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The numbers behind the stories

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Illinois

Illinois social services agencies have struggled for the past year to communicate the message that state spending cuts are more than just a problem for poor people in Chicago and the Democrats who represent them.

Now they’ve got some new data to back it up.

Illinois Partners for Human Service, a group of 850 organizations operating in the state, released Monday an interactive online “Heat Map” to identify the specific effects of state spending reductions.

Instead of relying on anecdotal stories to make its case, the group crunched information provided by the state Department of Human Services and Department on Aging to calculate the impact by county and state legislative district.

Judith Geithner, the organization’s executive director, said the numbers show that the fallout from the spending cuts has been “totally bipartisan” with losses landing on suburban and Downstate areas represented by Republicans as well as the Democratic areas more commonly associated with social service needs. […]

For example, one of the biggest hits from the Department on Aging’s spending reductions was in the district of Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine. Murphy, who announced his resignation last week, saw his district experience a steep $54 million drop in spending by the department — or 41 percent — from 2015.

There’s one caveat about this study. Spending is based on “the location of the headquarters of the organization receiving the payments, not where the services were necessarily performed.” Even so, it’s good stuff. Click here to see the data.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 9:31 am

Comments

This site/study/maps/data are God’s grace.

My favorite Dr. Cornel West quote which is on my wall.

“The voacation of the intellectual is to let suffering speak, let victims be visible, and let social misery be put on the agenda of those in power, and second, that moral action is based on a broad, robust propheticism that highlights systemic social analysis of the circumstances under which tragic persons struggle”

That’s why I call the work that these fine folks did the grace of God. Truly it is.

Victims made visible

Circumstances under which tragic persons struggle

We need to now “let suffering speak” and
take “moral action”

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 9:51 am
You can see why I work in a 8 Red dot area. Lot of need here. The Metro East has been destroyed by Rauner. Of course it was “worth it” for the Chamber of Commerce and the large corporations who benefit now from EDGE tax incentives and Enterprize zones. EDGE recipients don’t have to turn in YOUR income tax withholding! Here you thought the state was getting your income taxes! Nope your company gets it! Enterprize zones don’t have to pay utility taxes! Guess what that means for YOU? Yes, higher utility rates for your home to keep utility profits up. Go to the DCEO website and see if you are in an Enterprise Zone.

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 10:02 am
Great reading. Now will the human service providers take the gloves off and take the fight to the members of the GA who continue to destroy services?

Until human service provider decide to make lawmakers understand that crossing them and using them to score points will cost them votes, providers will continue to spin their wheels.

It’s way past time for human services to do what the Chamber and business groups do and punish those who don’t support them. Stop settling for lawmakers to toss you bones and pat you on the head for your good work.

Comment by Give Me A Break Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 10:30 am
Guessing everyone as been commenting on Santa - good snark!

Yet this story does demonstrate the consequences of continued failure to address the needs of those most in need of basic services.

In looking at the impact in the downstate districts it is indeed correct —- the numbers show that the fallout from the spending cuts has been “totally bipartisan” with losses landing on suburban and Downstate areas represented by Republicans as well as the Democratic areas more commonly associated with social service needs. —-

Exactly how do the members of the GA address these losses of “constituent services” to those families and agencies being impacted?

Comment by illini Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 10:37 am
On the bright side, with Rauner’s leadership and iron control of the GOP representatives and senators, we’ve saved enough money to reduce our debt and speed up our payments. Oh wait…. /s

Comment by Earnest Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 11:00 am
So this is the price businesses paid in the name of “pro-business” reforms? I imagine at this point many of them are business no more. Not to mention the day-to-day toll on Illinois families who could not get the services. Stunning.

Comment by fed up Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 11:00 am
“Until human service provider decide to make lawmakers understand that crossing them…”

Who vetoed the legislation passed by the GA?

Who said the State has to be more competitive before compassionate?

Who insists on passing his personal agenda before anything else is passed?

Hint - it isn’t the legislators. It is 1.4% himself.

Comment by Huh? Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 11:08 am
Honeybear, the metro East area was destroyed LONG before it crossed Rauner’s mind to run for guv.

Comment by Warthog Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 11:14 am
Do not confuse the fact that the Metro East has incredible poverty, lack of infrastructure and investment, double the unemployment rate, and is basically a ruins with the fact that RAUNER and RAUNER ALONE destroyed the helping organizations who were keeping folks alive, fed, and sheltered here.

Perfect example Lessie Bates Davis

Before Rauner and even during the first year LBD was ramping up services.

Now they are a husk, barely functioning.

So many people laid off. So many residents without the services they need to survive.

No YOU WARTHOG do not get it.

Rauner destroyed any chance of change or actual progress against want and suffering.

Yes the Metro East is a ruin in many parts.

BUT THE RED DOTS ON THE MAP ARE BECAUSE OF RAUNER!

Those are agencies that had a CONTRACT with the state and have not been paid.

Nonpayment equals
no services= suffering
layoffs= suffering

Rauner made the red dots on the map.

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 11:30 am
I will also point out that Rauner approved the EDGE tax incentives that kept money out of our Dept of Revenue.

If you work for a company with an EDGE agreement your personal income tax that was withheld by your company did not go to IDOR. It went to the company.

215,000,000 dollars worth.

That’s a lot of money that could have gone to red dots.

Same thing with Enterprise Zones and utility taxes. IDOR did not collect those.

Starving ourselves for revenue.

Free market people should be SCREAMING about these!

Talk about the state picking winners and losers.

And robbing our state of resources

TO PAY IT’S CONTRACTS

FROM YEARS AGO NOW!

RED DOTS SCREAM!

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 11:36 am
Hey, where are the trolls? What you don’t like seeing the damage you supported laid out on maps?

Is Warthog the only one with courage to comment?

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 12:07 pm
@ Huh: I talking about the GOP members who walk lockstep with Rauner and those Dems who in past years have been way too happy to watch cuts happen under other govs.

Comment by Give Me A Break Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 12:14 pm
Who is working on the new model for what and how social services can be provided going forward. I do not think we could, or even should, rebuild the system we had before.

Comment by Last Bull Moose Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 1:17 pm
Honeybear, are the dems accountable at all in your mind? Or is it 100% on Rauner?

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 1:24 pm
No the DEMS are not in any way accountable for the destruction of private social service agencies. Rauner stated he would not sign a budget or make a deal for 18 months before he signed the stopgap absent the Turnaround Agenda items. He even stated that he was “driving a wedge” between the DEMS and their cherished programs in order to destroy Labor. He admitted his tactic. Rauner took social services, education, his own agencies hostage and effectively stated ” I’ll let the hostages go if you shoot yourself in the head”.( letting Labor the main supporters of DEMS get sacrificed) It’s like if the DEMS were to ask the R’s to sacrifice the Chamber. It’s not going to happen.

No thousands of jobs lost

Over a million people effected

ONLY for Rauners FAILED attempt to destroy Labor.

The DEMS might have shorted programs or taken social services for granted

BUT they funded private social service agencies

ALWAYS!

Rauner wants to kill the social services

You don’t have to pay what doesn’t survive.

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 2:30 pm
Sorry Rich the last comment was me.

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 2:31 pm
That is pretty much what I thought you would post Honeybear.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 3:34 pm
“Now will the human service providers take the gloves off and take the fight to the members of the GA who continue to destroy services?

Until human service provider decide to make lawmakers understand that crossing them and using them to score points will cost them votes, providers will continue to spin their wheels.

It’s way past time for human services to do what the Chamber and business groups do and punish those who don’t support them. Stop settling for lawmakers to toss you bones and pat you on the head for your good work.”

Generally speaking, those legislators KNOW the impact of the loss of services, at least with my agency. Not only do they hear it from us, but they hear it from their constituents, their police chiefs, etc.

Human services agencies aren’t really able to “punish” legislators. One, they don’t have the clout or the cash. Two, they’re far more vulnerable to “punishment” than any legislators. My agency is one of the 100-ish plaintiffs in the Pay Now Illinois lawsuit — and we were punished (we think) by losing some of our contracts for this fiscal year.

Comment by Flaming Liberal Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 3:52 pm
Here let me complete it. Rauner is

Perfidious and privileged!

Now I’m totally consistent.

Do pick a nickname anonymous. Come on it’s not hard.

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 4:02 pm
Are you the anonymous who said I was a “piece of work”?

There’s a nickname for you…. Piece of Work

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 4:04 pm
Metro east has been a dump for over 40 years.

Comment by Ron Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 6:32 pm
Social services must be cut. We have outrageous unionized public employee benefits to pay.

Comment by Ron Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 6:33 pm
Bite me Ron

Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Aug 16, 16 @ 6:59 pm
Maybe someone knows where to find Penny. She could sing “Soft Kitty” to Ron/Tone and then maybe he’ll feel a little cuddled, too.

Comment by Hieronymus Wednesday, Aug 17, 16 @ 7:33 pm
@1:17pm. Maybe the 1.4% hope to take a page from history and hand the “takers” $100 and a one-way bus ticket to somewhere else. /s

Comment by Hieronymus Wednesday, Aug 17, 16 @ 7:39 pm