Category: Illinois Budget

Freewheeling debates reveal new way of doing business in House

Posted by dcrim – February 20, 2011

John Bresnahan and Jonathan Allen of Politico report that the sometimes chaotic debates last week in the U.S House were an example of Speaker John Boehner living up to his promise to decentralize power in that chamber, to shift it from the speaker’s office and leadership after decades of creeping control of the chamber in fewer hands. Click here for the story.

Unlike his predecessors, Democrat and Republican alike, Boehner has vowed not to run the House with a tight fist. Bresnahan and Allen note that even some veteran Democrats praised what was the most open and sprawling floor fight the House had seen in years. James Madison, after all, envisioned the House being a chamber “of the people,” elected directly by the people of the United States and representing public opinion.

Illinoisans don’t have to look far to see what happens when so much power is concentrated in the hands of so few.

Posturing, policy problems ahead of Quinn’s budget speech

Posted by dcrim – February 15, 2011

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will deliver his budget address at noon Wednesday, or an hour after the deadline passes for the Cardinals and Albert Pujols to reach an agreement on a new contract. (SI.com is reporting St. Louis has offered more than $200 million over eight years, while Jayson Stark of ESPN.com says Pujols walks, it will be a business decision.)

From Illinois Statehouse News on the Quinn budget:

Republicans at the Illinois Capitol spent the day before Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget address complaining that they have not heard much about the spending plan. And what they have heard is not acceptable.

But statehouse Democrats say the state’s problems haven’t changed, and neither have the solutions.

The governor’s office stayed tight-lipped about specifics of the new state spending plan. An off-the-record briefing to lawmakers and reporters Tuesday evening left as many questions as it did provide answers.

Illinois is still facing a multi-billion dollar deficit and is projected to once again not have enough money to pay for a full year of state services. Quinn has proposed a combination of billions in borrowing and millions in cuts to remedy the situation.

“It think it’s a lean budget,” said Quinn spokesman Mica Matsoff. “(The budget) focuses the burden across all areas of state government.”

Democrats still control the statehouse, but lost just enough races last fall to give Republicans a seat at the table when it comes time to borrow. And Senate GOP boss, Christine Radogno, has said already they won’t support it.

“I’ve told (Gov. Quinn) multiple times since January that if he submits a budget that assumes borrowing (will be part of the mix), he will not get any Republican support,” she said.

State Sen. Pam Althoff, R-Crystal Lake, said they’ve heard these same cries for years that if lawmakers will only give just a little more, then everything will be OK.

“We need to say no. We need to go back to the board and find out where we’re going to make cuts,” Althoff said. “We need to be responsible with the money we’re going to obtain from this new income tax increase.”

State lawmakers last month raised the personal income tax increase by nearly 67 percent, from 3 percent to 5 percent, which is expected to garner close to $7 billion annually.

But as GOP lawmakers talked tough about turning their backs on borrowing, the Quinn administration quietly circulated lists that tallied the billions owed to state vendors. Each lawmaker got a list that showed which of their local businesses are still waiting for checks from Springfield.

Quinn has said in the past he’d like to borrow as much as $8.75 billion to erase close to $6.6 billion in unpaid bills.

When lawmakers approved the income tax increase last month, they did not act on the borrowing proposal.

State Rep Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, said there will be new money coming into Springfield from the tax hike, but not nearly enough to pay those past-due bills.

“The tax hike alone is helpful, but it is not nearly enough,” said Mautino “There is going to have to be additional borrowing to cover the state’s bills.”

Mautino said he does expect lawmakers to agree on some kind of borrowing plan, but he said the price tag and time line will have to be worked out.

The broad strokes of Quinn’s budget — borrowing, cuts, efficiencies — have been known for months. It still remains to be seen how those broad themes will impact local communities or social service providers.

And even though Quinn will unveil his budget at noon on Wednesday, it could be months or more before the local impact begins to be felt.

Crystal ball looks at 2012 election and states going bust

Posted by dcrim – January 30, 2011

Here are 12 reasons why President Barack Obama will win re-election in 2012 and 12 reasons why he won’t.

Several states are discussing bankruptcy. How bad is it? The Daily Beast crunches the numbers of all 50 states to find who’s in the deepest debt—and it isn’t who you think. Click here for the list.

Writer asks: Debtors’ prison for deadbeat politicians?

Posted by dcrim – January 11, 2011

Dennis Byrne of the Chicago Tribune, which has been hammering state Democratic leaders nonstop in recent days for the proposed tax hike to address the state budget crisis, pines for the good ‘ole days.

Writes Byrne:

Too bad we don’t have debtors’ prisons anymore. They would be suitable lodgings for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and the rest who are responsible for Illinois’ financial demise.  We could let Madigan, Gov. Pat Quinn, Senate President John Cullerton and others who are responsible for stiffing thousands of Illinois suppliers for billions and billions of dollars fester there until they come up with a sensible way to pay the bills.

How will plan to address financial crisis by raising taxes play out?

Posted by dcrim – January 8, 2011

Democratic leaders in the Illinois General Assembly have reached an agreement on a tax hike that, coupled with a limit on spending and a moratorium on new programs, is projected will pay past due bills, fund the state’s pension obligation and begin to address a budget deficit expected to reach $15 billion by this spring.

With only three more days remaining before a new General Assembly is sworn in — one with a combined eight fewer Democrats — there is no telling whether the proposals first floated last week will receive the necessary votes for passage. And there seems to be no inclination so far to further curtail future pension costs by reducing benefits for current employees, a tactic that other states have embraced.

The Washington Post notes how the $6.8 billion in unpaid bills is affecting social service agencies:

The late payments have left the state’s social service network in chaos. A recent survey of 282 social work agencies by Illinois Partners for Human Service, an advocacy group, found that 95 percent of them have been hurt by the budget crisis. More than half were forced to reduce service; 28 percent closed programs; half laid off staff members; and 49 percent were forced to tap lines of credit.

Investors Business Daily isn’t enamored with the tax hike idea:

Americans for Tax Reform compared the states gaining and losing congressional seats and found that “states gaining seats had significantly lower taxes, less government spending and were more likely to have ‘Right to Work’ laws in place.”

ATR found the average personal income-tax rate in states losing seats was a high 6.05%. That average rate in states gaining seats was a more modest 2.8%. Per capita government spending is also lower: $4,008 for states gaining congressional seats vs. $5,117 for those that aren’t. …

A report by the Pew Center on the States highlights another Illinois problem, one it shares with other states — unfunded pension obligations. As government has grown apace, so has its work force and the promises made to employees that double as a patronage army come election time.

Click here to see how Illinois tax rates would compare with other states.

Obama will need some luck to restore winning coalition

Posted by dcrim – December 6, 2010

Mark Halperin, writing in Time magazine, believes President Barack Obama will need some luck to win back the core groups that helped elect him in 2008. That usually translates into an “event.” For Bill Clinton, it was the Oklahoma City bombing. For Geroge W. Bush, it was 9/11.

The coalition that got Barack Obama elected President just two years ago has been shattered. Gaming out the trajectory of the next two years can be done any number of ways, but Obama’s efforts to rebuild a politically robust alliance will be the most telling. It may be the biggest challenge of his career — and he will need happenstance along with skill if he is going to get it done.

The New York Times reports that the mounting debt facing states like Illinois, which is still paying off billions in bills that it got from schools and social service providers last year, is stoking fears of a future financial crisis.

While next year could be even worse, there are bigger, longer-term risks, financial analysts say. Their fear is that even when the economy recovers, the shortfalls will not disappear, because many state and local governments have so much debt — several trillion dollars’ worth, with much of it off the books and largely hidden from view — that it could overwhelm them in the next few years.

With WikiLeakls next release apparently targeting Bank of America, traders fear a subprime lending scandal will be exposed. Charlie Gasparino talks with someone who has read the leaked files and offers his assessment for The Daily Beast.

Want to know how much a state employee made last year?

Posted by dcrim – November 16, 2010

The state of Illinois paid more than 78,900 public employees in 2009. Search here by name, county, agency or amount to see the annual salary for each employee.

If you want to skip a step and go directly to Adams County, click here. You have to get to the eighth page (20 on a page) to find someone making less than 70K.

If you want to skip a step and go directly to those statewide earning between $100,001 and $200,000, click here.

Lax rules allow pension system to be exploited in Illinois

Posted by dcrim – September 19, 2010

An investigation by Joseph Ryan and Joe Mahr of the Chicago Tribune reveals that lax pension rules are costing Illinois taxpayers millions of dollars.

Even with governments struggling to provide basic services, the tab for inflated pensions grows as Illinois does not take on reforms other states adopted years ago. Those with the power to stop it, including local officials and statewide lobbying groups, have the most to gain from the status quo. And the Tribune found many have — significantly.

The Tribune investigation of the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund reveals:

Pensions for executives are routinely boosted with bonuses, car allowances, cash-outs of unused sick and vacation time, and other perks. Retirement checks can jump 10, 20 even 30 percent from the perks — a practice other states in the Midwest don’t allow.

The lax rules and oversight cost taxpayers in Illinois nearly $13 million for just the top-level retirees in the last two years and perhaps as much as $145 million for all municipal fund retirees in the last decade. Now, several local (suburban Chicago) officials are on course to bump their retirement checks by up to 45 percent.

And the scary part:

No one is responsible for investigating excesses.

It’s time to start believing in education again

Posted by dcrim – March 26, 2010

So here we are. The Quincy School Board has been forced to slash another $4 million from its budget because the state of Illinois cannot pay its bills. For those keeping score at home, that’s more than $8 million in reductions the past three years combined because the folks in Springfield can’t balance a checkbook.

And yet, if you read some of the comments posted on whig.com, it’s not enough that more than 100 full- and part-time employees will be losing their jobs. It’s not enough that schools will be closed. It’s not enough that kids who have trouble learning to read won’t be given the necessary one-on-one instruction so they can have a chance in life.

No, a community that has not supported a referendum to raise the education fund tax rate from the lowest allowable by law in more than three decades would like to see more pain. They remember when schools were built and then closed and sold. They remember when former Superintendent Michael Anderson was paid $190,000 to walk away and not say why. They remember when there were insurance and pension perks not available to most people.

The problem is, that was then and this is now. Mistakes no doubt were made in the past, given that we are an imperfect people living in an imperfect world, but there should be a statute of limitations on sins of the fathers, whatever they were. After all, we’re talking about the education of our children, not Enron.

This School Board, and the ones that immediately preceded it, and this administration have worked to be good stewards of taxpayer money. They have identified problems, such as the financially draining self-insurance fund and the state-sanctioned pension padding, and worked with employees to correct them. They have tried to do more with less — a popular corporate slogan that, by the mere definitions of those words, is impossible to accomplish.

So when is enough enough? What is it going to take for us to believe in people to make the best decisions for our school system and trust their judgment? When are we going to put aside grudges and misconceptions and a little paycheck envy, and realize that our future rests on our children and grandchildren being more successful than we are?

It’s time to put aside differences, quit the finger-pointing and start believing in education again.

It’s time for Illinois to quit playing games with its budget mess

Posted by dcrim – March 14, 2010

national-lampoon-73-7478981Many see Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed income tax hike as a cynical ploy to hold teachers and schoolchildren hostage while playing on the sympathy of voters. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggests the state quit playing games with its future and come up with real solutions to its problems, which the newspaper admits will be very tough medicine.

As the series that began today in The Herald-Whig will show, the state’s inability to pay its bills, along with some educational requirements and unfunded mandates, are the primary culprits in an economic crisis that is threatening the viability of school districts statewide.