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Newspaper extinction is a frightening prospect, considering the free press’ historic role as a guardian of democracy. Yet how do we keep a watchdog’s eye on elected officials with a bare-naked newsroom?

* CBS Said to Consider Use of CNN in Reporting

* Governor signs bill to bypass Electoral College

* Committee passes $1 increase for cab rides

* Tax cuts, not increases, needed in Illinois: Brady

* Citizens need this portal to accountability

We see no reason to oppose this bill. The portal, which we hope could be imported into standard database programs, could be put in place for $100,000 or less. So cost is no issue. Unions representing front-line state workers say revealing their salaries would be an invasion of privacy. We don’t see that, given state workers are public employees. Their salaries should be no secret. Legislation similar to this one got support in the last legislative session, though some lawmakers held off, saying they wanted a better bill. This one is better.

* Scrap dealers to keep better records to help nab thieves

* More stragglers than early birds in the Senate’s morning

* Dislike of Gov. Blagojevich spurs recall bill

* Par-A-Dice interested in 24-hour gambling

* 20 candidates for county hospital panel unveiled

* Firm says it has financing to buy St. Francis Hospital, keep it open

Transition Healthcare, whose deal to buy St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island unraveled last month after its funding source dried up, is now close to lining up a new financial backer, its chief executive said Monday.

* Staffers excited about possible good news but still have worries

* Pointing fingers on hospital closing

* State panel to decide fate of East St. Louis’ only hospital

* ‘Uncaring thugs‘

posted by Kevin Fanning
Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 8:45 am

Comments

lol at the Union claiming employee salaries are private information. All public employee salaries are FOIA able. In fact the very nature of watching govt embraced by FOIA cires out for such information to be available. Does not surprise me the Union wants this quashed. The Union employees under the current Gov got huge raises at the expense of the middle management folks who do most of the work.

Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 8:55 am
==middle management folks who do most of the work.==
That’s a joke. Spoken like a true middle manager! Shuffling paper from spot to spot and hassling hard working employees is not “most of the work”.

Comment by Bill Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 9:01 am
Invasion of privacy on frontline state workers, I totally agree with. Elected and appointed agency heads , agency budgets and expenditures, not a problem and should be accountable. Frontline state worker wages are no ‘big secret’ now. Any position with the bargaining contracts already have and show income levels. It’s not a secret, clearly shown is what entry level frontline starting is and on through the step process. It even makes the ‘raises’ easy to figure for the wanting t know. A look-see at the online job openings gives one figures for the position. What’s next? Public aid and food link cards? Your tax dollars are paying for this? Should they post each name of user and amount given? Just because as taxpayers you fund the user, do you have a right to invade their privacy and naming each one, where they live, ect? As a taxpayer we give huge tax breaks to big business for example, do we then have a right to see a list of names and salaries of every person who works in the business that gets the tax break that if not given would be put into our state resources? Enough, you get my point.

Comment by Princeville Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 9:08 am
Great idea on the portal. It should include overtime as well as salary information for each state employee (they are our employees, after all, if we live in Illinois). The value of the total compensation package should be included (state employees’ health and pension benefits make their
compensation packages substantially higher than employee pay scales would suggest) as well as overtime pay by each government worker. And some state employees make a lot off of “travel” expenses.

Some of this information is likely already available through FOIA, but that is a tedious process when compared with the accessibility of an internet website.

Under Blago, state agencies have deteriorated badly, with DHS, DCFS, and Public Health being among the worst managed, not only today but when looking at the history of each agency. Platoons of
highly paid Democratic political hires oversee work they don’t understand or care much about. Kids and the disabled die as a result. Civil service employees, with their extraordinary job protections, do what they feel like doing, when they feel like doing it, overseen by indifferent
Blago/Emil/Mell/Monk (Lon) et al appointees.

A website such as that in Missouri would at least tell Illinois’ overburdened taxpayers, struggling with not only high taxes but also an economic recession which may last quite a while, how much all this is costing them, in a format that is easily accessible and hopefully easily understood.
And as others have pointed out, changes in the media suggest that there will be fewer mainstream reporters out there finding out this information for us. We will need to find it out for ourselves.

Comment by Cassandra Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 9:08 am
Oh, Ghost. Back up your statements on who does the most work and what type of work it is. Huge raises? Would that be like the one stop 10% just allowed for the GA last year? As I said before, the front line wages are no secret now. But I really have no clue how much each middle management person makes. You can’t generalize here with broad statements of who does the work.

Comment by Princeville Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 9:18 am
Can we please talk about the Speaker going after Rep. Saviano? Skip is one of the best legislators in this town right now — why wold the Speaker suddenly choose to end their longtime relationship in such a foolish way? There is no way that Skip gets beaten — no way.

I cant wait to see how Rep. Saviano responds to this declaration of war. The Speaker may enjoy his play games wit hthe governor, but I dont think he is prepared to handle to handle the repercussions of hitting Saviano.

This should be interesting to watch.

Comment by Anon Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 9:25 am
Its already been done, go look at this link for 2006
http://www.stltoday.com/stlt
oday/news/special/infozone.n
sf/story/E111549B6D704B0F862573
C6006FCD3A?OpenDocument

Comment by Just Because Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 9:38 am
“Just Because,” your link doesn’t work. What are you talking about?

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 10:14 am
Not sure why is isnt working. You need the entire line. It was published in the STLToday.com you type in a name and or an agency and it gives you their salary for 2006. the source was identified as Illinois Comptroller. It shows everyone, union, merit comp, directors….

Comment by Just Because Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 10:17 am
All public sector salaries should be a matter of record.

Comment by Truthful James Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 10:20 am
“Newspaper extinction is a frightening prospect, considering the free press’ historic role as a guardian of democracy.”

The current state of newspapers — slashed newsrooms, wall-to-wall celebrity ‘news’, ‘Raising Hector’, and a syndicated op-ed column for each and every Iraq-invasion proponent — is already a frightening prospect.

The decline of local television and radio news has cleared the decks for newspapers to have a monopoly on capital-’j’ Journalism. But rather than focus on the unique product that they can produce better than anyone else, i.e. Journalism, newspapers are trying to be the second- or third-best source for non-journalistic content — content that readers can and do get, faster and at no cost, elsewhere. Any business who’s competition is both 1) Instant, and 2) Free is surely doomed.

As I read articles in the Chicago papers, I often ask myself, “Doesn’t everybody who cares about* this already know about it?” In cases of locally-produced or in-depth pieces, the answer is usually “no.” But far too often the answer is “yes.” Readers simply cannot be expected to pay for information that they either do not value or that they already know.

In short, I suspect that only the hard-work and expense of “Journalism” can save newspapers. But I’m afraid that most papers would never try anything so radical. See e.g. SCAM’s First Rule of 21st Century Management: “It is always better to follow the herd to *certain* failure than to risk *possible* failure by trying something different.”

I wish it were ain’t, but it am.

– SCAM
so-called “Austin Mayor”
http://austinmayor.blogspot.com

* In this case, “who cares about” means “who values”, i.e. “who might intentionally spend any amount of time or money to find out about”.

Comment by so-called "Austin Mayor" Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 10:24 am
Even though it is not one of the posted articles I feel I have to comment on an article in today’s Chicago Suntimes about Obama forcing a delegate to resign because she called two kids playing in a tree, monkees, and urged them to get down before they hurt themselves. Because the kids are black she is branded a racist by the campaign.

What is the world coming to when you can’t call kids playing in trees monkees, regardess of race. Talk about oversensitive, insecure overreaction. The woman ran as an Obama delegate and has an Obama sign on her front lawn. That might be a tip that she is not a racist. I don’t think there are to many white racists with Obama signs.

Comment by Garp Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 11:06 am
I agree fully with Garp - Tuesday, Apr 8, 08
thankyou for saying it.

Comment by Just Because Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 11:14 am
me? I am not a midle mamanger

In most state offices the Union employees are long in their bed while the middle managers are still at work getting all the work done. No overtime means the work is shifted to those who do not get extra pay for staying late.

Heck look at the State Police, higher ranked middle managers took demotions to the Union positions because the pay was higher, the hours shorter and no responsibility.

At Doc the most overworked positons are the non-union salary folks who have to make up the slack for the budget cuts.

Cut out those slaried merit comps folks and the State grinds to a halt

Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 11:50 am
Nope, Ghost, you’re not gonna bait me in on this one. But just in case you’re interested check out grieves filed when and if management decides to go out of job description. I’m sure there’s some workers who could care less or fear making waves, but ask a steward about how many grieves filed and won.

Oh, and the link for the searchable did not work but go around it and it and the database can be found.

Comment by Princeville Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 11:58 am
Garp

A least one article I have seen represents her as Hispanic, not white.

Comment by Plutocrat03 Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 12:06 pm
If anyone thinks the Portal bill will open up state records, I have a bridge in Brooklyn. First, it amends the civil admin code - which means it only applies to agencies under the Governor. Not the other constitutionals (like SOS), not the colleges, and CERTAINLY not the legislators themselves. Or the Supremes.

Second, much of this info is on Dan Hynes website. Not all, but why not just add to his instead starting from scratch? Plus, Hynes has the vouchers for all state govt.

Of course, Rep. Tryon once asked in a committee about the difference between home rule and nonhome rule govt. If he doesn’t know that, why should we expect him to know the civil admin code doesn’t cover all of state govt?

Any response from previous posters? Does anyone think Hynes would be a better place for this?

Comment by Read the bill, not the press release Tuesday, Apr 8, 08 @ 1:11 pm