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* 12:40 pm - The House is now debating a proposal to inject some supplemental funding into IDOT’s badly frayed budget. This is a “clean” bill, unlike the Senate’s proposal, which directly tied funding for IDOT (and other stuff) to the passage of the governor’s health care proposals.
IDOT has exhausted its transfer abilities within its Road Fund budget, so this proposal would allow the department to transfer more money to pay for things like gasoline, etc.
Listen or watch at this link.
* 12:48 pm - The bill passed 108-0. It now goes to the Senate.
…Adding… The bill’s sponsor is Rep. Jay Hoffman, the governor’s House floor leader. It was just common sense to de-link IDOT’s money woes from the governor’s health care agenda. So, I, for one, am happy to see that that at least some semblance of common sense finally prevailed. I kinda doubt the disease will spread, however.
* 1:00 pm - Rising gas prices aren’t the only thing hurting the state’s budget…
Just as Illinoisans are pinching pennies at the grocery store, the fallout from rising food prices is hitting state government.
The cost of providing food to prison inmates, aging veterans and developmentally disabled residents at state institutions is on pace to be up by $7 million this year, according to a review of state payments to vendors.
That’s more than a 10 percent increase over 2006, when the state spent about $64 million on everything from corn flakes to green beans.
* 1:13 pm - I was hoping to get this list by now, but I need to move on to other tasks today, so here’s last night’s CBS 2 story on Todd Stroger that many of you have already heard about…
Stroger critics, who asked not to be identified, gave CBS 2 a printed list of more than 1,300 top county jobs, all of them exempt from laws against patronage. Many are filled by workers with ties to key Stroger allies including House Speaker Michael Madigan; Mayor Richard M. Daley and his brother, County Board Finance Chairman John Daley; County commissioners Jerry Butler, Bill Beavers and Robert Steele; and former 19th Ward Committeeman Thomas Hynes, a longtime Stroger family friend. […]
Laura Lechowicz Felicione, the daughter of a former commissioner is a “special counsel” at $160,000.
Bruce Washington ran Stroger’s father, John Stroger’s, campaign. He’s a capital planner at a $133,000.
Gene Mullins is a Stroger pal from elementary school. He’s a new media liaison at a $120,000.
…Adding… Greg Tejeda has more at Illinoize…
The logical next step would be “Exposing Daley.” If one is going to go after the governor and the county board president, then “getting” the mayor of Chicago would be the natural completion to the trio of political powerhouses.
Somehow, I doubt there will be any such report.
* 1:29 pm - More good government…
Auditor General William Holland found that Illinois ended each of the last three years with an average of $1.5 billion in unpaid bills.
He also found the Department of Healthcare and Family Services did a poor job of handling the bills it did manage to pay.
There was no clear system for deciding who got paid first. The state held bills for nearly two months before even starting the process of paying them.
Illinois could owe up to $$81 million in interest on overdue bills.
The summary digest is here, the full report is here.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 12:41 pm
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Comment by Wild Bill Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 12:48 pm
Maybe we can pick up the dead deer again before they finish turning into soup on the roadsides…
Comment by IDOT Guy Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 12:59 pm
The State used to get a protion of its beef and vegetables from inmates and prison industries. The Gov closed down the beef production which was housed in the district of a non-supproter claiming the State would buy meat from vendors at the same cost.
Of course we pay inmates a lot less per hr, and the shipping is a lot less if the meat is already here.
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 1:08 pm
Rich, is this all part of the vast media conspiracy against Todd Stroger?
Comment by Ravenswood Right Winger Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 1:14 pm
LOL. what conspiracy?
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 1:18 pm
The solution to the costs of prisons is not to hit up taxpayers to pay more money to run the institutions, it is to reduce the prison population through early release and through diversion including home monitoring and other strategies. Other states and countries are serious ly considering this. In Illinois, of course, the prison system provides jobs and contracts to (presently) Democratic cronies, not to mention “campaign contributions” to Democratic pols and thousands of high-paying, low-work patronage jobs. Plus economic sustenance to rural Illinois communities which apparently can’t make it on their own. All on the backs of a (mostly minority, mostly from Chicago) prison population which most certainly could be reduced by thousands with no threat to public safety.
And it’s going to get worse. Take a look at Japan, where there has been an increase in the geriatric prison population. Even if they could be released, there is no place for them to go. They have become
a permanent welfare population, extremely expensive to care for and likely to die in the system. Combine an aging population with long sentences…it’s coming up fast in Illinois.
Comment by Cassandra Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 1:18 pm
The CTA raises the sales tax and the silence is deafening. Stroger does it and all of sudden he is to blame for Cook having the largest sales tax in the country. Todd has created many of his own problems no doubt. His father also left him many problems to deal with. But the media has been lazy and predictable in their coverage of his term in my opinion.
Comment by 2for2 Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 1:30 pm
ahh but Cassamdra who do we release early?
Sex offenders?
Those convicted of small drug offenses?
Burglary?
Fraud?
Embezzlement?
DUI?
who gets the benefit of the ealry release system? And how much ealrier?
We hav a system where inmates who behave can earn good time credit, and the good time reduces the time you must stay in jail. how much more good time then we alread offer should we make available>
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 1:52 pm
2for2: At least we get something from the RTA sales tax increase (i.e. a functioning regional transit system). Name one benefit from the Stroger tax increase other than more of the Stroger friends and family hiring program.
Comment by Bluefish Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 1:58 pm
The auditor general’s report is sad. And though there is no system in place to determine who gets paid first, someone IS getting paid first — friends, supporters, contributors?
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 2:01 pm
You can’t even call Stroger’s office, it just leads you to automated prompts. United Airlines is more person-friendly. Has it always been like this?
Comment by Greg Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 2:17 pm
Blue fish, unless you are a senior citizen or receiving a pension from the CTA you do not benefit from the sales tax increase. The CTA already said they still might raise fares a couple of weeks ago. One thing the County does? Hospital. You may not use it but hundreds of thousands do.
Comment by 2for2 Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 2:33 pm
Not really reporting, just a little tour.
The Blagoof piece at least confirmed what most knew —Blagoof does not break a sweat on the job —and it took Ciacgo TV 5 years to do this “landmark” reporting.
The Mayor does not go on the lam like Blagoof
Comment by Wild Bill Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 2:35 pm
Ghost-that’s up to the experts. But given the exceptionally glaring racial disproportionality of the Illinois prison population, it’s clear that there ARE alternatives….alas, those alternatives might result in less money and fewer jobs for pols and their cronies.
Comment by Cassandra Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 3:03 pm
Cass you basically hit upon my concern with an early release program, it would be applied in a manner that disproportionatly effects certain grps.
This could be made worse if the powers that be decide to let white collar criminals take early release or home release.
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 3:41 pm
So if you don’t have to serve as much time, where is the penalty.
Perhaps to ease the overcrowding we should re-institute the death penalty.
Oh wait a minute–the LAST corrupt governor took that away to curry favor with those whom with he is serving.
Signed
G. Nobel Ryan
Comment by BIG R.PH. Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 4:35 pm
So HFS isn’t paying the bills. Surprise, surprise. There’s no money for raises, to pay bills or to upgrade computers but they are hiring more and more people, despite the statement that there is a hiring freeze. The new employee training classes are full every time.
Comment by Disgusted Tuesday, May 13, 08 @ 9:27 pm
The Audit report of HFS should just go ahead and say it Chicago gets paid first with contributors to Blago Fund getting higher proiroity while everyone else waits behind Chicago.
Comment by sandman Wednesday, May 14, 08 @ 11:06 pm