Progress Illinois

Two weeks ago, state lawmakers wrapped up the fall veto session and headed home with hopes that Illinois' financial crisis wouldn't follow them back to their own districts. So far, the bad budget news has trickled in slowly enough that many have been able to distance themselves from the severity of the state's financial situation. But they won't be able to dodge blame forever. For example, adding millions in school reimbursements to the growing pile of unpaid bills is weighing heavy on cash-strapped districts. And in places like the Central Illinois town of Pekin, the backlog -- coupled with other uncertainties and cutbacks -- is growing too big to sweep under the rug. The Pekin Daily Times explains:

The state has a multi-billion-dollar deficit. Inflation is down so far that school districts are limited in how much they can raise taxes to bring in new revenue. Corporate Personal Property Replacement Taxes and sales taxes are down.

General state aid funding for schools is running three months behind. Programs like special education and transportation will not be funded at the full levels. The state has not yet received an application for additional federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, which was used in lieu of state-generated general state aid payments.

Illinois State Board of Education Chair Jesse Ruiz summed it up best when warned that if the state doesn't generate new revenue for schools next year, "we fall off the cliff."

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Just one week after President Obama signed into law a measure that adds sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under hate crime statutes, gay rights advocates were back on Capitol Hill yesterday pushing for additional civil protections. Among them was Illinois' own Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who testified in favor of the recently reintroduced Employment Non-Discrimination Act (S. 1584), which would finally bar most workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

To the credit of state lawmakers, Illinois' own Human Rights Act was amended back in 2006 to include both sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under anti-discrimination laws. The fact that we are one of only 12 states to put such protections on the books underscores the need for a federal response, Madigan told the Senate's Education, Labor and Pension Committee. "Through the enactment of a statewide statute prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, Illinois has promoted tolerance, fundamental equality and the common humanity of all individuals in our state," Madigan said. "The benefits of such a message to the citizens of our state cannot be underestimated." Watch an excerpt from her testimony below:

This past spring, a new $16 million system implemented by the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) turned out to be so flawed that patient mental health bills weren’t submitted to the state for six months in 2008. This so-called "glitch" led to a loss of more than $1million in state funding and almost resulted in the closure down four clinics on the city's South Side.  Back in July we took Daley administration officials at their word when they said that the problems were fixed.

Big mistake.

During the ongoing city budget hearings yesterday, it was revealed that the system is still not working properly. Outgoing CDPH chief Terry Mason told aldermen that fixing the $16 million Cerner system -- which was supposed to represent an upgrade -- remains "an active process."

To his credit, Ald. Rick Munoz (22nd Ward) pressed him on the matter: "You're saying that after 18 months you're unable to work out technical glitches that prevent us from billing the state?" "That is correct," Mason responded.

Budget Committee Chair Ald. Carrie Austin (34th Ward) assured Munoz that the Cerner system would be fixed within "months."

"Months?" Munoz asked.  Austin replied that she couldn't offer a "specific date."

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Deluged by the thousands of foreclosure cases that have clogged the Cook County court system, Chancery Division Presiding Judge Dorothy Kirie Kinnaird made a bold move back in June when she called for a two-month reprieve on mortgage defaults. Despite her effort to buy homeowners time to seek mediation,  resources remain too scarce -- particularly for people from the low-income communities hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis.

With the county pulling in millions in foreclosure filing fees, some local housing advocates are calling on Cook County Board President Todd Stroger to get creative and start redirecting that money toward mediation services. The local community organization Action Now estimates that the spike in $300 foreclosure filing fees has generated an additional $15 million for the county's coffers. Still, the Stroger administration has yet to allocate any of that money toward foreclosure prevention. "Why not use some of that money for mediation?" Marsha Godard of West Lawndale asked at a rally outside Stroger's office this morning. "At least that would give people a fighting chance."

It's no secret that low-income and African American neighborhoods have seen the highest concentration of foreclosures here in Illinois. "We saw someone getting put out on our way down here," activist Michelle Young of Austin reported at the rally. "This is about people losing their homes -- people who are moving out in the middle of the night because they're ashamed to say 'I'm having trouble with my mortgage.'" Watch:

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If there's one thing observers of Illinois politics can agree on, it's that next year's state budget deficit is going to be extraordinary. Not only are billions in federal stimulus money scheduled to dry up, but state officials will soon have to pay out $3.5 billion in pension notes and cover $3.9 billion in unpaid obligations from the current fiscal year. Compounding the problem are tanking revenues and the need to pay back $205 million in short-term loans used to cover college aid.  Now the projected 2011 shortfall has hit a whopping $12.8 billion, according to the Voices for Illinois Children's (VFIC) latest policy memo.

VFIC puts the staggering deficit in perspective:

How much is $12.8 billion? This amount is equivalent to total state General Funds spending for the State Board of Education and the departments of Human Services, Children and Family Services, and Public Health. The entire General Funds budget — aside from mandatory spending for pension costs, debt service, and other statutory transfers — is about $26 billion. Closing a $12.8 billion gap without new revenue would require devastating spending cuts, on top of those enacted this year. If such reductions were applied across the board, they would slash 50 percent of funding from every state program; if not distributed equally, many specific cuts would run far deeper.

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Back in September, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias became the first major statewide candidate in Illinois history to speak up in support of gay marriage. Since then, raising the profile of the civil rights abuses leveled against the GLBT community has become a central theme of his U.S. Senate campaign.  Indeed, the Chicago Democrat has already pledged to help repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy if he is sent to Congress.

So it's not surprising that Giannoulias was quick to respond to the news that Maine voters yesterday repealed same-sex marriage rights at the ballot box -- a stinging defeat for the gay rights community.  From his statement this morning:

The march toward marriage equality was dealt a setback yesterday, and I am disappointed with the results.  But we know that change never comes easy.  I believe strongly that we cannot give up hope, that we must not stop moving forward, and that no matter how difficult the setback, we must never stop fighting for people to be treated equally under the law.

The defeat in Maine has some gay-rights advocates already rethinking their strategy at the state level.  Even though state lawmakers like Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) and Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago) continue to push for equal marriage laws here in the Prairie State, additional focus is likely to shift to Congress, where the federal same-sex marriage ban could be reversed without voter approval. Already, Giannoulias has indicated that if sent to D.C., he's ready to do his part to end these retrograde policies. "This goes to what this country was founded on," Giannoulias recently told the Sun-Times Mark Brown, "equality and fairness."

Full Disclosure: The SEIU Illinois State Council,which sponsors this website, has endorsed Alexi Giannoulias in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

This week marks the first anniversary of Barack Obama's historic election as president. Progressive leaders from Illinois played no small role in shaping his political career and ultimately his national victory, which opened the door to the promise of change on so many fronts.  This afternoon, many of those same leaders commemorated the occasion by joining together at a Chicago rally and urging their old friend to have courage on progressive issues as he moves forward in Washington.

"Barack is the vehicle," said Tom Balanoff, president of theSEIU Illinois State Council (which sponsors this website).  "But we the people have got to come together and pave the road. ... We've got pave the road to help our president bring the change we need."  "We're going to work with every neighbor we've got," said Juan Salgado, president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), "to make sure we move that train that is going to make change happen for all of us."  State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) addressed Obama directly: "We're here this morning, Mr. President, to lend you our hands and lighten your burden."

Watch those comments and some other clips from the rally below (including an enthusiastic call for a strong public option from Citizen Action/Illinois' William McNary):

ICIRR has more here.

This morning we flagged an ominous warning from State Sen. Donnie Trotter (D-Chicago), who predicted that "drastic cuts" to state services are on the horizon. With the backlog of bills already topping $3.7 billion and an estimated $11 billion shortfall looming over next year, there's no question that Illinois is running on fumes at the moment.  During a roundtable on WTTW's Chicago Tonight yesterday, Chicago Democratic Reps. Art Turner and Greg Harris pointed out the backdoor cuts that are already occurring across the state as a result of the General Assembly's failure to pass a responsible budget this year.  To illustrate the ripple effect, Turner reported that there is a severe shortage of amenities -- such as walkers -- at Stroger Hospital in Cook County, spurring some local residents to search for donations.

Host Carol Marin later asked the panel -- which included GOP Reps. Jim Durkin (Western Springs) and Suzie Bassi (Palatine) -- "Does it feel like the state's on fire and nobody can find the hose?" Watch an excerpt from their conversation:

TURNER: Absolutely. I have a relative that was just admitted to the hospital who informed me that he did not get a wash cloth, toothbrush, or any welcome to the hospital kit. And here was there for three days. It wasn't until they found out that his parents were there that they brought out the gowns and things. I went by to visit him and the nurse told me that the vendor has not been paid. So they're not dispensing walkers, slippers. My neighbor is a physical therapist and she's actually collecting walkers in the community to take to the hospital.

MARIN: Do you hear this from other constituents, Rep. Harris?

HARRIS: We hear service organizations are not able to pay their employees and take holidays because the state is not able to pay its bills. And they're behind in paying people in a timely manner who are doing the after-school programs for our children. It's only going to get worse until all of us take responsibility for what we need to do and bite the bullet.

"The numbers keep getting worse," Turner said elsewhere in the segment. "We have not seen a baseline for how bad it is." 

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Is accountability so sparse in the Chicago Police Department that even a recommendation by the superintendent isn't enough to get an officer fired by the Chicago Police Board? Based on the latest research (PDF) by the non-profit Chicago Justice Project (CJP), it seems so. Here's what the organization examined in their report:

[T]he Chicago Justice Project (CJP) examined ten years of the Board’s decisions in cases for which the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department sought the termination of either sworn officers or civilian employees. We included the cases involving civilian employees for comparison purposes. Our study covered 310 cases over the course of a ten-year period starting in January 1999 and ending in December 2008.

Over this period, CJP identified 248 instances in which the superintendent recommended that a particular officer get the ax.  The mayoral-appointed board, however, only fired only a fraction (37 percent) of these cops. In most of the remaining 63 percent of cases, the board didn't retain the officer in question on the grounds that they were unfairly accused. Rather, they agreed with the superintendent's conclusion, but chose to handed out less severe punishments, such as suspension.

The big mystery is exactly how the ten-member board arrived at those decisions.

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With his public opinion at an all-time low and questions circling about his "creative" city financing, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is making the media rounds -- sitting down with both WLS' Bill Cameron and WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight in recent days. Not surprisingly, Daley is trying to blunt criticism that his shadowy tax increment financing (TIF) system has become a major drag on the city's finances, contributing to this year's historic $520 million shortfall. Instead of coming clean on the public funds that he's skimmed off the tax rolls, Daley is making more bogus claims to divert attention from his "glorified slush fund." Here's some excerpts from his conversation with WBEZ's Allison Cuddy, along with our responses:

DALEY: Most TIF funds don't generate any money. Most TIF funds are used for schools, parks, libraries, ex-offender programs, job training, economic development to keep jobs here. And I'll go over each TIF to show you that.

CUDDY: But you generate about a half-a billion in TIF funds per year.

DALEY: Not quite. No, I don't think so.

CUDDY: And you have about a billion in cash.

DALEY: No I don't think so. I don't think it's that high. Most of it's pledged already for a school, a park, a library. Most of it's pledged for economic development in depressed areas to bring back jobs or to keep jobs there.

The mayor doesn't "think" that his TIF network siphons off around a half-million dollars per year?  In 2008 alone, the TIF system siphoned $552 million off the tax rolls, based on annual reports signed by Daley himself. Cook County Clerk David Orr also tracks the numbers and reports that $555 million was diverted in 2007.

And what about the surplus Cuddy cites?

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