Legislative maps face another legal challenge

By Jamey Dunn

Illinois' new Congressional and state legislative district maps face yet another lawsuit.

The League of Women Voters of Illinois sued to have both maps tossed out, claiming they violate the First Amendment rights of voters by trying to control their political voices. “By considering the partisan composition of the districts and the political competitiveness of election campaigns in such districts, the General Assembly is unlawfully attempting to control or influence the kinds of views, opinions and speech that residents placed in those districts are likely to express or hear and receive,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit says that trying to make districts politically competitive — something that would require voting history and information on party affiliations — is a valid goal. But it says that Democratic mapmakers were more concerned with maximizing political benefits than ensuring that races would be competitive. “ By use of methods to control or influence the kind of views that residents are likely to hear and receive, without safeguards ensuring such action is narrowly tailored to serve legitimate state interests, there is a significant risk that the General Assembly and Congressional delegation will become less accountable and responsive to changes in public opinion and less under popular control,” the complaint said.

“The problem is the usual gerrymandering. It doesn’t matter who is in office. They just do it,” said Jan Dorner, president of the League of Women Voters of Illinois. “It isn’t specifically about these maps. … our hope is to change it from now on.”

Republican state legislative leaders and a Republican-backed group have already challenged the state and congressional maps in federal court. Their challenges allege the maps dilute the political power of Hispanic population of the state, among other complaints. Dorner said by focusing on First Amendment rights, the league is scrutinizing legislative maps in a way they have not been challenged before. “Filing under the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution — we think is a new legal claim.”

Dorner said new maps should be drawn by an independent commission without taking political data into account. The group backed an effort in early 2010 for an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would have put the once-a-decade redistricting process into the hands of a commission. The Fair Map Group was unable to collect the needed number of signatures to get the amendment on the ballot. A Republican attempt to pass the amendment through the legislature also fell short. Democrats criticized the league for working closely with their political opponents and a playing a large role in what was, in part, an effort financially backed by Republican state legislative leaders. “Three years ago, we were being called Democrats by the Republicans,” Dorner said. “Just recently we have apparently become Republicans. Bottom line is, we believe in what’s right. And I don’t care if it's Democratic or Republican or Green or Libertarian.”

Gov. Pat Quinn today voiced his support for the maps he signed into law. “The process for redistricting both the congressional districts and state legislative districts was the most open process Illinois has ever had. There was ample public participation and opportunity to participate. I looked at both maps in a very careful way and made a decision that they were fair — done through an open process. So, we’re happy to defend that work in any court in the land.”

'No Child Left Behind' waivers are a product of congressional gridlock

By Jamey Dunn
 President Barack Obama called for a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act before the beginning of the school year, but gridlock in Congress has led his administration to pursue a stopgap measure to keep thousands of schools from failing under the law's standards.

The act, passed under former President George W. Bush, requires that all students reach math and reading proficiency goals by 2014. As the requirements ramp up, schools nationwide that are making improvements are still failing under the act. Once a school fails to meet the goals for three years in a row, it can face drastic corrective measures, such as mass firings or even closing.

The Obama administration has been pushing for a change for more than a year, warning that up to 80 percent of schools will be labeled as failures in the near future. Obama rolled out his plan for a rewrite in March 2010. “The stakes are high. As it currently exists, NCLB is creating a slow-motion educational train wreck for children, parents and teachers. Under the law, an overwhelming number of schools in the country may soon be labeled as 'failing,' eventually triggering impractical and ineffective sanctions,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote in an opinion peace he penned in July urging Congress to rewrite the law.

In a Congress that is falling into venomous partisan struggles over authorizing more federal borrowing and approving funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, two things that have been generally routine actions, changes to the No Child Left Behind Act, which is the current version of the complicated and controversial Elementary and Secondary Education Act, have little chance of being approved quickly. “The law, NCLB, as it currently stands is four years overdue for being rewritten. It is far too punitive; it is far too prescriptive. It led to a dumbing down of the standards, led to a narrowing of the curriculum,” Duncan said at a news conference in Washington, D.C.

Instead of a rewrite, the administration is going around Congress for the time being and plans to offer states waivers so they do not have to meet the ever-increasing goals of the act. But the feds say they will not just give states a free pass. “Where there’s a high bar, where folks are really doing the right thing for children, we want to give them a lot more flexibility,” Duncan said.

The Department of Education plans to announce the requirements for waivers in September. From a prepared statement by the department: “The administration's proposal for fixing NCLB calls for college- and career-ready standards, more great teachers and principals, robust use of data and a more flexible and targeted accountability system based on measuring annual student growth.” The statement said the requirements will reflect “similar goals.”

“The standards will be high. The bar will be high. States are going to have to embrace the kind of reform that we believe is necessary to move our education system forward,” Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, said at a Washington, D.C,. news conference. “Any state that isn’t able to comply with those kinds or reforms, that isn’t able to embrace reform, will have to comply with No Child Left Behind as we move forward.”

In essence, waivers could leave state officials choosing between making the reforms the department requires, or watching hundreds of schools fail and possibly become subject to some drastic consequences. Given all of Illinois’ recent education reforms — some of which were touted by Duncan, and others that were done as an attempt to win grants from the Federal Race to the Top Program — it would be reasonable to assume the state could be in good standing with much of what the department will seek for waivers. But only time will tell. Mary Fergus, a spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education, said the board does not want to commit to seeking a waiver until the full plan is unveiled in June. Fergus said the board plans to “seek some feedback from the field” on what teachers and administrators would like to see as part of a plan to give schools more flexibility under the act.

Members of Congress working on a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act say Duncan is jumping the gun and may be overstepping his authority. U.S. Rep. John Cline, a Republican from Minnesota and chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, and U. S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, an Iowa Democrat and chairman of the Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee, sent a letter to Duncan voicing concerns over the waivers.

“The committee is optimistic a bipartisan consensus is possible on commonsense reforms that reduce the federal footprint in education and allow states and school districts the flexibility to meet the needs of their unique communities. However, as we continue working to attain this goal, we must ensure temporary measures do not undermine our efforts,” the letter said. They also questioned whether Duncan can impose requirements on states. “While flexibility in our education system is urgently needed, the department’s proposal is cause for concern. Issuing new demands in exchange for relief could result in greater regulation and confusion for schools and less transparency for parents. Additionally, the proposal raises questions about the department’s legal authority to grant conditional waivers in exchange for reforms not Authorized by Congress.”

But members of the administration say Congress has dragged its feet too long. “We would have loved to see Congress act. No question that it should have happened. We hope it happens some point down the road. But it hasn’t, and we can’t afford to wait,” Barnes said.

Illinois Rep. Roger Eddy, a Hutsonville Republican, said the waivers could result in a national “patchwork” of education policy because some states likely will not get them. “I think that if you’re going to try and fix this, and you’re going to have a consistent policy, we need to go ahead and go in there and change the federal act.” He said that they are areas of agreement about a revamp of the act, but political infighting is holding up the process. “Let’s agree on what we can agree on. … Right now at the federal level, gridlock is the dynamic.”

Eddy, who also is a school superintendent in Hutsonville, said missing out on a waiver is not as much of a concern for Illinois because he predicts that the requirements will “mirror” Senate Bill 7, a landmark education reform bill passed during the spring legislative session. He agrees that Illinois schools need some kind of relief from the rigid requirements of No Child Left Behind. “I think those first few years while the goals were attainable schools did improve,” Eddy said. He said now, as schools that are still improving begin to fail under the tightening requirements, a feeling of apathy has set in. “It’s not going to get any easier because the ramp just gets steeper. … Many are saying, ‘Well, who cares if we make it or not because it has become impossible.’”


For more on the No Child Left Behind rewrite, see Illinois Issues, June 2011

Quinn to lawmakers: Eliminate 'perk' scholarships

By Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn used his veto pen today to urge lawmakers to end the legislative scholarship program for the second time in as many years.

The governor rejected a bill last year that would have put a ban on lawmakers awarding the scholarships to campaign contributors or their families. In the veto message, he called on the legislature to instead approve an abolition of the program. Lawmakers never tried to override the veto, so the underlying bill died.

This time around, Quinn made the changes to the legislation himself. He used his amendatory power to tweak House Bill 1353, a bill that in its original form would bar lawmakers from giving the scholarship to family members. If the General Assembly approves his changes, the program would be eliminated on June 1, 2012.

“For the second consecutive year, I am compelled to return a measure to the General Assembly that fails to comprehensively reform the way legislative tuition waivers are awarded,” Quinn said in the message accompanying the veto.

Quinn signaled today that he would not accept any reform to the program sent to him by lawmakers. “You can’t put perfume on a skunk. This system has had too many problems for too many years, and it’s time to abolish the legislative scholarship program and go forward with a better program.”

In the wake of a federal investigation looking into former Rep. Robert Molaro awarding scholarships to the children of campaign donors, at least one sponsor of wholeheartedly backs Quinn. “I thought I had the perfect bill, and the governor possessed the perfect parliamentary tool to once and for all kill this controversial program,” said Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican. Dillard, who has voluntarily stopped awarding scholarships, wants to push for a vote to approve the change in the legislature's veto session, scheduled for October. “Literally in one day, the legislature in the fall veto session can abolish these scholarships,” he said.

Rep.Robert Pritchard, a sponsor of the bill in the House, said he agrees with Quinn and Dillard that the program should be ended. However, he said he thinks the Quinn should have communicated with him and tried to go about it in a less “backhanded way.”

“I am just disappointed the governor’s office didn’t reach out and let me know that’s what they were going to do with the bill,” said Pritchard, a Republican from Hinckley, said. He said he passed a reform bill because an all-out abolition lacked the support needed for approval. “My bill is a small step because that’s all I could get to move.”

Pritchard still awards the scholarship. He said he does not want his constituents to miss out on the opportunity as long as it exists. “I know they definitely help a lot of students.”

He said he will test the political waters to see if there are enough votes to approve Quinn’s changes before he decides to call the bill. However, he said an amendatory veto might be a way to address the issue quicker and more easily. “This certainly becomes a better solution to that overall problem if legislators cannot award the scholarships in an ethical way.”

Quinn alluded to the scholarships becoming a political lightning rod when every seat in the House and Senate is up for grabs next year. “This will be a time for everybody to say, before filing for election, where they stand on legislative scholarships.”

Dillard said  he thinks there will be more important issues in campaign season, but he did say that lawmakers’ votes would give an indication of where they stand when it comes to legislative perks and government spending. “The General Assembly scholarship is not the most important issue, but it is an important issue. It is a litmus test as to where you fall on the reform scale.” Legislative leaders could choose not to call the bill, and if that happens, Quinn’s changes and the underlying legislation would die.

Quinn wants any money saved by ending the program funneled into the Monetary Awards Program (MAP) for needy students. According to Quinn, 147,210 students received MAP grants in Fiscal Year 2011, but 151,367 were turned away due to a lack of funds. The legislative scholarship program is set up differently. Lawmakers give students tuition waivers, and universities foot the bill. “It’s time now to have a real debate on this. Let’s have a vote, where the legislature hopefully votes to end a perk that they have and instead go forward with a program that helps the common good,” Quinn said.

Feds to Quinn: We don't need your permission on immigration policy

By Jamey Dunn

The federal government says it does not need the state’s permission to continue an immigration enforcement program that Gov. Pat Quinn opted out of in May.

Quinn wanted to pull Illinois out of the Secure Communities program, which calls upon participating jurisdictions to submit fingerprints of arrestees to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) to be reviewed for immigration violations. Quinn argued that the program was sold as a way to remove hardened criminals from the country but was instead deporting people who were not guilty of any serious crimes and sometimes not guilty of any crime at all. He told the feds that the state was quitting the program through a termination clause in the contract the state signed.

However, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency notified Quinn, along with 37 other governors, that the state does not need permission to continue the program and has eliminated all the agreements it had previously made with states. “This change will have no affect on the operation of Secure Communities in your state. ICE will continue to operate Secure Communities for jurisdictions where it is already deployed and will continue to activate the program for new jurisdictions. Of course, we will notify your office prior to the activation of any new jurisdictions for your state,” said a letter sent to governors from John Morton, director of ICE. Before Quinn froze enrollment in the program last November, 26 Illinois counties had signed on. ICE plans for national participation by 2013.

The letter went on to say that ICE has shifted the focus of its “limited resources” to those individuals who “pose a threat to public safety or who have flagrantly violated the nation’s immigrations laws.” It also says the Department of Homeland Security plans to consider changing the way the program “addresses” people arrested for minor violations, such as traffic offenses.

But Quinn said such assurances are not enough.  “It is disappointing that the Department of Homeland Security has decided to push forward with Secure Communities without demonstrating real improvements to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s flawed implementation of the program,” a prepared statement from Quinn said. “Illinois was the first state to call attention to the problems with Secure Communities, and to terminate our participation in the program. Illinois remains concerned that the program can have the opposite effect of its stated purpose. Instead of making our communities safer, the program’s flawed implementation may divide communities, families and may make people less inclined to reach out to law enforcement.”

After Illinois tried to drop out of the program, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Reuters news service that she thinks states are overstepping their power on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to immigration policy. “Where immigration is concerned, the federal government fundamentally sets the policy. Just as states can’t on their own have [a strident immigration law like Arizona’s] — this is kind of the flipside of that — nor can they exclude themselves from an enforcement tool that we are using.” A federal court blocked some components of Arizonia’s law after the U.S. Justice Department sued to have them tossed out.

Immigration advocates in Illinois say ICE led states and local jurisdictions to believe that the program was voluntary and they could opt out at any time. They say the feds are trying to strong-arm state and local governments now that there are rumblings of participants quitting.  “Once again [the Department of Homeland Security] is trying to rule by fiat,” Fred Tsao, policy director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said in a prepared statement. “This is not Libya, where security agencies make up the rules as they go along.”

For more on the program and other state and federal conflicts over immigration policy, see the State of the State column in June 2011 Illinois Issues.

Regional superintendents may continue waiting for pay

By Jamey Dunn

Regional superintendents say it will be difficult for them to stay on the job if they miss another paycheck, but  no clear plan has emerged to pay them soon.

“At this point I don’t believe we have the legal authority to pay them. We’re going to continue to explore that possibility,” said Matt Vanover, a spokesperson for the Illinois Board of Education (ISBE).

Gov. Pat Quinn used his veto pen in June to remove money for the administrators’ salaries, and they have been going without pay since. Quinn has been in talks with regional superintendents and is reportedly working on legislation that would allow them to be paid out of local tax revenues. However, any such plan would not come before the legislature until lawmakers return for their fall veto session scheduled in October — meaning paychecks probably would not go out until November. Bob Daiber, Madison County regional superintendent and president of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, said that if a deal is not worked out to find funding by August 11 — the latest date necessary to get checks out on the August 16 payday — he is concerned many superintendents simply won’t be able to continue working without pay.

Daiber said if superintendents go without on the next payday, it would be the third pay period that they have not received compensation. He said, for many, the bills are piling up. “We have people that have property taxes due this month." The superintendents' association is pushing for ISBE to pay its members from another area of its budget, with the understanding that the money will be replaced when a permanent solution is found.

Vanover said if the legislature had passed a lump-sum budget, as it did the last two fiscal years, it would be much easier to shift the money. But since lawmakers passed an itemized budget for the current fiscal year, moving money around to pay the superintendents is easier said than done. “We can’t just say we’re going to take money out of general state aid and provide it to the regional superintendents. … I’m not saying [ISBE paying them] can’t happen, but at this point we haven’t found a way that we can do that.”

As for how ISBE would handle a mass walkout of regional superintendents, Vanover said it had only had to address a few vacant positions at a time in the past. “We have been able to work around some of these issues but that was in a very limited context.” Asked whether ISBE could take on the regional superintendents' duties — which range from school inspection and teacher certification to operating alternative schools — if many of them seek other employment, Vanover responded, “Absolutely not.” He said ISBE does not have the manpower and changes to statutes would be needed.

Quinn’s long term plan is to pay the superintendents out of the Personal Property Replacement Tax so they are not supported by state funds. “We really feel that that’s a function that should be financed at the local level. There is a fund that goes to the local school districts and local government. … Other local government officials have been paid locally, and I think it’s time that we addressed this issue,” Quinn told reporters in Chicago.

Joe McCoy, legislative director for the Illinois Municipal League, said $2.6 million in Personal Property Replacement Tax revenue was held back from local governments to pay stipends for county officials. However, he said municipalities, many of which face their own budget troubles, cannot afford to give up enough of those revenues to pay regional superintendents. McCoy said the largest beneficiary from the replacement tax is schools, which get about 60 percent of the revenue. He says 20 percent goes to local governments and the rest to other expenses. “We think the plan that’s floating out there would take money away from some of our municipalities, and we would oppose it,” he said. Lawmakers could also vote to override Quinn’s veto and reinstate the funding for superintendents in the state budget.

If Quinn has a plan to pay the superintendents soon, he is not commenting on it. When asked if the administration is trying to find a way to pay them this month, Kelly Kraft, a budget spokesperson, responded in a written statement, “We continue to examine mechanisms to provide payments as quickly as possible.”

Quinn working with regional superintendents on reinstating pay

By Jamey Dunn

Illinois regional superintendents could start seeing paychecks in November if the legislature approves a deal they are working on with Gov. Pat Quinn.

 Quinn used his veto pen to take money for the administrators’ salaries out of the budget approved by lawmakers. Since then, regional superintendents, who are locally elected and run Regional Offices of Education (ROEs), have been going without pay. ROEs are responsible for school safety inspections, teacher certification, background checks and fingerprinting potential employees, as well as running alternative schools and other duties. Quinn included cutting funding for the superintendents' pay in his original budget plan but met push back from educators and lawmakers.

Superintendents have been meeting with Quinn to sort out a solution, and they say legislation is in the works. “Regional superintendents met as scheduled on Wednesday, Aug. 3, with the governor's office and also with the State Board of Education to resolve this salary crisis. There is legislation being drafted by the governor's office to help resolve the matter, and that legislation will be presented to the regional superintendents in the next week. It will address ways in which we can be paid starting in November or December,’ said a written statement from the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools (IARSS).

Bob Daiber, Madison County regional superintendent and president of IARSS, said that if a deal is not worked out by August 11 — the date funding would have to be found to get checks out on the August 16 payday — many superintendents may leave. The group is urging the Illinois State Board of Education to pay them on the understanding that the board will get the money back once legislation is approved.

“We have people facing a third straight pay period without compensation,” Daiber said. His colleagues are facing mounting bills, such as mortgage payments, tuition bills and care payments, he said. “Missing a paycheck, everybody can do it right? Missing three gets to be difficult.”

Quinn is hoping to tap into local tax dollars to pay the superintendents. “We are working to get them paid as quickly as possible. We had a meeting with the ROEs yesterday, and have another meeting scheduled for next Wednesday to offer an update on the progress made toward providing payment as quickly as possible. In addition to working to provide payment soon, we have developed draft legislation to restore the payroll appropriation for ROEs and shift the obligation to Personal Property Replacement Tax. [The tax] funds local elected official stipends, and we feel ROEs, which are locally elected, should be funded in the same manner to relieve pressure from the general revenue fund,” Quinn budget spokesperson Kelly Kraft said in a written statement. Lawmakers could also opt to override Quinn's veto when they return for fall session, scheduled in October.

When asked if he created an emergency situation by cutting regional superintendents without a backup plan in place to cover their duties, Quinn said: “No. Not at all. No. They knew from our budget this year what our proposal was.” Quinn told reporters in Chicago, “I made a decision, and we’re going to stick by it.”

If superintendents start leaving the job, Daiber said schools my run into problems because the law requires that ROEs carry out many of the functions schools need to operate. “The unintended consequence are going to affect children’s and families’ lives. They’re going to affect teachers.” He said two superintendents resigned in July, and many more could follow suit. “Why would someone continue to work for two months day after day without compensation?”

FAA deal would put some back to work in Illinois

By Jamey Dunn

An agreement on funding for the Federal Aviation Administration would bring some Illinoisans back to work, but if the U.S. Senate cannot reach a deal, continued deadlock could delay construction projects throughout the state.

Congress left for its summer break without approving an extension of funding for the FAA, resulting in the furlough of 4,000 employees and the shutdown of about 200 construction projects across the country. The U.S. House passed a bill containing the money, but the Senate did not vote on it. Senate Democrats took issue with a provision in the House bill that would cut subsidies for rural airports. Democrats also oppose Republican demands that union rights rollbacks be tied to any future long-term funding for the FAA. The last long-term funding for the administration expired in 2007, and Congress has been passing short-term extensions while it tries to work out a new plan.

In Illinois, 145 employees are off the job without pay until the money is approved. According to the Illinois Department of Transportation, most of them are engineering and technical support staff. “The Chicago Department of Aviation (CDA) is disappointed Congress has not passed a new FAA authorization or an extension, which is costing the federal government $30 million a day while directly impacting airport projects that are critical to our nation’s aviation system,” Rosemarie Andolino, Chicago Department of Aviation commissioner, said in a prepared statement. “Here in Chicago, the FAA has stated that 145 FAA employees have been furloughed, directly impacting their livelihoods and that of their families.”

No capital projects have been halted in the state, but there is concern that if the Senate does not pass the funding, future projects could be held up. Without congressional approval, the FAA is unable to administer $2.5 billion in funds for construction projects nationwide.

“It is possible … that airport projects scheduled to start this year will be delayed, along with the ongoing review of projects for 2012 and beyond if FAA funding is not approved,” Guy Tridgell, a spokesperson for IDOT, said in a prepared statement. IDOT provided a list of projects scheduled to begin this year:

• Chicago Executive in Wheeling - partial taxiway construction.
• St. Louis Downtown in Cahokia - runway rehabilitation.
• Lake in the Hills - ramp construction, grading and drainage.
• MidAmerica in Belleville - cargo ramp expansion.
• Peoria International - rehabilitate pavements.
• Quad City International - convert runway to taxiway.
• Chicago Rockford International - rehabilitate runways 1-19 (phase 1).
• Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport Springfield - “Gulf” aircraft ramp construction (phase 1).
• Central Illinois Regional in Bloomington - perimeter fence construction.

According to IDOT the shutdown will not “have an immediate effect on the public’s ability to fly.” However, FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said the shutdown erodes the agency’s ability to do its work. “Every day this goes on, we fall further behind. We need our 4,000 FAA employees and tens of thousands of construction workers back on the job so we can get critical projects moving again while it's still construction season.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this afternoon  that a deal has been reached and the House bill could be approved as early as tomorrow. Senators who have already left Washington, D.C., may not have to return. The Senate has not yet adjourned. If Democrats and Republicans can agree, a bill can be passed by unanimous consent, and only one senator would have to be on the floor.

Quinn signs Illinois DREAM Act

By Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill today known as the Illinois DREAM Act, which will provide undocumented students opportunities for financial support for their college education.

“We want to leave no talent behind. We want to make sure that everyone who has the ability to do college work gets that opportunity,” Gov. Pat Quinn said at today’s bill signing in Chicago. “I think that we’re showing the whole country that our state, Illinois, the most diverse state in the whole union — we’re the best reflection of the population of America. Of the entire country’s population, we reflect it best right here in the middle of the country in the state of Illinois.”

The Illinois Dream Act will allow undocumented students to invest money into the state’s prepaid tuition program. It also calls for the creation of a privately supported tuition fund, called the DREAM fund, administered by a board of volunteers. “Until this moment, a large segment of our society has been cut off from the opportunity for accurate information on attending colleges. They have been denied the opportunity to take part in programs that help save for higher education, and denied the opportunity to apply for scholarships to [further] their education. These denials were all permitted because these students are undocumented,” said Rep. Edward Acevedo, a Chicago Democrat.

Backers say the new law was created and supported through the legislative process by grassroots efforts. Undocumented high school seniors provided input on what should be included in the bill. On such student, Arianna Salgado, said “We used our voices to express what we believed in and make sure that we were heard.” Salgado said that she struggled to find information about continuing her education when she was in her junior and senior years of high school. She said a guidance counselor told her she would never be able to attend college because she did not qualify for financial aid. She said the law “sends the message that education is valid and that every single student should be able to strive regardless of their immigration status.”

Senate President John Cullerton, a sponsor of the bill, said it could have done more to help young immigrants, who were often brought to this country without a say in the matter. “It’s not everything that we wanted, but it’s a very very good start. And this bill is going to really mean a difference for young people, who could be the valedictorian of a high school and not have the same rights as other kids when they try to go to college.”

The Illinois DREAM Act passed with bipartisan support in both chambers of the General Assembly. However, Republican supporters in the Senate met some backlash for their “yes” votes from a suburban Tea Party organization. “The Illinois Republican Senators who voted 'Yes' to DREAM Act SB 2185 are part of the problem in Illinois. Instead of focusing on issues like jobs, taxes and our economy, they are more interested in getting votes. It is clear our current elected officials are much more concerned with their reelection than what matters for the citizens of Illinois,” said a news release sent out by the Palatine Tea Party after the vote. The group accused them of “spend[ing] like drunken sailors.” However, Acevedo reiterated at today’s event that the measure will create “no cost to the taxpayers.”

When asked if applying for DREAM scholarships could make undocumented students vulnerable to deportation, Quinn said he did not think so. “Individual people can make up their own minds on this, but I think that having this scholarship fund is going to make a difference for years to come in Illinois." He voiced support for the federal DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented college students as well as young people who choose to serve in the U.S. military. The DREAM Act—sponsored by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat — failed in the Senate last December. “I think we need to keep pushing hard for everyone to be included in our democracy,” Quinn said.

Acevedo called education a “civil right” that should be extended to all who are seeking to improve themselves. “If you live here, if you came here for a better life, if you dedicate yourself to the American dream, you are American.”

Possible federal default spells trouble for states

By Jamey Dunn

As lawmakers in Washington, D.C., struggle to find a compromise over raising the federal debt ceiling, concerns are brewing in Illinois about the state’s investments, credit rating and programs funded by federal dollars.

Republicans in Congress have called for budget reforms and cuts before they will vote to raise the amount the federal government can borrow. The U.S. Treasury Department warned that if Congress does not vote to raise the ceiling, America would default on its debts. President Barack Obama is now looking to the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate to create a plan that can pass in the Republican-controlled U.S. House. “Today I urge Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to find common ground on a plan that can get support from both parties in the House — a plan that I can sign by Tuesday,” Obama said in televised statement today. “There are plenty of ways out of this mess, but we are almost out of time. We need to reach a compromise by Tuesday, so that our country will have the abilities to pay its bills on time as we always have -- bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans benefits and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.”

Obama warned today that too much foot dragging could cause bond rating agencies to lower the country’s credit score, “not because we didn’t have the capacity to pay our bills — we do — but because we didn’t have a AAA [political] system to match our AAA credit rating.”

If the country’s credit rating drops, it could spell trouble for states, where ratings might quickly follow suit. “If for some reason the United States government bond rating is lowered from AAA down, that will absolutely have a splash back on other units of government,” Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford said at a Chicago news conference today. “If for some reason the American government’s bond rating is lowered, there is no question in this treasurer’s mind that that will affect Illinois’ bond rating. … So when Illinois looks to go into the marketplace and borrow money, it will be more expensive.”

In recent years, Illinois has struggled to keep its rating from dropping to “junk” status. After lawmakers approved an income tax increase in January, one agency improved the state’s fiscal outlook to “stable”, but two others gave the state a “negative” outlook for the future. “Illinois does not have any immediate plans to issue debt, and the current rates we have are fixed. However, if a compromise is unable to be met, the U.S. could lose its AAA rating for the first time in history. This would likely lead ratings agencies to downgrade every state, which would add hundreds of millions of dollars in interest costs to bonds sold in the future. In Illinois, that would mean money we desperately need to educate our students, ensure public safety and protect our seniors would now be used to pay interest costs,” Kelly Kraft, spokesperson for Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget office, said in a prepared statement.

Experts predict a default could create serious economic upheaval nationwide, which could stall or even turn around any economic recovery made in the state. “All the gurus suggest — and it makes sense — that this is going to put a drag on the economy, this sort of delicate recovery that we’re in,” said Christopher Mooney, a political studies professor with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. Such a decline could also be bad news to a state government, such as Illinois, struggling to find its way out of a record deficit. “You’ve got the two things that happen when the economy goes bad: Revenues go down and service costs go up,” Mooney said.

Rutherford said he is working to ensure that the state’s investments are protected, but safety may come at the expense of potential interest that could be earned. Rutherford said the state earned about $5 million in interest in June. “Risk is not an option. I’m prepared to put the state portfolio that becomes liquid into zero interest accounts,” Rutherford said. He said the money would go into accounts where it would not earn interest but would be protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Quinn said he is confident that a solution will be reached. However, he is concerned about areas of government that rely heavily on federal support. “We have to worry about public safety first and foremost. … We have 11 nuclear power plants in Illinois — reactors — we have to have inspections of them by the federal government all the time for public safety. So that’s a concern. Our military — we want to make sure our soldiers are paid. They’re on the front line for our democracy in far away places. Here in Illinois, we have our National Guard that we have to deploy from time to time to deal with natural disasters,” Quinn said at a Chicago news conference.

Kraft said the state is working on contingency plans. “We are working with agencies to evaluate the potential impacts in our state that could affect job creation, Medicaid and our infrastructure.” Illinois receives a high rate of matching funds for both the Medicaid program as well as capital construction projects.

Mooney said state officials are probably perplexed about how to handle the situation because no one knows exactly what the ripple effect of a federal default would be on the states. “It’s going to be awful for everybody. This isn’t just Illinois-specific. … It’s totally uncharted territory.”

Illinois' new legislative maps face legal challenges

By Jamey Dunn

Republicans and a Republican-backed organization filed a lawsuit today claiming Illinois’ new congressional map violates the U.S. Constitution as well as the Federal Voting Rights Act. This new lawsuit means that both of the state’s Democratic-drawn maps will face a challenge in court.

The suit alleges that the map dilutes the voting rights of the state’s growing Hispanic population. The lawsuit, which names 11 current Republican Illinois House members as plaintiffs, says the map “blatantly discriminates against Republican and Latino voters.” The complaint says the new map effectively reverses the results of the 2010 congressional election, which gave Republicans control of the state’s congressional delegation.

Those opposed to the map say Democrats are seeking to achieve such political goals at the expense of Latino voters. “Despite explosive growth in the state's Hispanic population, the Democrats' map intentionally discriminates against Hispanic voters by providing for only one Hispanic-majority congressional district — the same number the state of Illinois has had since the 1992 election cycle — and further weakens their voting strength by apportioning the rest of the community's population among a number of other districts drawn to specifically protect non-Hispanic white Democratic incumbents,” said a prepared statement from The Committee for a Fair and Balanced Map, which includes Dennis Hastert, former Republican speaker of the U.S. House.

“We’ve listened to advocacy groups from various Latino communities,” Chicago Democratic state Sen. Kwame Raoul, sponsor of the map, said as it was debated earlier this year in the Illinois Senate. He said no group called for two Latino congressional districts. “We have followed traditional redistricting principles in coming up with this map.”

The suit also alleges that Democrats used their control of the state legislature and governor’s office to draw irregularly shaped districts with an eye toward winning elections. “The map as a whole and several individual districts in particular represent a flexing of Democratic political muscle in Springfield aimed at creating a Democratic majority in the Illinois congressional delegation, regardless of the actual preferences of the electorate demonstrated only nine months ago,” the lawsuit says.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton said that the districts are more compact than the previous map, which was drawn to protect incumbents. “If there’s any odd shaped districts, it’s because of the Voting Rights Act,” Cullerton said. “It’s politically fair, and you’ll see that bear out in the next 10 years.” Some experts agree with this take. “They did use the map to their advantage in some creative ways. But it’s actually less gerrymandered than the last one,” said Chris Mooney, a political studies professor with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois.

State Republican leaders filed a separate suit on similar grounds against the state legislative map last week. They claim the map violates the rights of minority voters, who they say would not be allowed fair opportunity to participate in the political process under the map. “The Democrats passed a map this session that we believe is in direct violation of the Federal Voting Rights Act and some of our most basic rights under the constitution,” House Minority Leader Tom Cross, said in a prepared statement. “They should be ashamed of themselves. We are optimistic that the court will agree with us and will help give our residents a fair map that accurately reflects our population, especially our growing Latino population.”

While both lawsuits include individual Latino residents, no Latino advocacy group — many of which were vocal during the remap process — has yet signed on to either complaint.

Legislature could be back in session soon

By  Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn wants the General Assembly back in session to address legal questions around a big economic driver for the state.

Quinn said lawmakers should return on September 13 to address changes to work rules at McCormick Place, a convention facility in Chicago that draws almost 3 million people each year. A federal court ruled that some of the changes the legislature approved in May 2010 violate collective bargaining rights. Quinn said he wants to bring stakeholders to the table and sort out a compromise.

“We’re talking to everybody. We’re not just talking only to the unions. We’re going to talk to the contractors who are involved in these conventions, as well,” Quinn said at a Chicago news conference today. “We’re not going to have a cloud of uncertainty fall over our convention, tourism, hospitality business in Illinois. I think it important that we not just have the hope of conventions dissipate because of uncertainty about the law.”

He said two things he would like to see included in new legislation are strong auditing of costs charged by the facility as well as an “exhibitors’ bill of rights” to protect customers.

Quinn urged legislators to return voluntarily — as they did for one day last month to approve construction spending — to take up the issue so the state can avoid a costlier special session. He said if lawmakers do return next month, budget issues would not be a priority. “I think [veto legislative session] is a likely time for a review of where the budget stands and where it can be improved. … I see the budget matters coming up more in late October early November.”

The next step in the ongoing fight over pay raises between Quinn and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 comes tomorrow when both sides meet in circuit court to hash out a schedule for moving forward. AFSCME asked the circuit court to toss out the case because it filed a lawsuit in federal court, and a judge could consider the motion tomorrow. “AFSCME members do the real work of state government, such as caring for the disabled, preventing child abuse, guarding state prisons and much more,” Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31 said in a written statement. “These hard-working men and women deserve to know that their employer, the governor, will keep his word and honor his commitments under the law.” According to AFSCME, almost 30,000 employees are due a pay increase.

Quinn says he cannot give state workers the scheduled pay increase, which would cost the sate approximately $75 million, because the state legislature did not include the money in its approved budget. “The legislators decided they did not want to fund pay raises for state employees in these agencies. They made that conscious decision. This is not a surprise. ... A number of the legislative members made it clear that they did not favor pay raises,” Quinn said. Union officials argue that state workers have already agreed to defer pay increases to help the state during its budget crisis, taken voluntary furlough days and sought other cost savings.

Quinn said he signed a budget that he knew was “flawed” to keep Republicans out of the budgeting process. After May 31, a three-fifths majority would have been needed to pass the budget, and Republicans could have had more leverage to push for bigger cuts. “I did not want that crowd to have an opportunity to enact that kind of budget that would have been hurtful to our state,” he said.

Quinn added that if the state were to give the pay increase, vital state operations would suffer. “We have to have the core services of government maintained throughout the year. We can’t run short of money and have four or five months where there’s no money to pay anybody their whole salary, let alone a raise. And these are important services that the people need, and so we’ll have to monitor it as we go through the year.”

An arbitrator ruled that Quinn must honor the collective bargaining contract negotiated with the union, but a judge granted the state a stay until the matter can be sorted out it court.

Meanwhile, the state is $700 million behind on payments to local school districts, according a report from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) released today. Mary Fergus, an ISBE spokesperson, said the number is an improvement from a high point of nearly $1 billion dollars in late payments. However, Fergus said, “the $1 billion [backlog] was a little bit on the extreme end.”

State Supreme Court upholds capital construction plan

The Illinois Supreme Court on Monday unanimously upheld the constitutionality of a $31 million state construction bill that was to be funded through taxes and the legalization of video poker.

An appellate court in January validated a circuit court decision in favor of Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz. He had claimed that the legislature’s backing of a multi-faceted plan to fund construction of roads, schools and transit systems violated state Constitution’s limit of legislation to a single subject.

The construction legislation, approved in 2009, funds the package with increases in taxes on liquor, soft drinks and beauty products, as well as the legalization of video poker. Gov. Pat Quinn touted the program as Illinois Jobs Now!

Supreme Court justices wrote: “The appellate court held that the single subject of Public Act 96–34 was revenue, based on its official title, 'An Act concerning revenue.' However, defendants assert before this court that the single subject of Public Act 96–34 is capital projects. Defendants are not limited solely to the contents of the title of an act in offering a single subject rationale. ... Moreover, capital projects is a legitimate single subject, one which is not “so broad that the rule is evaded as ‘a meaningful constitutional check on the legislature’s actions."

The decision was lauded by Gov. Pat Quinn and state Senate President John Cullerton, who wrote in a prepared statement: "The Supreme Court’s endorsement of the construction program affirms the 
bipartisan work done by the General Assembly. This ruling serves as a
 reminder of just how important the 2009 jobs program was and what the
 General Assembly can accomplish when politics is set aside and people participate."


Meanwhile, Quinn, calling the decision “gratifying,” told reporters at a press conference: “This means our job recovery program can go forward full speed ahead.”

Budget was a chamber vs. chamber battle

By Jamey Dunn

After Democratic and Republican leaders in the House aligned early on, the budgeting process for the new fiscal year that begins today became a chamber-versus-chamber showdown that was less about party allegiance and more about spending.

House Speaker Michael Madigan and House Minority Leader Tom Cross came together in March to offer testimony on a fairly simple budget plan. First, pay all the bills the state has to pay, such as the annual payment to the employee pensions system. Then, dole out the rest of the money for operations and hope that basing the plan on a conservative revenue estimate will mean that there is some extra cash on hand to pay down the state’s billions of dollars in overdue bills to schools, vendors and service providers. The House’s projection for how much the state could spend this fiscal year undercut the legislature’s own bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability’s numbers and was about $1 billion less than the Senate’s projection. “This setting up of really very different spending plans and revenue estimates was essentially House versus Senate,” said Kent Redfield, an emeritus political science professor at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Madigan fired the first shot in the battle of the chambers the day he and Cross publicly joined forces, saying that if Senate Democrats wanted to spend more, House Democrats and Republicans from both chambers could prevail on lower spending numbers by holding the majority in a conference committee. “My expectation in this scenario would be that the House members would vote for the number that [was] approved by the House. And the Senate, I think that the people that would raise the [revenue] numbers would be the Democrats. … They ought to be outvoted,” he said. In response, President John Cullerton said the two chambers could work out their differences, and a conference committee would not be needed.

The House then set to work. Budgeting committees that plan for different areas of state government, such as education and human services, were given dollar limits and asked to make spending plans. Meanwhile, the Senate worked in its traditional fashion with only two budgeting committees tackling seemingly endless hours of testimony from agency heads, associations, interest groups and experts. The days when the majority of the budget was hammered out during long closed-door meetings among the legislative leaders and the governor seemed all but gone. “It was much more a legislative-driven than executive-driven budget. That’s unusual for Illinois. That’s very unusual for Illinois,” Redfield said.

As the House begin creating its budget based on “conservative numbers,” the potential for deep cuts loomed in the higher chamber, and Senate Democrats passed their budget proposal in a just few days without taking committee votes on their bills. Sen. Heather Steans, who chaired one of the Senate budget committees, warned during floor debate on one of the bills that her colleagues might not like the House plan. After Senate Democrats passed a number of their budget bills, Steans said: “I am certainly hopeful that these bills look very reasonable over there to our House colleagues when they are comparing them to what they’re trying to pass. … I think it might help, in fact, put some pressure on House members to think about how they’re voting if they have an alternative that is out there.”

The two chambers ended up approving plans that were about $1 billion apart. The Senate plan called for about $63 million more spending on education, $885 million more on human services and $21 million more on public safety, along with more spending on economic development and other government services. Cullerton and Madigan continued to play nice in the press. “We’re not sending any ultimatums by the adoption of this budget today. We recognize it’s a two-chamber legislature,” Madigan said when the House approved its plan.

However, in the end the House plan prevailed. Senate Democrats tried to tack on a measly — when compared with the $33.2 billion overall spending plan — $430 million in additional spending for education and human services and were shot down when Quinn, Senate Republicans and the House all roundly rejected the move. “One chamber ended up, because of [Democratic] alliances with Republicans, dominating the other,” Redfield said.

Cullerton warned that he believes the House plan is not sustainable. “There’s a number of problems with the House budget that the House is aware of, that we’re aware of, where there are under-appropriations of things that need to be appropriated,” Cullerton said. He said because cuts were made but other necessary changes were not — such as a change to Medicaid reimbursement rates and the school funding formula —some funding will be used up before the end of the fiscal year. “What will happen is, they’ll get paid the same amount of money that they would normally get paid because the formula didn’t get changed. And then sometime late in the fiscal year … they would then run out of money,” Cullerton said.

Cullerton predicted that the legislature will approve more spending in January, and other Statehouse observes agree that such a move is likely.

So why the showdown? Redfield thinks it is because Democratic leaders from both chambers had different goals for the budgeting process.

“I think Madigan believes and he’s selling to his members that they need to run [as] ‘new Democrats’—post-Blagojevich, balance-the-budget, we-can-govern new Democrats,’” he said. Redfield speculated that House leadership was trying to send a political message, while the Senate Democrats were more focused on policy. “In terms of what Madigan wanted to accomplish, both in terms of the budget itself and the process—promoting the idea that Democrats can govern—partnering with Cross made sense,” he said. “The speaker was setting up a set of numbers and an approach that [he] wasn’t going to get attacked from the right. … Ultimately, the people that want more spending didn’t have anywhere to go.”

Redfield said because the House got their work off the ground quickly and the members fell in line with the idea of a lower revenue estimate right out of the gate, the chamber was able to keep a generally unified front and push their agenda. “They had both a plan and an implementation that they got up and running more quickly, and they seemed to have more of a buy in [from members.]”

He added: “The Republicans could have tried to blow up the process, but I don’t think that was going to happen.”

Since the budget has typically been driven by legislative leadership and governors in the past, the abrupt departure of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich — not to mention his refusal to work well with others before he left — forced a change. “Blagojevich kind of blew that up, but there was nothing to replace it,” Redfield said.

The first two fiscal years after Blagojevich’s impeachment and removal from office, the legislature passed lump-sum budgets and let Quinn deal with the difficult choices that came after a national financial crisis. But this year, lawmakers wanted that responsibility — and power — back. Quinn played a marginal role in the budget process, and his plan to borrow billions of dollars to pay down the state’s growing bill backlog went all but ignored. Redfield predicts a budgeting process similar to the one that occurred this year will play out next year as well. However, he said the House Democrats’ truce with Republicans might not last once they can gauge how they fared in elections under the new legislative map. “I think it’s going to look very similar next year. The question is what does it look like for 2013?”

Quinn uses veto pen to revisit his budget plan

By Jamey Dunn 

Gov. Pat Quinn released his changes to the state budget late this evening. His reductions reiterate components of his original budget plan that lawmakers did not approve.

Quinn proposes to reduce the general revenue budget approved by the legislature by $376 million. The largest reduction is a $276 million cut to Medicaid funding for hospitals. The legislature approved about $2.3 billion in such funding. Quinn Budget Director David Vaught said that the reduction is meant to bring hospitals to the table to negotiate cutting their rates. In his original proposal, Quinn called for cuts to Medicaid rates that he said would save the state an estimated $550 million in the first fiscal year.

Without a change to the rates, hospitals will continue to be paid the same amount, and Quinn’s reduction would mean that the money would run out before the end of the fiscal year. “We hope that it helps convince the interested parties on this, which would be hospitals, to come to the table,” Vaught said. “We have a rate system in Illinois that’s been in effect for many years. It’s not been changed for many years. …We’re dealing with a very fast-growing industry that is growing more quickly than we can afford.” He acknowledged that some hospitals and nursing homes felt they got the short end of the stick in recently approved nursing home legislation and a workers’ compensation reform package, and that may complicate negotiations.

During the budgeting process, hospital representatives said the industry would prefer waiting longer for payments than see a  drastic reduction in the rates they are paid. “They kind of like getting 1 percent interest a month on their money, too,” Vaught said. In prepared explanations that Quinn released with his reductions, he said he was concerned about the approved budget pushing $1.2 billion of Medicaid bills from Fiscal Year 2012 into FY 2013. “Neglecting our bills today only creates a bigger problem for tomorrow — an ill-advised strategy that, together with the poor fiscal discipline exercised by previous administrations, has created and will exacerbate the staggering backlog of unpaid bills we face today.”

Quinn also eliminated the funding for the salaries of regional superintendents. He proposed eliminating regional offices of education in his budget plan but met objections from school districts and legislators. Vaught reiterated the administration’s position that local school districts can cough up the money if they want their own regional superintendent. “This is not a proposal to say get rid of their regional superintendents,” he said.

Quinn also wants to reduce transportation funding back to FY 2011 levels, which would mean an $89 million reduction. Transportation funding was cut drastically in FY 2011 and Quinn proposed another big cut for FY 2012, but the legislature did not go along.

Vaught said Quinn would prefer to see such cuts so the state could increase general state aid to schools. He said that since general aid can be spent on anything, it would allow schools to use money at their own discretion. He called it “the best fairest way to distribute state aid for schools.” Since Quinn cannot restore any funding to the legislature’s budget, Vaught said he will be lobbying lawmakers to put money back into general state aid for schools, among other areas of spending. He said Quinn’s reduction and line item vetoes are just part of the governor’s long-term vision for the state budget. “Today is the reduction part.”

Quinn made other cuts that he said reduced bureaucratic costs and eliminated redundancies in the budget.

The legislature must approve all of Quinn’s budget reductions. Quinn has been scarcely involved in the budgeting process this year, and he is pushing some of the original pieces of his proposal that did not go over well with the legislature the first time around. “In spite of the fact that he’s going to be governor for four years that he was elected, he certainly has not been able to assert the power within the office and his role in the process,” said Kent Redfield, an emeritus political science professor at the University of Illinois Springfield. Time will tell if legislators will warm to budget policy they have already rejected and welcome a governor into the process who has been a less than active player so far.

Audit: DCFS falls short on response times but shows improvement

By Jamey Dunn

A recent audit found that  investigations of reported child abuse and reviews of death cases by the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services are not living up to state law, although the agency has made improvements in recent years.

Child Death Review Teams that fall under the department’s purview face a backlog of cases, Illinois Auditor General Bill Holland's office found. The teams are required to review the deaths of children who were wards of DCFS, subjects of open cases, subjects of abuse or neglect investigations in the year before their deaths, and children whose deaths are reported to the department as the result of abuse or neglect. Those reviews come after DCFS has conducted an initial investigation, and they are geared toward preventing future fatalities.

The teams were assigned 161 mandated cases in Fiscal Year 2009 and 164 mandated cases in FY 2010. The teams can also take on cases at their discretion. Teams are required to complete their reviews within 90 days after a DCFS investigation or, if there is no investigation, 90 days after they receive the necessary information. For FY 2010, the department did not complete 70 out of 95 death reviews within 90 days of the DCFS investigation. For cases that DCFS did not investigate, the teams fell short of the 90-day deadline on 51 out of 63 cases. According to DCFS documentation, six deaths from FY 2010 had not been reviewed at the time of the audit.

Kendall Marlowe, spokesperson for DCFS, said part of the holdup is the amount of time it takes county governments to send the death certificates to teams “because we live in a state with 102 counties, and those counties have different resources and different processes.” DCFS has set the goal of having all FY 2010 cases reviewed by July 30.

Besides working to help determine the cause of deaths, the team also makes recommendations for ways to prevent child deaths. Marlowe points to the example of childhood drowning, which is the leading cause for accidental death for children and the second leading cause of accidental death among teenagers. The panels made recommendations that led to May becoming childhood drowning prevention month in the state and a time when DCFS works to educate children and parents.

Auditors said the teams’ inability to meet requirements makes them less effective at such prevention efforts.

The department is also required to begin investigating all potential cases of abuse or neglect within 24 hours of a report. In FY 2010, the department did not begin an investigation within the required time frame for 97 of 67, 377 reports. This number is down from its highest point in the decade, which was 517 cases out of 59,241 in FY 2002. However it has increased from the lowest point in the decade, which was last year, when the department failed to start investigating 83 reports within 24 hours out of 68,732 total reports.

“Failure to respond to a report of abuse or neglect within 24 hours could result in further endangerment to the child and is a violation of the [ Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act,]” the audit said. However auditors noted that the department has shown continual improvement when it comes to responding to reports.

While the department has not reached the 100 percent compliance required by law, Marlowe said great strides have been made in recent years to ensure that it is responding appropriately to reports of abuse. “Reports that come in do not fit any pattern … so it will always be struggle to get to 100 percent compliance.” He noted that reports of abuse are prioritized base on the potential danger to children. “On the more serious cases, we do not hesitate at all. … An investigator is heading out immediately.”

Auditors spot-checked 57 foster care and family case files. Of those files, 37 were missing checklists for initial child placement as well as for long term planning. Ten were missing medical and dental consent forms, seven were missing pictures of children and 13 were missing children’s’ fingerprints. Administrators had failed to review five of the cases.

Auditors noted that DCFS needs more bilingual staff to comply with law and a court order. DCFS is required to have 194 bilingual front line staff members but only had 148 as of March 2010. Marlowe said budget constraints are a factor but the state’s growing Hispanic population has also put bilingual social workers in high demand.

“Spanish speaking populations are growing in parts of the state where they have not before,” Marlowe said. “It’s not a challenge that we will achieve in the very near future. … It has more to do with supply and demand in the social services work force.”

While auditors found 13 problem areas at the agency, the number is down from 15 in the previous audit, and auditors did cite progress in a number of areas. Marlow said federal requirements have pushed DCFS to track its performance on a regular basis. “This is an agency that over the last 10 years has become performance-driven. We measure and analyze our own performance on a continual basis and are not satisfied until we are serving every child and family in the most effective way possible.”

Quinn signs workers' compensation reform,but the issue isn't put to rest

By Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn signed workers’ compensation reform legislation today that supporters say will save the business community hundreds of millions of dollars, but it may not save him from facing workers' compensation as a campaign issue if he decides to run for governor again. 

Quinn toured the state on a victory lap today, stopping at businesses in Melrose Park, Rockford, Champaign and Marion.

“Today is such an important day. We’re going to be helping the employers of Illinois, the workers of Illinois — all of those who are committed to economic growth — by signing a law that will help our employers in Illinois reduce their premiums for workers’ compensation insurance by a huge amount,” Quinn said in Melrose Park.

Backers of the plan estimate that it will save businesses $500 million to $750 million. The bulk of that savings will come from a 30 percent cut to the rates doctors are paid for treating injured employees. Arbitrators, who decide cases will all be out of a job on July 1. They can reapply but will have to be appointed by Quinn and confirmed by the Senate for three-year terms. Arbitrators can only spend two years of their term working in the same location to prevent them from forming “cozy” relationships with workers. These provisions were spurred in part by an investigation by the Belleville News-Democrat that found Menard Correctional Center employees have been awarded more than $10 million in workers’ compensation benefits. The claims are being investigated by the state. The new law will also:

• Require the use of American Medical Association standards when determining workers’ level of impairment from injuries.
• Apply standards of judicial conduct to arbitrators that are the same as those used for as for the Illinois Supreme Court justices and require them to take additional training
• Allow creation of a provider network of doctors. Injured employees could pick their doctors, but only from this predetermined pool. An injured worker would still be able to visit a doctor outside of the network but could not get a second opinion from a doctor of his or her choice.

Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno said the new law will improve a system that had become “dysfunctional” for both employers and employees. “Is it a perfect bill? Probably not. I think every single participant in this process would tell you there are a few other things they wished had been in this bill. And we will continue to monitor the progress of the workers’ comp system here in Illinois — first and foremost that our workers are protected, and secondly, that our workers’ comp premiums do not make us noncompetitive with other states.”

House Speaker Michael Madigan shed some light on the behind the scenes process, saying that Quinn was “intimately involved” in negotiations. “Mayor [Rahm] Emanuel of the city of Chicago played a very active and important role on this piece of legislation. It’s not usual for a mayor of a city to get involved with legislation like workers’ compensation before the General Assembly, but Mayor Emanuel chose to do that. He did it. He was very helpful,” Madigan said in Melrose Park.

“At any moment over the last six months this legislation could have been derailed. We could be talking about another missed opportunity for workers’ compensation. Instead bipartisanship showed up. Business and labor worked together. Lawmakers rolled up their sleeves and worked with committed business leaders for reform in our workers’ compensation laws,” said David Vite, president and chief operating officer of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association.

However, Republicans — both in support of and opposed to the plan — said that it did not spread sacrifice evenly. They complained when the bill passed that asking doctors to reduce their rates by 30 percent was an unfair hit to the medical community.

Others have called the savings estimates into question. “I think the actual cost savings are suspect, in part because the range is so great,” said Doug Whitley, president of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. “I don’t think anybody genuinely knows what the cost savings are going to work out to be.”

He said insurance companies will not start to drop employers’ workers’ compensation insurance premiums until they see that the plan cuts costs. “Realistically, those rate reductions probably will not begin to appear for the next two or three years. … That’s going to take some time to show up.”

Whitley said the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, which remained neutral on the new law, plans to push the issue in the 2012 and 2014 elections. “We should not have to wait another five [or] six years to go back.” He said Illinois must continue to reform its system to be competitive with other states. “The political leadership has to appreciate, understand, recognize that workers’ compensation is not a static action. … Even if we make progress in Illinois, that doesn’t mean that other states didn’t do things similarly. There’s a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses aspect to this.”

Audits find mistakes in awarding lottery and video poker contracts

By Jamey Dunn

Two audits released today found problems with the way state government awarded contracts associated with two pivotal funding sources for the state's embattled capital construction plan.

An audit of the Illinois Department of Revenue took issue with the process used to choose Northstar Group as the new manager of the Illinois lottery. Northstar Group represents gaming vendors that have previously contracted with Illinois — Rhode-Island-based GTECH Corp. and New-York-based Scientific Games Inc., along with marketing partner Chicago-based Energy BBDO. Lawmakers approved a turnover of lottery management to a private firm as part of the capital bill with the hopes that a company could bring in greater profits for the state. The two other bidding finalists, Intralot S.A. and The Camelot Group, protested the state’s choice of Northstar, claiming the process was unfair. The state denied both protests.

Auditor General William Holland’s report found that some of the scores from members of the evaluation team were not certified by the department and some were not officially submitted until after the state had publicly announced its choice of Northstar as the manager.

However, Sue Hofer, spokesperson for the Department of Revenue, said the department had electronic copies of the evaluation team’s scores before a choice was made, and these copies were used to make a decision. “They provided their assessment twice, once electronically and once in a signed affidavit that said they had no conflict of interest,” she said. Hofer said the scores were valid whether submitted electronically or on paper, and the department provided Holland with the electronic copies of the scores.

But the auditor disagreed that the scores came in on time, whatever the delivery method. “The department’s response appears to want it both ways. They say auditors relied on the hard-copy evaluations, which we note were not timely. This is factual. Then the department wants us to utilize emails, which we also considered. However, as we note in the finding, these too showed the electronic submissions were not timely. The only constant was that all the discrepancies noted in the finding are from department documentation, whether hard copy or electronic,” the report said.

The audit also found that Oliver Wyman, a contracted consulting firm that helped the department with the bidding process, started work before it signed a contract with the state. Wyman sought and collected the names of firms interested on managing the lottery before the firm had a state contract. The audit also found that once Wyman was under contract, the firm failed to meet some of its deadlines, potentially shorting those considering bids time for a review process. “Failure to meet deliverable deadlines may have contributed to state evaluators having less than one week to evaluate the Request For Proposal responses in Step 1 of the process, a process that eventually would turn over a $2 billion state asset for private management,” the audit said.

“Those people were on a contract where they would get paid for product delivered. They were not getting paid by the hour,” Hofer said. “They started several days before the contract was officially signed, and that was at their own risk.”

Holland found that Kroll, a subcontractor hired by Wyman to provide investigative and consulting services as well as ensure that the bidding process was fair and open, had previous connections with Northstar. The report said two members of Scientific Games’ board of directors were previously Kroll board members and that a former incarnation of Scientific Games retained Kroll’s services in 2002. However the audit notes that the relationships ended three years prior to the work Kroll did on the lottery contract, so Wyman was not required to disclose them. The report also said Kroll was “very qualified” to do the work it was contracted for, and the auditor general’s office found no problems with reports submitted by Wyman and Kroll.

Overall, Holland’s report said: “The department should protect state interests and not allow vendors to work without an executed contract in place. Additionally, the department should enforce contract milestones or amend the contract to reflect updated priorities and time frames. Further, the department should ensure that all subcontractors disclose any relationships that may, even if only in appearance, impair the integrity of the procurement process.”

An audit of the Illinois Gaming Board also shed light on what went wrong with the bidding process for a central computer system needed to implement legalized video poker in bars and restaurants throughout the state. The revenue from video gaming is supposed to pay off borrowing for the state’s construction plan.

The board awarded the contract to Scientific Games, one of the companies in the Northstar Group, only to rescind the deal after it was found that the board had done its math wrong. “Lack of review for the scoring of pricing in the evaluation process of the Central Communications System (CCS) procurement resulted in the award to a vendor that was not the highest ranked,” the audit said. The report says only “one set of eyes” reviewed the pricing information that companies submitted with their bids. The audit also found that the board got different information from bidders, so it was not comparing apples to apples when it came to cost estimates, and it never followed up with the bidders to get like information. The board employee whose one set of eyes reviewed the cost estimates told auditors that the board was under pressure to make a choice, and any holdups would be “‘frowned upon.’”

Gene O’Shea, spokesperson for the gaming board, said that any pressure felt by the board or its employees is self-imposed. “There is no person or outside agency that is exerting any kind of pressure on the gaming board to get things done before they should be done.”

He added: “There’s just a lot of work to be done and few people to do it. … There’s people that are on the staff here that are working a tremendous amount of overtime to get the job done.”
The board has scrapped the original bid for the computer system and is in the process of a new bid.

The implementation of legal video poker in some bars and restaurants in the state has been put on hold until the Illinois Supreme Court rules on a constitutional challenge to the capital plan.  However,  state agencies are continuing work on the issue in anticipation of a positive verdict or the approval of a new plan by the legislature.