civil liberties, like what’s happening in Portland, conducted anonymously under the cover of darkness and with no transparency. Any effort from the federal government to undermine the basic freedoms this nation has in its best moment aspired to protect will be met with resistance from this state government.
* He was then asked about the Portland issue and his conversation with DHS…
The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security did not return my phone call and said that he would not over the next 48 hours. So that’s what happened in that call ytesterday. I have worked tirelessly over the last few days, speaking with not only the mayor but the Attorney General to coordinate activities that we might engage in, if we need to push back on some force of the Federal Protective Services that might arrive, the kinds of issues that are on the ground in Portland. And so we’re, you know, we’re talking about that working that out. We are hopeful that that will not be the case. We know that the ATF the FBI, the DEA are coming to and are in Chicago, engaged in activities to help our local law enforcement, the state police are engaged in that, Chicago police departments, police departments across the state, in fact, are engaged in that and that seems legitimate activity to go after criminal enterprises, and I encourage that. We need to get violence and criminal enterprises shut down.
* What about imposing a quarantine on visits from people in surrounding states?…
So ,let me begin by by doubling down on what you just said, which is every state around us has either double or triple our positivity rate. So this is challenging for us right. And we don’t live in a country where you close the borders between states. And we’re not going to stop people who live in Illinois and work in Wisconsin from doing so.
And you can’t ask somebody who crosses the border every day to go to work, who’s following all the mitigations that we’ve asked, you know, wear a mask, wash your hands all the things we’ve asked them to do. They’re not gathering in large groups, but they go to work every day. You can’t ask them to quarantine for 14 days at a time. So that’s not something that we really can do. We have a lot of border counties in Illinois, where people on one side or the other of the border regularly cross because they have family, or because they work on the other side of the border.
So instead what we need is for Illinoisans to do, frankly, what most people have been doing. But we just need everybody to pay close close attention to this. If you’re not wearing a mask you’re doing it wrong. You have to wear a mask if I told you you could take a pill that would reduce the likelihood of you getting COVID-19 by 80%, you would do it. And that’s what happens when people wear masks, we reduce the likelihood of transmission by 80%.
* He also said this…
We’re encouraging local officials to shut down things, for example like we’re aware of a party bus company in Metro East where people get on and they go from bar to bar to bar. Well guess what happened? Somebody on one of those party buses either contracted it along the way or had it when they went to on a party bus and spread it to the locations that they went to. So the local officials have to be asking themselves, how do we cut down on the spread? Well one way to do that might be to first of all completely disinfect all the buses. Second of all, make sure you’ve got social distancing and third possibly shutting down those party buses.
Pritzker was asked about contact tracing and said tracers were currently reaching about 61 percent of people identified “within a reasonable period of time.”
* There is clearly not a flattening now, right?…
Dr. Ezike: We have seen an increase in cases and I know some people say, oh it’s just because there’s more testing. There’s a way to look at that, actually, if you do more testing your positivity should actually go down the more testing you do. So for it to even stay about flat suggests that there’s increased transmission. So yes we’re seeing increased transmission. Some of it was predictable, as we opened up more we have you know places at 25% capacity 50% capacity places that were completely closed, you know, personal services all the kind of movies and going from groups of 10 to groups of 50, of course, we can imagine that there’s more opportunity for the virus to be spread and in fact, that has been the case. And so, we needed to have the opening and the increased ability to do more things we needed that to be coupled with like 100% masking and distancing. And so I think our rates are probably high, but we really need like full hundred percent compliance to really try to keep our rates, where they were or keep them lowering so we’re in, you know, in treating or asking for the public to continue supporting us with that encourage people who aren’t doing it, why they should we need everybody to be on the same page for this.
* The governor also stepped in to warn bar owners…
There’s no doubt about it, we need to increasing masking not decrease, and we’re never going to get to 100% but that’s our goal anyway we want everybody to wear a mask, everybody who’s medically able and an old enough to be able to keep a mask on. But the other thing I’d point out is that as you open things up, what happens is some bar owners, for example, go beyond the capacity limits that we’ve allowed. And that is when you really run into trouble because it’s already difficult enough in bars. … Guess what your you know your droplets are greater because you’re drinking. And people tend to be yelling or shouting or speaking louder than they normally do because there’s music playing. And so there’s greater risk. And that’s why we’ve kept the capacity limits where they are. But when people don’t abide by those when bars don’t abide by those, it really creates a problem and that isn’t the only place I’m not just calling them out but I just want to be clear that just opening up doesn’t mean that we’re going to have a problem. It’s opening up and then having people not abide by the rules, and understand that opening up means having a greater attention to wearing a mask.
* IDPH is now reporting probable cases, not just confirmed cases. Why?…
Dr. Ezike: Yeah, the CDC started putting those metrics out there, probable cases. I lose track of dates in COVID world, but I think it’s been, I think it’s, it’s been more than three or four weeks that they were going to put up probable cases. And so they’re asking us to put forth the problem cases probable cases are people who were contacts of confirmed case that then develops similar symptoms in the timeframe that would suggest that, in fact, you know this person had covid you lived with them. We didn’t test you but you had all the symptoms and you know you had this direct epidemiologic link, you probably had it too. So those are the probable cases so if the lab wasn’t done for that second individual, but all signs point to being. This was COVID, then that’s a probable case and so the CDC has been asking us to put probable cases we’re trying to put that to be with them. We don’t have, you know, in the beginning when we didn’t have all the testing, right, we know that there were many cases where we would say yeah don’t even try to get a test, you know this person had it, you probably have it just stand out if you get sick go to the hospital, but just stay sequestered you know stay isolated. So there’s lots of probable cases that are not in our total, you are correct.
* Thoughts on President Trump encouraging the wearing of masks?…
It’s never too late to learn more, you know what the right thing to do is. And so I’m very glad that the President did that. I think there are probably a lot of people who follow his every word and now understand that this is the right thing for them to do. We want everybody safe. I don’t care what their politics are. Everybody in Illinois, I want them to wear a mask and if the president comes out in favor of wearing masks which he seemed to yesterday, then I think that can only be a good thing.
* IDES debit card fraud scheme…
So it appears and I’m just giving you what my understanding is now. It appears that in past breaches, we’ve all heard about these massive breaches of systems of corporations, and then they warn you, go get your credit report, and so on. Many people don’t do that. Many people don’t respond properly to that.
So all of that information is being held by somebody, some hacker right, who wants to use it at some point in the future, and waits a long enough period of time until they can find the right thing to do without you paying a lot of attention. And so they hold on to the information and this apparently this program the federal government set up was something that was attractive to those hackers. And so that’s the, the fraud has been engaged in by them with information that they obtained in some other capacity, and they you know that it’s not that they’re breaching our systems is they’re applying in the normal way that people apply to get these programs and payments to them. Using the names that they’ve gotten now how they would obtain them from somebody’s mailbox if it were sent to somebody. I’m not sure. There’s a lot of federal investigation going on and I’m hopeful that they’ll get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. We want to warn everybody.
23 Comments
|
* Press release…
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,598 new confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 23 additional confirmed deaths.
- Cook County: 1 male 40s, 1 female 50s, 1 male 50s, 3 females 60s, 1 male 60s, 1 female 70s, 1 male 70s, 2 females 80s, 1 female 90s
- DeKalb County: 1 female 90s
- DuPage County: 1 female 50s
- Kane County: 1 female 70s, 1 female 90s
- Knox County: 1 female 70s
- Lake County: 1 female 70s
- McHenry County: 1 male 50s
- Montgomery County: 1 female 100+
- St. Clair County: 1 female 70s
- Winnebago County: 1 female 70s, 1 female 90s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 165,301 cases, including 7,347 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 39,633 specimens for a total of 2,348,487. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from July 15 –July 21 is 3.2%. As of last night, 1,456 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 337 patients were in the ICU and 132 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
…Adding… Press release…
As the state continues to build out a robust COVID-19 testing and tracing infrastructure, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for public health organizations to assist with contact tracing efforts.
Through the NOFO, IDPH will award a grant to one organization in each of the nine regions outlined in Governor Pritzker’s COVID-19 resurgence mitigation plan, with Cook County and Chicago standing up their own contact tracing programs with community organizations. Each of these nine organizations will serve as coordinators in their region, awarding sub-grants to community-based organizations in their region who can most effectively conduct tracing, education and outreach in their communities. The NOFO will be available on the IDPH website on Friday, July 24, 2020.
“Today I’m proud to announce that applications for community-based organizations to obtain funding through IDPH to collaborate with local health departments will open on Friday. This opportunity – called the COVID-19 Pandemic Health Navigator Program – is geared toward organizations able to serve as coordinators for their region, sub-awarding to other agencies, across three main areas of work: education and outreach, contact tracing, and resource coordination for those who need to isolate,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Because Chicago and its immediate suburbs are running their own community programs, these partnerships will be with regional leaders outside of Cook County. Most important to our ability to minimize outbreaks is the efforts of everyday people to do their part: if one of our statewide force of 1,600 contact tracers calls you, please answer.”
The funding will assist organizations in contact tracing efforts through the following three areas:
1. Provide education and outreach to promote everyday preventive actions to help slow the spread of COVID-19, as well as identify populations at greater risk of infection, and provide information to breakdown myths and rumors.
2. Conduct contact tracing through interviews and provide follow up information for close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases.
3. Coordinate resources, such as food, laundry, and even housing if needed, for cases or close contacts of cases who need to isolate or quarantine.
Expanding contact tracing efforts on a regional level will allow local organizations to serve as coordinators for their community and give them the ability to grant funds to other local agencies. To apply, an organization must be a GATA (Grant Accountability and Transparency Act) certified tax-exempt organization.
“By working with established community-based organizations, we are hoping to reach people who may be at higher risk of infection, but hesitant to talk with health officials,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “We need people who are trusted in communities across the state to let people who have been in close contact with a confirmed case know that they need to monitor their health and take steps to potentially prevent spread of the virus to their family, friends, co-workers, and other community members. This is how we will help prevent outbreaks and the need to close businesses or institute other temporary restrictions.”
IDPH continues to work closely with local health departments in Illinois. Currently, the department has executed grant agreements with 57 local health departments across the state, about 60 percent of all local health departments, to enhance contact tracing efforts. These local health departments will receive $50 million in contact tracing funding over the next two weeks. IDPH is also finalizing agreements with the remaining 40 local health departments. In total, grants to local health departments for contact tracing amount to more than $215 million.
More than 1,600 contact tracers are currently available in Illinois. The number of staff needed to conduct contact tracing varies depending on several factors, including:
• Number of people seeking medical care or testing
• Number of new cases per day
• Amount of time that has passed from when symptoms start to positive test results
• Number of contacts identified of each confirmed case
• How quickly patients are isolated, and contacts are notified and advised to stay home, self-monitor, and maintain social distance from others
In addition to grants, IDPH has contracted with a software application platform to ensure contact tracers across the state are collecting all the same information and in the same way. A virtual call center is also being established to ensure critical call information is accurately conveyed. Additionally, IDPH has enlisted Partners in Health (PIH) as a consultant to help build the contact tracing program in Illinois. PIH has received acclaim for their contact tracing work in Massachusetts and is providing IDPH with technical assistance, including lessons learned through working with jurisdictions nationwide.
25 Comments
|
Question of the day
Wednesday, Jul 22, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* If you click here and scroll through, you’ll see the 137 accounts that Gov. Pritzker follows on Twitter. State agencies, top staff, the congressional delegation, other governors and Illinois statewide electeds dominate the list. Not a lot of fun stuff. And he follows no news media accounts.
* The Question: What Twitter accounts would you recommend he follow? Make sure to explain, and yes, it is a slow state news day today. There is some stuff going on, but I’m stuck waiting for more info before I can post anything.
37 Comments
|
This is not how you want to wake up
Wednesday, Jul 22, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Mark Brown…
Just before 7 a.m. Friday, only a few hours before federal authorities took the wraps off their big investigation of Commonwealth Edison and House Speaker Mike Madigan, the doorbell rang at the McKinley Park home of state Rep. Theresa Mah.
Mah was awake but still in bed. Her husband was up and just starting to make coffee.
She assumed it was a delivery driver and shouted to her husband to get the door, but he was already on the way to answer the intercom.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“FBI,” came the answer. They asked to speak to Mah.
That will wake you up in a hurry.
I got this story directly from Mah, a Democrat completing her second term in the Illinois House. She told it in the way that only a person with a clear conscience can tell it.
Go read the whole thing, but the bottom line is Rep. Mah opposed legislation to transfer state land on behalf of a Chinatown developer, as did IDOT. The developer hired a Statehouse lobbyist, but the legislation never advanced out of Rules Committee. Madigan could’ve stuck it in the BIMP, but he didn’t do it. I’m really not sure what the heck the feds are supposed to be looking at here. I mean, there could’ve been a quid, but there is not yet a discernible quo because the developer’s bill didn’t move an inch. Stay tuned.
32 Comments
|
* This is so odd…
* From the link…
Nearly a dozen people contacted the ABC7 I-Team about receiving unemployment benefits even though they never actually applied for unemployment.
They said a debit card just showed up at their home, and they weren’t sure if it was junk mail or a hoax. But after calling the number of the back of the card, they learned they could have a big problem on their hands. […]
She called KeyBank, the company that administers the cards, and said she was told the Illinois Department of Employment Security instructed them to send her the card.
Somehow all her personal information matched what KeyBank had in their system, except her phone number, which she said they wouldn’t give out.
* The SJ-R has a good explainer…
When a person applies for unemployment, they are sent a KeyBank debit card in an inactivated state. It is up to the recipient to call KeyBank and have the card activated and set up a PIN number. It’s only then that the card would be ready to use, Salustro said.
At the same time, IDES always asks people to sign up for direct deposit of benefits because it is faster and more secure, he said. What scammers do is apply for benefits using a person’s stolen identify and then quickly convert the benefits into a direct deposit of an account that they control.
If someone gets a card or other notices that they are receiving benefits when they didn’t apply, IDES is asking people to report it as fraud. People should not activate the cards, but neither should they simply shred them and ignore what happened, Salustro said.
“In most cases, a person committing unemployment fraud in someone else’s name is, in all likelihood, using their name and identifying information, obtained through various methods and avenues, simply to receive unemployment funds,” he said. “Once this has been detected and reported, the claim is stopped and the fraudulent individuals pursued. The department is working with federal law enforcement authorities to investigate, pursue and prosecute those who defraud the unemployment insurance systems.”
Good luck getting through to IDES to report this fraud, however.
*** UPDATE 1 *** IDES…
The increase in the fraudulent unemployment claims is believed to be coming primarily out of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. Under the ambiguous federal guidelines, which were developed in haste because of the urgency of the pandemic and issued to every state without a uniform method of implementation, the potential for fraud within this system is abundant.
One of the largest vulnerabilities within PUA is the absence of an employer on the other side of the claim to contest the claim in the event the it is fraudulent or should be protested. Under regular unemployment insurance guidelines, an employer has the ability to alert IDES if a claim has been filed in the name of an employee who is currently employed, and has the ability to protest a claim if they believe the employee does not fall into the category of having lost work through no fault of their own.
This fraud scheme is in no way connected to the PUA program access issue experienced in May. The limited data access issue of the PUA system found that one PUA claimant was able to inadvertently access personal identifying information of a limited number of claimants who had already filed an unemployment claim. Out of an abundance of caution, a year’s worth of free credit monitoring was provided to any claimant whose information may have been inadvertently viewed by this one individual claimant.
*** UPDATE 2 *** This is getting ridiculous…
And check this out…
Maryland is investigating a vast operation using identity theft to commit coronavirus unemployment insurance fraud on the order of more than half a billion dollars, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced Wednesday.
The Maryland operation involved more than 47,500 fraudulent claims and totaled over $501 million, according to Hogan. […]
After finding “an unusual increase in out of state, federal pandemic unemployment assistance claims,” the Maryland Department of Labor discovered the claims, “which were involving massive identity theft, attempting to utilize stolen identities and the personal information of innocent and unsuspecting individuals, which was apparently acquired from previous national data breaches,” Hogan said.
30 Comments
|
Open thread
Wednesday, Jul 22, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Please keep it Illinois-centric and polite. Thanks.
37 Comments
|
Comments Off
|
Comments Off
|
|
Support CapitolFax.com Visit our advertisers...
...............
...............
...............
...............
...............
|
|
Hosted by MCS
SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax
Advertise Here
Mobile Version
Contact Rich Miller
|