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No optimism here for the final push

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Illinois

* My syndicated newspaper column this week is about the end of session…

The Illinois General Assembly usually tries to adjourn by the end of May. That hasn’t worked out too well the past few years as partisan bickering, the state’s huge budget problems and the bloody war between former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and House Speaker Michael Madigan forced months-long overtime sessions.

The last time the Legislature truly got out early was in 1999, when then-Senate President Pate Philip demanded they adjourn by April 15th. After legislators left town, I didn’t know what to do with myself. There were no statewide elections at all the following year, which meant that absolutely nothing was going on in the political world. So, I went to Kosovo to cover the war and then took my daughter on a tour of Europe and went with my dad to Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. It was quite an adventure. Later that year, I went to Cuba during then-Gov. George Ryan’s official visit. I have fond memories of that year. I actually had a life back then.

This year, though, the calendar says the General Assembly plans to adjourn by May 7th. I haven’t really experienced a May without grueling work hours since those halcyon days of 1999, so that pleases me. But I’m not holding my breath because of all the carnage I’ve seen the past few years. I just can’t bring myself to believe.

The early adjournment idea isn’t going down well with everyone, however. The plan at the moment is to pass a budget that’s billions of dollars out of balance and inform Gov. Pat Quinn that he is now in charge of figuring out how to pay the bills. Newspaper editorial boards are already warning legislators not to sneak out of town before truly “solving” the problems or they will pay heavy consequences.

One of the demands issued last week by some of the thousands of protesters who descended on Springfield to press for higher state taxes and lower budget cuts was that lawmakers stay in town, finish the job and abandon their early adjournment dreams.

“(I)f you try to leave town without doing your job, we are going to chase you. And when you come back home, we will be there,” warned Henry Bayer, the Illinois director of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.

So far, though, legislative leaders are still hoping to at least partially meet that May 7th adjournment target. The idea at the moment is to try to finish work on all “substantive” legislation by the 7th, and then return for the last week or so in May to put the final touches on the budget and deal with anything else that comes up in the interim.

But several high-level Democratic legislators are quite nervous about this plan. The perception of a “vacationing” General Assembly while the state sinks ever deeper into a financial and economic morass frightens them to no end. They’ll be sitting ducks, the members worry. Better to finish the whole thing by the 7th or, even better, just work through the whole month, even if there is little or nothing to do.

A big factor playing into the timing of the General Assembly’s summer adjournment will be whether the Republicans, particularly the House Republicans, support more borrowing. The governor wants to borrow billions of dollars to meet the state’s pension payments. But that borrowing has to be approved by a three-fifths vote in the General Assembly, and they can’t do that in the House without the Republican minority. If the House Republicans don’t get on board, the budget will take far longer to craft and will be very “ugly,” one top Democrat said last week. If they do get on board, it’s possible that the Legislature could wrap up everything by May 7th.

That doesn’t appear to be in the cards, however. The Republicans have no incentive to allow Democrats to conclude business early. The longer they’re in town, the longer the Republicans will have easy access to the media to make their case that the Democrats are incapable of governing.

I learned long ago that when it comes to the Illinois Statehouse, don’t ever get your hopes up about adjournment schedules and always bet on nothing ever getting done. That way, you’re never disappointed. Well, you’re still disappointed, but it’s a little easier to digest.

* Meanwhile, Jim Nowlan takes a look at a perhaps unspurprising aspect of education funding…

More recently, school districts that operate under property tax caps (metro-Chicago counties and some downstate counties) were given grants to make up for growth in local property wealth that could not be taxed fully because of the caps.

Guess which school district participates in the general state aid formula, has a very high percentage of poverty students and has had rapid appreciation of property values.

Chicago.

As a result of these relatively new elements in the formula, almost all of the $1.3 billion in new funding for state aid in the past five years has gone to poverty grants and state-funded property tax grants, largely for Chicago schools.

Yikes.

* Related…

* Quinn’s bad Monday: As Monday dawns, Quinn is an increasingly lonely proponent of a tax hike. The Civic Federation comes out Monday with a 95-page rejection of the governor’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts in 10 weeks. The support for a tax hike? Gone. Laurence Msall, the federation’s president, sounds exasperated with Quinn and Democratic legislative leaders. “They haven’t lived up to our expectations,” he says. “They haven’t cut spending. We see no evidence that they’ve tried.”

* Civic Federation zaps Quinn’s state budget: “Borrowing five to six billion dollars for operating expenses neither balances the budget nor helps ensure next year’s budget crisis will be any better,” federation President Laurence Msall said. What Illinois needs is a budget “that does not make the situation worse,” he added.

* Daley suggests people should decide fate of video gambling in Chicago: “It’s not me, it will be the people who decide this,” Daley told reporters. “If you put it on the ballot, you’ll find out what the people want.” “You do your surveys and find out,” Daley added when asked if he thinks Chicagoans would support the measure. “One thing they don’t want, they don’t want their taxes increased, you know that.”

* Lawmakers, chamber receptive to slots at track: When told of the possible deal that would put video slot and poker machines at Arlington Park and other tracks, state Rep. Suzie Bassi said she supported the idea because the slots would be put in areas already under the microscope of gambling regulators. Bassi, a Palatine Republican, said that made it much easier to support than video gambling at bars.

* VIDEO: Henry Bayer’s speech to last week’s protest

* Higgins on the budget

* Quinn’s Language on Tax Increase Getting Stronger: “This is a heroic battle, an epic battle for education in Illinois… I’m going to fight until the last dog dies, until we get proper funding for education in the Land of Lincoln… Your oath is to the people, not to politics as usual, not to an election year. You’ve got to do hard things.”

* Illinois Gov. Quinn urges veterans to take advantage of state, federal services

* VIDEO: Andy McKenna talks Illinois school voucher legislation

* Lawrence: Mental health services in a bad state

* It’s easy to miss when there isn’t a target: Of course, if Quinn has been vague about where he will cut, the Republicans have been equally vague about how big the cuts should be. Although Sen. Chris Lauzen, R-Aurora, put out a figure of $2 billion to $3 billion the other day, Republicans mostly don’t talk specific numbers. As long as there is no target, you can always charge that Quinn failed to hit it.

* Pension crisis took decades to create, one day to ‘fix’: Quinn’s budget director said there’s no interest in skipping payments or extending the 50-year plan to lower this year’s payment. Quinn has sought an income-tax increase to help cover education funding, which could free up state funds for use elsewhere. But its prospects for approval this session are dim.

* Show guts on state cuts

* Pensions for 131 school retirees top $150,000 each annually

* Local Galesburg sales tax for schools sparks debate

* CPS, Teachers Union Team Up To Oppose School Cuts

* U46 could get millions from state: Elgin School District U46 is nearer to receiving tens of millions more in state financial aid, as state lawmakers take a step to closing a loophole in the district’s funding process.

* Belvidere School District 100 Plans for Future School Years: The state may cut $1.3 billion from Illinois schools and many Stateline districts are trying to prepare now for that blow. In Belvidere, school leaders have a lot of options on the table and it could include closing a school.

* Over coffee, Halloran talks finances: Thursday, during the first of two Coffee With the Superintendent informal public events, Halloran explained the district’s current financial picture to the five visitors who attended.

* Municipalities  vs. Gov. Quinn

* Morris joins opposition to cut

* Crunching Costs Continues: Elk Grove Township Supervisor Nanci Vanderweel is crunching numbers this week trying to close a $37,000 budget gap in next year’s township budget.

* Illinois Main Street program, started to save downtowns, now needs saving itself

* State budget: Momence, Dwight not worried by Main Street cuts

* The State Of Higher Ed: More Demand, Less Funding

* Manzullo Calls For Amtrak Stop In McHenry

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Apr 26, 10 @ 2:55 am

Comments

Mike Lawrence has an excellent column on the lack of mental health infrastructure.

My mother has been in a county home Alzheimer’s unit for many years. Most of the residents are in their 70s, 80s, 90s. Every once in a while, they have to warehouse young men with mental health issues.

The only solution the staff has for dealing with these guys is to medicate them to within an inch of consciousness. It’s a scary situation for everyone involved, and yes, there have been instances of violence against the old folks.

If lawmakers can’t wrap their minds around taking actions to keep the elderly in nursing homes from being assaulted by young men with mental health issues, than it’s all just gas.

Ride the CTA or visit your local library to see other public institutions that are the de facto mental health caretakers in the state.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Apr 26, 10 @ 8:51 am
The GA sees the flaming out of both Quinn and Giannoulias’ campaigns, and will fingerpoint at them. Expect them to pass an unbalanced budget and let Quinn swing in the wind.

The rats are boarding the life boats this week.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Apr 26, 10 @ 9:16 am
They’re ALL Bozos on that bus, alas. One must be worried for vulnerable folks and boo this Circus.

Tax increase should have happened early in first Vallas term. Instead we got the worst Bozo ever and then Dem leaders stuck us with him for second one - oops until the arrest and TV career.

Comment by alas... Monday, Apr 26, 10 @ 9:32 am
re: the suburban np story about 131 retirees, then notes that these were cherry-picked from a pool of 700. The SURS website states that they provide services to 180,000 people. That makes the 700 about .3% (i.e. three of every 1000!) of SURS recipients. The baby is Babe the Blue Ox, and the bathwater is a thimble…and yet…

It ought of course to go without saying that if folks in the private sector wished to have more generous pensions from Social Security (which the article compares with SURS), then perhaps the same folks who want to gut SURS (rather than, say, hard-cap SURS benefits) would quite naturally be arguing for lifting the payroll tax cap on FICA and increasing benefits, right?

Comment by Ron Mexico Monday, Apr 26, 10 @ 9:47 am
Rich, I thought maybe you would post the SNL spoof on government employees which just aired–the PEA awards. When certain perceptions (whether they are true or not) are seen to be so widespread and embedded in the public’s consciousness that no explanation is necessary, and SNL evokes that in comedy, you know there’s a problem. This type of image thing with respect to public employees is one reason why raising taxes in Illinois, or any state, is very difficult to sell to taxpayers.

Comment by Responsa Monday, Apr 26, 10 @ 2:32 pm
Sen Lauzen is almost assuredly right. If you assume no new taxes in the ‘11 budget and look at what the affordable approp then is to simply go no further in the hole, additional cuts of at least $2B need to be made.

Comment by steve schnorf Monday, Apr 26, 10 @ 2:56 pm
Have to disagree with sentence #2 of your syndicated column. “partisan bickering” has not lead to overtime sessions. Don’t need the other party until ovetime actually happens. Blame for the overtime sessions lies with the Governor, Speaker and Sen Pres. Last time I checked they were all members of the same party.

Comment by Reformed Monday, Apr 26, 10 @ 11:01 pm