Tag Archives: budget

Illinois comptroller appeals ruling ordering lawmaker pay

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Illinois comptroller has appealed a Cook County judge’s ruling that state lawmakers must be paid on time despite their failure to pass a budget.

Comptroller Susana Mendoza said Wednesday that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office filed the appeal on her behalf Tuesday. The judge ruled last week in favor of lawmakers who sued Mendoza’s predecessor seeking pay.

Mendoza spokesman Abdon Pallasch says $8.6 million in back pay owed legislators was released late last week.

But the Democrat is appealing because she says bills for services for the state’s “most vulnerable” should be paid before lawmakers.

Unpaid bills of $12.4 billion have piled up because of the budget stalemate.

The judge based the ruling on a 2014 law passed after then-Gov. Pat Quinn withheld paychecks over pension reform.

 

 

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

CPS proposes budget is called balanced, teachers doubtful

(CHICAGO) Chicago Public Schools officials say they have a proposed budget for fiscal 2017 that is balanced.

However, the proposed $5.4 billion budget released Monday is based on the Chicago Teachers Union accepting a contract similar to one the union rejected earlier this year.

Schools CEO Forrest Claypool says that without certainty on the district’s labor costs, “we have to make, and do make rational assumptions.”

The rejected four-year contract would have required teachers to contribute the full nine percent of each paycheck to their pensions. It also would have curbed some automatic pay rises.

Union president Karen Lewis says teachers will not accept lowered benefits and lower pay, noting the rejected contract transferred pension contributions to teachers that would result in a 7 percent cut in pay.

 

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Rauner now supporting stopgap spending plan as State budget deadline looms

By John Dempsey, WLS-AM 890

(SPRINGFIELD, IL) Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has reversed himself, and now supports a temporary Illinois budget that would keep the state running through the summer.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Rauner’s Budget Chief Tim Nuding  has written a memo calling on the state legislature to pass stopgap budget, an idea Nuding and Rauner rejected just last week.

The temporary budget would get the state through the summer and provide education funding to allow schools all over Illinois to open on time in the fall.

The state has been operating without a budget for the past year because of Rauner’s disagreement with Democrats over his so called business reforms.  Rauner says the reforms would help the Illinois economy, while Democrats say they would weaken unions and hurt the middle class.

On Monday the legislature handed Rauner a major defeat by overriding his veto of a bill that would have given the City of Chicago more time to fully fund it’s pensions for firefighters and police officers.

Three House Republicans voted with Democrats to override the Republican Governor, including State Rep. David McSweeney of Barrington Hills, who told “The Big John Howell Show” on WLS that he cast his vote to prevent a massive property tax increase in Chicago.

“The last thing we need to do in this state is raise taxes again.   The Mayor has already raised property taxes by $540 million dollars and yesterday, by voting to override the veto, I voted against another $225 million dollar property tax increase in Chicago.”

However Rauner has said while the bill may save Chicago taxpayers money in the short term, it will results in billions more to be paid in property taxes over the next 40 years.

@ 2016 WLS-AM News

Gov. Rauner, Rahm Emanuel trade barbs during budget impasse

 

(CHICAGO) Gov. Bruce Rauner and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel are trading barbs amid Illinois’ budget impasse with Emanuel comparing Rauner to Donald Trump while the governor tours the state.

Emanuel began the exchange Thursday by saying Rauner “is following the Donald Trump playbook of demonizing one group of people for his political advantage.” The remark was a response to Rauner comments Wednesday accusing lawmakers of wanting a “massive bailout” for Chicago Public Schools at the expense of other areas of the state.

Rauner on Thursday called Emanuel’s comments a “goofy personal attack.”

Rauner is in a nearly yearlong standoff with Democratic lawmakers over a state budget.

Public schools worry they won’t have funds for the next school year. Without funding, the CEO of Chicago Public Schools says the district won’t open.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Rauner now supporting stopgap spending plan as State budget deadline looms.

By John Dempsey, WLS-AM 890 News

(SPRINGFIELD) Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has reversed himself, and now supports a temporary Illinois budget that would keep the state running through the summer.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Rauner’s Budget Chief Tim Nuding  has written a memo calling on the state legislature to pass stopgap budget, an idea Nuding and Rauner rejected just last week.

The temporary budget would get the state through the summer and provide education funding to allow schools all over Illinois to open on time in the fall.

The state has been operating without a budget for the past year because of Rauner’s disagreement with Democrats over his so called business reforms.  Rauner says the reforms would help the Illinois economy, while Democrats say they would weaken unions and hurt the middle class.

On Monday the legislature handed Rauner a major defeat by overriding his veto of a bill that would have given the City of Chicago more time to fully fund it’s pensions for firefighters and police officers.

Three House Republicans voted with Democrats to override the Republican Governor, including State Rep. David McSweeney of Barrington Hills, who told “The Big John Howell Show” on WLS that he cast his vote to prevent a massive property tax increase in Chicago.

“The last thing we need to do in this state is raise taxes again.   The Mayor has already raised property taxes by $540 million dollars and yesterday, by voting to override the veto, I voted against another $225 million dollar property tax increase in Chicago.”

However Rauner has said while the bill may save Chicago taxpayers money in the short term, it will results in billions more to be paid in property taxes over the next 40 years.

 

@ 2016 WLS-AM 890 News

Illinois State Senator Matt Murphy

The more than year-long war between House Speaker Michael Madigan and Gov. Bruce Rauner intensified Wednesday. The speaker passed a no-reforms budget — and Rauner’s office threatened to veto what it called the “phoniest phony budget in recent Illinois history.” The bill — which covers fiscal year 2017 — passed the House 63-53 Wednesday evening. It must now go to the Illinois Senate, where its fate is unclear. Illinois State Senator Matt Murphy joined John Howell to vent on the situation in Springfield.

Illinois Senate, House pass college funding bill

FILE - In this Feb. 17, 2016 file photo, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner speaks at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. Rauner said Monday March 21, 2016, that he'll support whoever the Republican nominee for president is, including if it's Donald Trump. Rauner made the statement during his first public comments since last week's election where Trump won the GOP presidential primary in Illinois. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
FILE – In this Feb. 17, 2016 file photo, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner speaks at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

 

(CHICAGO) A $600 million temporary funding fix for financially struggling Illinois colleges and universities has finally passed in Springfield after lawmakers delayed a vote Thursday. The House and Senate was expected to vote on it Thursday, but instead adjourned for the night.

Republican House Leader Jim Durkin told lawmakers Gov. Bruce Rauner will sign the bill. In a statement, Rauner said, “By passing this bipartisan agreement, lawmakers in both chambers put aside political differences to provide emergency assistance for higher education, ensuring universities and community colleges remain open and low-income students can pay for school.  We are hopeful the General Assembly will build on this bipartisan momentum in the weeks ahead as we negotiate a balanced budget with reform for Fiscal Years 2016 and 2017.”

@ 2016 WLS-AM News

UPDATE: To Combine or Not to Combine

By Bill Cameron, WLS News

In state politics…one of the candidates in next year’s statewide elections is telling Bill Cameron she’s not ready to endorse one of the more popular money-saving ideas in Springfield.

You could save millions by merging the offices of State Treasurer and Comptroller, but City Clerk Susana Mendoza – a Democrat running for comptroller- tells WLS-AM she’s not so sure.

“You know, it’s an interesting time right now.  You see that the comptroller’s office right now is not independent of the Governor’s office.  So, maybe in the past, people were talking about ‘Oh, let’s just combine the offices and it’s all good,’ but I think right now you can see where there might be value in still having an independently elected office that ultimately is responsible for writing the checks and prioritizing not just payments but also the fiscal and moral health of the state,” said Mendoza.

But her primary opponent State Senator Dan Biss is for the merger and says the merged office could be that kind of check, and he adds this: “The kind of old political power structures that have always been happy to have as many different offices, as many different political patronage jobs as possible and I just don’t think that’s the best way forward for the state of Illinois.

@ 2015 WLS News

More Trash Talk at Chicago’s City Hall

By Bill Cameron, WLS News

At a city budget hearing which began today, they’re already talking about changes to the most controversial money-raising proposal in the mayor’s bad news budget.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed $9.50 per month household garbage pickup fee may go up or down dependent upon how much garbage a household generates. City budget director Alex Holt told the alderman it might make sense to charge the fee per garbage cart at each home.

“If we went to a cart based fee structure, you could actually give people who, ya know, got the one cart and the one recycling, you could give them a discount off of the $9.50. The other way to do it is to say that everybody gets ‘x’ number of carts, say two per household and two recycling- I’m making that up, I’m not saying that’s the right number- and that anything more than that gets charged an additional fee,” said Holt.

But before anything changes the city is trying to figure out how many carts each household is using now.

 

@ 2015 WLS News

Governor Bruce Rauner pitches his turnaround agenda to Chicago City Council

(Chicago) Gov. Bruce Rauner told the City Council on Wednesday he is “eager to be your partner in a turnaround that benefits Chicago and the state,” but only if Mayor Rahm Emanuel and  aldermen “accept things they might normally oppose.”

“For Chicago to get what it wants, Illinois must get what it needs,” the governor said. “We don’t have the money to simply bail out Chicago. That’s not an option.”

The rookie governor never mentioned the right-to-work zones that aldermen and the mayor denounced from the Council floor minutes before his arrival, the Sun-Times is reporting.

Nor did he mention the rest of a turnaround agenda that includes reforming workers’ compensation, freezing local property taxes, minimizing the formidable influence of labor unions and scrapping prevailing wages.

But, that was clearly what he was talking about in broad strokes during a 10-minute address that was greeted with a polite, but frosty round of applause.

“I was born in Chicago in the shadows of Wrigley Field. I love this city. I want this to be the greatest city in the world for every family and every neighborhood,” the governor said.

“But the city, like the state, is at a tipping point. We can’t continue governing from crisis to crisis bandaging over problems while we slowly slide down the scale of great cities. That’s not the future I want.”

Listen to WLS’ Poltical Reporter Bill Cameron’s report hereBILL-RAUNER SPEAKS TO CC.

Emanuel was more than willing to oblige Rauner’s extraordinary City Council address. He desperately needs Rauner’s help to solve the combined, $300 million pension crisis at the city and public schools.

The mayor wants an elusive, publicly owned Chicago casino, with all of the revenue used to shore up police and fire pensions.

He wants to resurrect his 2011 proposal to broaden the sales tax to an array of services not now covered, an idea Rauner has also championed.

And he wants the governor and Democratic-controlled General Assembly to lift the hammer hanging over Chicago taxpayers—a state-mandated, $550 million payment due in December to shore up police and fire pensions—and give taxpayers more time to “ramp up” to that balloon payment.

To erase a $1.14 billion shortfall and $9.5 billion pension crisis at Chicago Public Schools, Emanuel has appealed to Rauner to end the pension double-standard that forces Chicago taxpayers to pay twice, for retired city teachers and for the pensions of retired teachers outside the city.

On Wednesday, Rauner made it clear that would be a heavy lift—not only for him, but also for the Republicans in the Illinois General Assembly and for the people they represent.

“There is talk of so-called double-taxation of Chicago residents for schools. But outside Chicago, folks see Chicago gettin’ its own special deal receiving over half-a-billion dollars every year in net extra funding compared to the rest of the state’s school districts,” Rauner said.

“These different points of view are a tremendous challenge for us to all overcome together. Chicago’s agenda does not and cannot stand alone from the agenda we need to bring back Illinois. To achieve what we must requires sacrifice and compromise from all of us.”

During a news conference after the first City Council address by a sitting governor in anyone’s memory, Emanuel stood his ground.

The mayor said it was inconsistent for the governor to want to tie Chicago’s hands by freezing local property taxes and, at the same time, continue taxing Chicagoans twice for teacher pensions. Something has to give.

Asked where he believes there is room to compromise with his friend, Emanuel specifically mentioned worker’s compensation “done the right way.” He noted that Chicago taxpayers spend $100 million-a-year on worker’s comp.

“Four years ago or around that time, I fought for worker’s comp reform. I believe in worker’s comp reform. I think there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it,” the mayor said.

“I know it’s important on his agenda. If we do it in the right way, I’ll work together to get that done because, as an employer, the largest in the state of Illinois, we have an interest in that type of reform. But, doing it the wrong way doesn’t mean it helps.”

After his address, Rauner told reporters the City Council’s denouncement of right-to-work zones was “terrific,” saying he hopes to encourage local communities to decide whether right-to-work is for them.

“That’s exactly what I’m encouraging and I can guarantee you there will be communities that don’t want empowerment zones within their communities and there are communities that do want empowerment zones and that is what I’m advocating,” Rauner said.

Rauner said he’s pushing “aggressively” to get his turnaround agenda and budget passed by May 31.

“It’s a heavy lift. It’s a lot of work but we are pushing it,” Rauner said. “I’ve seen how the process works in state government and it’s still very possible.”

— Chicago Sun-Times

Dan’s Response to Gov. Quinn’s Budget Address

In his budget address in Springfield on Wednesday, Governor Pat Quinn mainly sought to solidify his alibi for the financial catastrophe that is Illinois as he referenced fictional plaudits from George Will to buttress the fictional work of cartoon character and Quinn point-man on pension reform, Squeezy the Pension Python.

The only thing missing from Quinn’s mystical world of make-believe is Manti Te’o’s girlfriend. What’s one more ghost payroller after all?

Quinn cited George Will’s alleged support for Quinn’s modest 2010 pension reform measure saying, “National conservative columnist George Will called that law an ‘earthquake,’ a ‘seismic event’.”

What George Will actually wrote was, “If an earthquake occurs in Illinois and no one notices, is it really a seismic event? Gov. Pat Quinn called it a ‘political earthquake’ when the state's Legislature recently voted…to reform pensions for state employees.”

George Will described Quinn’s characterization of his own legislation and left that characterization as an open question.

But, again, distinctions between fact and fancy are not the forte of the Quinn administration.

I have another open question, if the 2010 pension reform Quinn touted was the “earthquake” he alleged it to be, why did he devote the preponderance of his budget address to pleading with the General Assembly to act on more substantial pension reform?

Another Chicago Democrat whose seismic event turns out to be a tremor for Illinois taxpayers.

One of the places where the ground is actually crumbling under our collective feet is with the state’s Medicaid program, our largest general fund expenditure. Currently providing health care services (in theory) to nearly 1 in 5 Illinoisans, under Quinn’s fast-tracking of Obamacare implementation, that number is expected to grow to 1 in 3 Illinoisans. 

Illinois’ Medicaid program in its current iteration works like this: The state cannot finance its health care promises to the current Medicaid enrollees so it does not pay health care providers. Health care providers in turn stop serving Medicaid recipients because the state does not pay. Thus, the very people who should be served by the program—indigent persons, pregnant women, the developmentally disabled—have actually seen their access to quality health care deteriorate.

The Quinn solution? Add another 1 million people to the Medicaid rolls so as to present the appearance of compassion while in fact using the most vulnerable among us as cannon fodder for the big government agenda of Chicago Democrats in Springfield and Washington, D.C.

 

Another pillar of government cracking under the weight of command control is K-12 education. Quinn focused on preserving the state’s financing of early childhood education saying, “A child is only four years old once.” 

As I understand it, a child is only seven, eight, and nine years old once as well. What I do not understand is how the governor can justify turning a blind eye to children left to rot in schools in Chicago and throughout Illinois that will fail them just as they have failed generations before them. What I cannot understand is a General Assembly that aids and abets discrimination against children, predominately minority children, based on their address and household income. So those four year olds Quinn referenced will start school earlier and then be funneled into school systems that will not have taught them to read by the fourth grade. This is what the governor and the Springfield ruling elites call “a top priority”. Theirs is an urgent commitment to failure.

Quinn concluded his address with another sop to pop culture play-acting invoking Daniel Day Lewis’ portrayal of Abraham Lincoln saying, “And so I ask you…as our greatest president Abraham Lincoln asked in this year’s film:  ‘Shall we stop this bleeding?’”

Quinn was asking the General Assembly. I know what their answer is. The question is better put to the Illinois electorate next year. And that is another open question.