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The AP reports that the governor is closing the barn door after all the horses have been hired.
State agencies have to be more careful about hiring interns, awarding contracts and transferring employees after new directives from Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s office.A memo obtained by The Associated Press lays out new guidelines and offers reminders about existing rules to keep politics out of state employment decisions and to ensure military veterans get first crack at jobs. […]
The memo stresses that internships are meant for recent college graduates and sets new rules for adhering to that policy. It also emphasizes that government contracts must be free of political taint and establishes restrictions on when employees may be transferred. […]
Associated Press reviews have found that the program, in which the average age is 31, included many campaign contributors or their relatives. Because they were considered interns and not true state employees, they could be hired without going through normal procedures.
It’s nice they’re cleaning things up. But wasn’t the governor supposed to do that in January of 2003? Instead of cleaning up after George Ryan, the Blagojevich administration is cleaning up after itself.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 7:42 am
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This is like when your kid has been stealing from the cookie jar and pretends he doesn’t know his parent is right around the corner listening as he makes a “spontaneous” speech: “Oh, we should NEVER take cookies without asking, because, gosh, that would be WRONG”. (Said with the crumbs still on his lips and chin.)
Too late to fake it, Rod, the feds know what you did, and you can’t erase what you’ve done by pretending to have suddenly come to Jesus now. You’ve had three years to live to the letter of your promises, and we all know now you never meant a single one you made.
Comment by Gregor Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 7:51 am
Rich: I must have said something improper. So here is another try.
If Blago is serious about fixing this issue, he will send the improperly hired Interns home.
Current Interns are not certified and have no rights to their jobs. Like any other temporary or uncertified employee, they can simply be terminated at any time without explaination.
Those who have moved to a permanent postion but have not yet completed their probationary period to become certified can also be terminated at any time without explaination prior to completion of their probationary period.
Those who have become certified can be let go because they gamed the system to improperly gain their state jobs.
It is one thing to admit an error, and entirely another thing to fix it. If Blago is serious about fixing the probem, he will send all improperly hired employees home and properly fill their positions.
I’ll watch for the splashy press release announcing the fix.
Comment by Anon62701 Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 8:40 am
The reason he did this is because Illinois is so financially busted there is no more credit or cash for his vultures. There is nothing left to hock. Did it take several governmental bodies to legislate this? No. All it took is a sincere leader, which we seem to be lacking. All he had to do is DO IT, but it took political death threats to spur him on. Now he wants credit?
The same goes with his campaign funds. He stood there announcing campaign reforms, but did he do it? No. Did he need several governmental bodies to legislate it? No. He just had to DO IT, wave his gubernatorial wand which he claimed had magical testicular virility, and demonstrate the characteristics voters supported him for in 2002.
This man is so corrupted, you have to nail him ten times before vast crowds of shouting mobs before he decides to do what he was hired to do. We cannot continue with such a horrible governor, no matter how he works his cute cards.
Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 9:36 am
When did the salary cap change for interns? In 1996 I think it was capped at about $30,000. Who changed the cap and why did they do it?
Comment by Larry Mullholland Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 9:41 am
I wonder what type of reception the Gov. gets when he walks in the Illinois State Fair Parade Thursday night in Springfield? Will he even attend as all past Govs have? How late will he be? Can the parade start without him?
Comment by Ben Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 10:18 am
I agree that any current intern that doesn’t meet the new specifications should be sent home. It’s embarrassing they call themselves interns. I like the new plan. Overall it is a huge load to take on to reshuffle personnel and proceedures and not tear apart every department and all the employees who are disgruntled enough these days. Some things do take time sadly enough this did take more than it needed however sometimes you need an instance to move something along faster and in this case I think it’s now moving. If JBT wins however, I would be very interested in following her proceedures on soem of the newer hires and if they get fired and replaced by folks of her own. No easy solution.
Comment by annoyed all the time Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 10:20 am
I don’t know that it is reasonable to assume that the people hired were complicit in any misuse of the PAI position, and I don’t think innocent parties (if they were indeed innocent) should be punished for the acts of others. And, all of this assumes there was misuse of the PAI title. I hear people say they don’t like it, but I don’t hear anyone say what statute or rule was violated.
Comment by steve schnorf Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 10:33 am
Yes GoverNOT Hairdo did promise to clean up government upon being elected. He just failed to tell us it would take 3 years and 8 months to do so.
Comment by Little Egypt Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 10:40 am
It’s all Republican’s fault.
Comment by Skeeeter Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 2:08 pm
I now understand that the intern salary cap was only $36,000 when Ryan was in office. If this info is correct, then Blago & crew significantly raised the cap to allow for hand picked placement in key positions. A conspiracy to circumvent personel rules & compensate key campaign supporters (can you say RICO)……hmmm
Comment by Larry Mullholland Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 2:16 pm
I agree with Anon62701 @ 8:40 am. IDOT has several interns/seasonal employees who get rotated from summer-fall-winter-summer positions. A couple are barmaids from the bar that our political administration manager owns. When they finally interviewed for a permanent position, guess who did the interviewing? The admin manager (who is their boss at the bar they work in at night) gave them the interview and hired them for IDOT. One was given an ET I position that had not been posted.
Comment by disgusted Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 5:17 pm
We have two people who got their jobs through internships in our office, they are in their 40’s and 50’s!!
I saw an informal poll on a real estate site (see houses.com) I was on this morning and they asked who people were voting for for governor. The results: Topinka 81%, Blagojevich 19%.
Comment by Disgusted Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 7:36 pm
Speaking of internships…someone really should take a look at the Governor’s Summer Youth Worker program that (according to the press releases back in June) was going to hire low-income high school and college students. I don’t know about other agencies, but at DHS it appears that the vast majority of the students hired are related to someone who works for the agency - and the group that was hired (on contract of course) to oversee the program appears to be completely inept. This administration has taken cronyism to completely new levels.
Comment by cynically anonymous Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 9:33 pm
There are other ways to get their hacks in. Another back door is ADA. Someone needs to look a little closer. This Act has also been twisted for selecting contracts. First veterans, now the disabled.
Comment by Anon. Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 10:16 pm
How so?
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 10:26 pm
Didn’t Rep Reitz have his son and wife hired as interns?
Comment by Roy Slade Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 11:13 pm
Regarding the ADA, hiring preference can be given to disabled persons. Under the current administration, I’ve seen examples of “learning disabled” people hired using this preference. They were not interviewed by normal procedures, but just arrived one day. I saw no evidence of a learning disability in the connected individuals. If anything they were more capable than their coworkers.
I’m not saying the disabled don’t deserve a break, but strongly suspect “disabilities”, new foriegn language requirements as well as new internships for here-to-for jobs/titles subject to Rutan have been used to hire politically connected individuals in significant numbers.
For what it’s worth, those hired under the new internships and promoted to Rutan positions not previously hired as interns should have to forfiet their jobs due to improper hiring. Admitting it was wrong after the fact does nothing to right the situation.
For instance, should people hired as PAI interns having no college degree be allowed to remain in the jobs to whicj they were promoted based upon illegitimate and improper (and perhaps illegal based on Rutan) grounds? I don’t think so.
Time to fess up.
Comment by Anon Tuesday, Aug 8, 06 @ 11:44 pm