Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Cleaning up Quinn’s mess

Posted in:

Illinois

* Quinn’s administration sat on hundreds of millions of federal dollars for homeowner weatherization, which could’ve created huge numbers of jobs during the Great Recession. And, guess what? A half-billion dollar school construction program was also never activated…

In the depths of the Great Recession, then-Gov. Pat Quinn celebrated a roughly $500 million school construction bond program that would allow Illinois districts to build new facilities, fix old ones and handle a bevy of housekeeping needs, all via a federal program that would subsidize interest payments on the borrowing.

But while other states charged ahead with their slice of the Qualified School Construction Bonds program, Illinois did nothing.

The $495.6 million in bonding authority granted to Illinois sat on the shelf in Springfield for six years, denying schools a chance at a unique borrowing deal that could save taxpayers money.

It only became available late last year, after district administrators like those in West Aurora School District 129 caught wind of its existence and started “clamoring” for its release, according to interviews and Illinois board of education records obtained via a Freedom of Information request.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 9:59 am

Comments

When people think of nostalgia about the days before Rauner, it is these posts that bring back to light how screwed up our state was even before Rauner’s inauguration in Jan. 2015.

PQ please go away.

Comment by Almost the Weekend Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:03 am
Our sorry state.

Comment by Curious Georgina Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:07 am
This was the Rauner mandate - govern effectively, find the waste and mismanagement. He has overplayed his hand badly.

Comment by Century Club Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:08 am
… which is why I couldn’t vote for Quinn.

Quinn’s governing style, again and again, is seen in thibgs t like this.

Please. Mr. Quinn. You were governor for 6 years. That’s enough for anyone, and it was more than enough for Illinois…

Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:10 am
Imagine 4 years from now (if we have a different Governor) what this post would look like: “Cleaning up Rauner’s mess”.

Comment by out of touch Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:11 am
As much as Quinn sucked — and he sucked with the power of a lot of suns — even in this example he isn’t killing the state.

It’s hard times when sin of omission is better than sin of commission, but that’s IL.

Comment by Death by Bruce Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:14 am
And now, for the other side of the story . . .

There certainly must be one–not just from the Quinn Administration, but from the GA as well– before labeling that this is cleaning up Quinn’s mess. The writer reached out to Chico and Koch, but not to Quinn or the GA?

Comment by Flying Illini Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:14 am
Not surprising. While I found Quinn to be an altruistic fellow, I found it difficult to work with his staff.

Comment by illinoised Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:15 am
I am shocked but not surprised.

Comment by jake Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:16 am
Typical Illinois politics. He “celebrated” it, probably issued a few press releases as well, but did nothing to actually improve those schools that could have been improved.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:21 am
It’s still not clear to me what happened here.

This bond program wasn’t some super-secret thing. It was a big part of the Great Recession stimulus package.

Were the Illinois Association of School Administrators and the Illinois Association of School Boards banging the drum, encouraging school districts to apply for allocations?

Did districts apply and were turned down?

I don’t know why that would be the case. The state would not be on the hook for the bonds. The districts would be responsible for the principal while the federales would cover the juice.

You’d think the school districts and their state organizations would have been pushing for the release of allocations from the get-go.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:21 am
It’s amazing to me that Illinois doesn’t elect more competent Governors. So many are either inept, corrupt or both.

Comment by Stones Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:36 am
Once again we see that Rauner didn’t win; Quinn lost.

Comment by Nick Name Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:40 am
A reminder to us all why we are living this Rauner nightmare. Quinn made so many horrible mistakes, both on politics and policy, that he was unelectable. Pat, please stop talking about running again.

Comment by Jeff Park Mom Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 10:48 am
I’m with you illinoised. Rauner’s people have been competent and receptive the few times I’ve had dealings with them. OTOH Quinn’s people seemed to lack the do-gooder persona he put forth.

To the post, it seems a little premature to be dumping on Quinn for this. Give him a chance to respond. (I also do not want to see him back in the GO.)

Comment by Original Rambler Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 11:06 am
Not clear this was primarily Quinn’s failure, but

– “Governors Own”

Comment by walker Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 11:33 am
Where was the Statewide School Management Alliance–the lobbying group that represents the IASB, superintendents, school business managers, and principal associations? They should have been on Quinn and the GA for those funds. I am amazed that this situation with the school construction bonds is only getting out now.

Comment by Nearly Normal Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 11:49 am
This makes zero sense. There would be no reason for Quinn to sit on federal money for school construction. Why did the district administrators wait until now to seek information about the construction money?

Comment by Mama Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 11:51 am
Something about this doesn’t make sense. The state had plenty of other programs that addressed efficiency and weatherization that they had no problem spending money on. Seems odd this one would have just been forgotten with all the other stuff they were doing in this arena

Comment by Johnny Pyle Driver Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 11:54 am
C’mon, PQ was put on this Earth to solve the pension mess, not build schools. Mission accomplished.

Comment by Michelle Flaherty Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 12:06 pm
Original Rambler, my frustration with Quinn’s staff centered on their inability or unwillingness to delve into the details necessary to solve an existing problem. One issue in particular did not cost any money to address, only the willingness for multiple state agencies to sit down and work through details which might require slight policy changes at each agency but would result in a more seamless delivery of services to all populations. Each agency was an impenetrable silo.

And yes, there is likely more the story about the school construction bond program.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 12:16 pm
What happened to all that weatherization money? Did it get spent?

Comment by Kendrick Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 12:37 pm
Budget mistakes comparison of magnitude:

Quinn at the wheel, scrapes into something, scratches the paint, but budget and state still operational.

Rauner at the wheel, wraps budget around tree, walks away while the budget and state burn. Blames the tree.

Comment by DuPage Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 12:42 pm
There is no “money.” It’s a bonding authority. Local districts issue bonds. The locals are on the hook for principal payments, the federal government covers the interest payments.

There is no state liability, the state just administers the allocation. Why school districts weren’t rattling the bars for years if they wanted the allocation is not clear from the story.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 12:44 pm
Does this help make things a bit clearer? I too agree that there is more depth to today’s article that wasn’t reported.

http://www.sj-r.com/article/20151212/NEWS/151219847

Comment by Anon221 Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 12:47 pm
http://thesouthern.com/news/southern-illinois-schools-shut-out-for-bond-program-by-state/article_e24eba44-18ab-5dcb-b56a-fbf8f9a893ff.html

Comment by Anon221 Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 12:53 pm
Anon221, thanks, the SJR and Southern articles fill in a lot of gaps.

Geez, the Rauner Administration certainly is taking the wood to Southern Illinois, aren’t they?

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 12:58 pm
Rich- What is the background on this statement?

“Quinn’s administration sat on hundreds of millions of federal dollars for homeowner weatherization, which could’ve created huge numbers of jobs during the Great Recession.”

It’s not in the article, and I’m curious if there was more to it as well.

Comment by Anon221 Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 1:13 pm
And gee whiz where did THAT money go? Might be worth a look as to whom and how many of the applications were funded.

Spoiler alert: of the recently made available funds $300 million went to Suburban Cook County. $500 million was previously released to CPS. So, that means $800 million total of $995 available went toChicago/Cook.

Why? Because they used poverty numbers to drive funding. Sounds reasonable to some but facility conditions and need were not the driving force. So many more could have been funded or partially funded but less than 25 of more than 100 applications were funded. After many hours invested and significant detail was put Into the apication we had to find out randomly and indirectly. No notice was ever given. The ISBE and Illinois continue to be disfunctional and business as usual.

Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 1:53 pm
@Anon221- the fact of the matter is there is no “huge” job creation with this given the small number of applications funded. By more broadly distributing the bond funding it could have been true, now or then.

Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 2:53 pm
I held my nose and voted for Quinn even with knowledge of the incompetence in that administration. I don’t comment a lot, but I read what a lot of you have to say and note the amount of wisdom in these comments. Why aren’t some of you running for governor?

Comment by CCP Hostage Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 3:51 pm
I commented earlier and my comment apparently got lost in the cloud or something. Here we go again.

Seems odd to me that after a couple years of inaction, Quinn & Co. pulled the program out of ISBE and over to GOMB in 2012 for two more years of inaction, then gave it back in 2014. What else was happening in 2012-14? Hmm. Grant scandals?

Comment by Arthur Andersen Tuesday, Mar 22, 16 @ 7:46 pm