Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Morning Shorts

Posted in:

Illinois

* State’s attorney investigating Yorkville mayor

* Illinois pension woes deepen as legislators take break

If voters were given this chance, we suspect they’d view having a state comptroller and state treasurer as an antiquated and duplicative way of managing state tax dollars, and would act to merge the offices and keep a little more of their hard-earned income.

* Income tax filings up in Illinois

* Tribune may be moving closer to default: S&P

* Sun-Times Media considering privatization or sale

* Daley defends Olympic Village move to Reese site

* Daley cartoon

* CTA taking greener hybrid for test drive

* County short-term loan will cost taxpayers $9 million

* Stroger-Connected Firm’s Multimillion-Dollar Bond Deal Eeks Past County Board

* US Attorney Fitzgerald marries teacher

ABC7 News has learned that one of Chicago’s most eligible bachelors has said “I do.”

US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald married Head Start teacher Jennifer Letzkus last week.

* Has city budget crunch frozen aldermanic requests?

* Fox River residents hang on as worst appears to be over

* Fisherman drowns, Fox River closed

* Levee breach forces Gulfport evacuation

* Rock, Pecatonica rivers won’t recede until Friday

* Floodwaters pose health, safety hazard

* Illinois Governor Calls More Troops to Flood Zones

posted by Kevin Fanning
Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 8:44 am

Comments

While I agree that having both a Comptroller and a Treasurer is a little much, how ironic that two of the most responsible statewide officials hold these offices. I’m not opposed to combining these offices, but not right now! Dan Hynes in particular has been a voice for reason and fiscal sanity.

Comment by Undercover Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 8:52 am
The Treasurer and Comptroller positions could and should be combined, not only for the monetary savings, but also to reduce a layer of bureaucracy. The only issue is to ensure the system of checks.

Comment by Fan of the Game Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 8:55 am
Weren’t the offices of comptroller and treasurer separated because of the scandal involving State Auditor Orville Hodge, back in the 1950s? I think the idea at the time was that it was not good to have the state’s money completely in the hands of one person. Would that argument hold water today?

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 9:04 am
The Chicago Public Radio report on the “Stroger-connected” firm advising on the tax-anticipation bonds is pretty silly.

Chapman and Cutler is one of the biggest and most respected bond counsel firms in the country. They actually do the work, as opposed to the many hangers-on who get a taste in public finance issues.

Believe me, there’s a lot of pay to play in muni finance, but they’re not the problem. Check out co-bond counsel, advisors and the lineup of bond firms for the pinstripe patronage. Also, there’s no reason any but the most complex bond issues needs to be a “negotiated” deal — put it out to bid to get rid of the pinstripe patronage.

Claypool knows this. Somebody should tell him you lose whatever “reform” credibility you might have when you knowingly make silly remarks.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 9:04 am
Radio didn’t do it. Television didn’t do it. Now comes the Internet. A triple whammy when it comes to newspapers, an old-school industry run by old-school editors and managers who’ve been able to ignore the newcomers, until now…and it may be too late. I really hope the Trib doesn’t go belly-up, I would certainly miss it. But the times have been-a changing and now it may over for some of the nation’s great papers. Sad to see it happening.

Comment by Deep South Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 9:38 am
Come on, are we really going to pretend that combining political offices is going to result in one more penny in our pocket? Please! That meager savings from combining two offices will then be used to “benifit the children”… oh the children. Or maybe for the “common good.” Or maybe just to pay for the new treasurer/comptroller’s brother to have a six figure income in the office itself.

Comment by Heartless Libertarian Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 9:47 am
Having the person who receives money be a seperate person than the one who spends money has some advantage, namely its a little harder to “hide” revenue to skim off the top when another office wants all it can get to pay the bills. Generally businesses tend to, in some degree, seperate accounts receivable and accounts payable.

Comment by John Bambenek Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 10:05 am
Whenever anyone — here or anywhere else — talks about “combining” something in order to “increase efficiency,” it’s usually a code for central control (always a bad thing) and means that someone is going to *make* money once the combination takes place. The cost savings of “combined” — or consolidated — never happens. Ever.

It’s *always* more expensive. And someone — usually a consulting firm or a group of lawyers — make out like gangsters.

Comment by Macbeth Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 10:24 am
Congrats to Fitz and the new Mrs. Fitz! How did they manage to keep that a secret as long as they did? (By not getting married in Cook County, I presume?)

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 10:59 am
Gov’s public schedule for today includes two “photo ops” of him filling sandbags and thanking the national guard. Can’t they let that kind of stuff go for a while? Sheesh.

Comment by Lurker Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 11:08 am
Wordslinger is partially right but he is mostly wrong.
It is true that the worst municipal bond abuses are the influence peddlers who place the business or sign on as co-counsel but do no work. and he is right in saying that virtually all bond deals can be put out to bid for the best deal to the taxpayer. The lavish closing banquets and the massive campaign contributions no-bid bond counsel give proves that they could do it cheaper.
Chapman and Cutler are competent and do do the work but they are overpaid and kick back some of the money as campaign contributions. See the State Board of Elections compilation of the donations of West Monroe Street Good Government Committee of Chapman & Cutler.
Claypool and the other critics are right and Chapman & Cutler are part of the problem.

Comment by Rhino Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 3:34 pm
Anonymous 9:04 is right.

To that end, the 1970 Constitutional Convention created the Office of the Comptroller. Only two Republicans held the office: George Lindberg (the first one, who later became a federal judge) and Loleta Didrickson.

Judy Baar Topinka also was in favor of combining the two offices during her 1994 campaign.

There were both stated and unstated reasons for this.

Comment by Treasure(r) Island Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 5:52 pm
The Trib is long on assertion and short on proof. Where would the 12 million come from? How does it save money?
You still need 2 operations, one in, one out.

And ‘6,000 units of govt’ is mainly because Illinois is a big state. I have the state, county, village, library, community college, local schools all eating from my taxes.

Comment by OAD Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 6:37 pm
OAD: I believe we are only 2d to Pennsylvania in governmental units and we are 5th in population and they are 6th.

Go figure.

Comment by Wisdom Wednesday, Jun 18, 08 @ 8:27 pm
Lots of folks from Pennsylvania moved to Illinois. Remember, Hugh Rodham (Hillary Clinton’s dad) was from PA.

Just ’cause you moved doesn’t mean you’ve left your bad habits behind…

Comment by Lynn S. Thursday, Jun 19, 08 @ 11:16 pm