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"Spend More, Tax Less" 9/2/2010 by Heather Wilhelm
That’s the prescription from departing White House economist Christina Romer, who makes a call for more stimulus projects in her farewell speech. We shouldn’t worry about massive deficits, she argued—despite unprecedented outlays of funds, she explained, “most actions should be paid for over time.” Hmmmmmm.
Public Excluded from School Refendum Meeting 9/2/2010 by Lee Williams
Carl Lambrecht knew he might be arrested when walked into what he believes was a public meeting Tuesday night.
Instead, he never got in the door.
He believes he was excluded from the meeting by district officials, in order to keep details of a costly referendum from the public.
Lambrecht, a 77-year-old retired optical manufacturer from Highland Park, has long been concerned with how Township High School District 113 spends his tax dollars.
“People should know what expenses are going on,” he said. “They could be spiking salaries and increasing taxes.”
When he heard the school district, which covers Highland Park and Deerfield, had paid $93,000 to an architectural firm that has experience lobbying the public to get referendums passed, he wanted to know more.
Weeks later, a friend told Lambrecht they had been invited to join the newly-created “Community Leadership Planning Task Force,” which was organized by School District 113 Superintendent George V. Fornero, and scheduled to meet Tuesday night.
Formation of this task force is part of a pre-referendum plan submitted by the architectural firm Wight & Co., which is headquartered in Darien, Illinois.
Publicly, Fornero has denied that the district would soon propose a referendum. However, according to documents obtained by the Illinois Policy Institute, the architectural firm has the referendum process on a tight timeline, and it will assist the school district by lobbying the public to approve the tax increase.
Wight produced a timeline for the referendum titled, “April 2011 Referendum Planning Calendar,” which has specific dates for organizational meetings, teacher input, and even addresses the use of phone banks and poll watchers on election day.
In a letter Wight & Co. sent last month to district officials, the firm states it will “participate in referendum strategy meetings to assist the District in organizing information content, communications strategies and theme/message statements.”
It will also help develop “flyers, signage or other informational materials requested to help inform the community.”
On Tuesday, Lambrecht told Fornero he planned to attend the meeting, which was held at the school district’s administrative building, to get more insight into the process.
“He flatly told me I could not come,” he said. “He said he’d have the police remove me.”
Lambrecht went anyway.
The district’s assistant superintendent was waiting for him at the front door.
“He told me I was not invited, and that I could not come in,” Lambrecht said. “I don’t think it was his wish that I be kept out. I’m upset I was pushed out of what should have been a public meeting. I saw a school board member there.”
Fornero told the Illinois Policy Institute he “called an administrative meeting last night, not a meeting under the Open Meeting Act – a meeting I called as superintendent, not a meeting of the school board or school board committees. I also called the Lake County State’s Attorney.”
Only two of the district’s seven school board members were invited, Fornero explained, not enough for a quorum.
Even though the superintendent’s task force is part of the plan that could lead to the referendum, Fornero said it was not the subject of the evening, although it was mentioned.
“It was about communication – long range goals, direction,” he said.
According to Wight’s Referendum Planning Calendar, Tuesday’s meeting was referendum related titled: “Kick Off with Community Planning Task Force + District Planning Team.”
As to whether barring a 77-year-old retiree from entry was a good idea, Fornero said, “What I would say in hindsight, when I call a meeting for a specific purpose, I want to focus on the meeting.”
Fornero explained there will be six community meetings open to the public that Lambrecht and anyone else can attend.
“We’re trying to be as open and transparent as possible,” he said.
The Illinois Policy Institute has developed a 10-Point Transparency Checklist to hold government and elected officials accountable to the citizens and taxpayers, and to provide a “best practices” framework to improve government transparency across Illinois.
One week of cost cutting suggestions down, another to go. Daley has provided further information on how, and what, he plans to do to narrow the city's $655 million budget deficit. Daley proposed today the city of Chicago cut costs by consolidating a handful of city departments.
The Department of Cultural Affairs and the Mayor's Office of Special Events are funded from the same source and have the same common functions. As such, Daley has deemed it cost-effective to have these two departments team-up to form one.
The General Services and Graphic departments are also set to amalgamate come the beginning of next year. The Departments of Community Development and the Zoning and Land Use Planning have their hands in neighborhood development, so the Mayor has proposed the two consolidate to form one group.
If there is one repetitious, but vital concept we hear booming from politicians these days as though it was the only issue they knew, it's jobs. While most all of us would agree that commercial revitalization and job creation are crucial to economic resurgence, the best route to get us there is heavily debated.
I must share an adept Daley quote reported by Fox News yesterday afternoon concerning the Mayor's cost-cutting measures: “To build an even more modern and diverse economy in Chicago, we are carrying out a comprehensive, long-term strategy to create new jobs and a secure future for all our residents." He continued, "especially during these tough times, many of those things can’t happen the way we want them to unless we manage city government as efficiently as possible."
Daley, you hit the nail on the head. Businesses do not survive, and reciprocally, business do not flock to cities or states where financial stability is shaky. What would the economic incentive be in doing so? A recent State Journal-Register article expressed, quite accurately, a major factor contributing to the poor business climate in Illinois is the state's fiscal mess and the subsequent likelihood that businesses will play a role in filling part of the hole. Not only does Illinois need to decrease the tax burden on businesses, reform workers' compensation, and clean up the bureaucratic mess that wraps enterprise in superfluous red tape, Illinois needs to take a long, hard look at what its current financial mess says about the viability of running a successful business, and thus creating jobs, in the state of Illinois.
Cost-cutting is hard, and Daley is sure to feel that soon. But such action is necessary and critical to getting the state back on track.
When lawmakers travel, taxpayers pick up the expenses. It now appears that some lawmakers have overreached and are accused of spending this money on gifts and other personal expenses.
You'd think that keeping drunks out of their cars would be a good thing, right?
The story of one Quincy resident's struggle with authorities to provide free rides to the intoxicated is featured in Reason.tv's latest "Nanny of the Month" episode. Our September 2009 interview with Jonathan Schoenakase provides the back story.
An intriguing new study comes from a team of researchers led by Jonah Rockoff. It looks at middle schools in New York City, and compares them to elementary schools with a K through 8 grade span. Students in the middle schools do worse than their peers who stay in the same school from the early grades until high school.
Read or listen to a podcast about the new study here.
Rockoff, by the way, is the co-author of the first robust study of charter schools in Illinois. Along with Caroline Hoxby, his 2005 study of Chicago International Charter School set a new standard for inquiry into charter schools and school choice. (pdf).
Chicago International, it is worth pointing out, runs fourteen charter school campuses in Chicago and Rockford. None of those campuses is a standalone middle school.
Mitchell created a chart showing the spending level for each year from 1950 to 2009 and compares spending by state and local governments to spending in the private sector. He does so by graphing all spending in terms of its 1950 level.
What did he find? A startling difference, reporting that "since 1950, private spending has increased 5-fold while state and local government spending has increased nearly 10-fold."
Today Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, called on Gov. Pat Quinn to be up front and honest about the true size of the income tax hike he has planned for Illinois families and job providers. In a letter to the governor, Norquist cited Quinn’s four separate calls for an income tax increase, each specific plan different than its predecessor.
Quinn’s different proposals, from Norquist’s letter:
May of 2009: 50 percent income tax increase. This proposal would have increased the income tax rate from 3 percent to 4.5 percent and taken roughly $4 billion from the private economy near the peak of Illinois’ recession. It failed in the legislature, largely because of voter disapproval by a 30 point margin.
March of 2010: 33 percent income tax increase. Believing it was the size of his previous plan that turned off constituents, Gov. Quinn presented a scaled-down income tax hike that would have increased the rate to 4 percent, a $3 billion tax increase. This also went nowhere.
July 2010: “secret” 67 percent income tax increase. Quinn’s plan to wait until after the election to impose this whopping $6 billion tax hike was clever until it was revealed in an interview with his budget director David Vaught: “We’re going to pass a tax increase in January,” he said. “We expect it is going to be very substantial.” Taxpayers appreciate his candor much more than the governor’s subsequent scurried attempt to reject his assertion.
August 2010: 33 percent income tax increase. Last week Quinn returned to his previous call to increase the rate to 4 percent, calling it “a pretty good bargain for taxpayers.”
Norquist continued:
“Your constant shape-shifting on this issue is confusing to voters. We would appreciate it if you could stick to one flawed income tax proposal, rather than constantly changing your mind. Taxpayers deserve to know precisely how much of their money you seek to extract from their wallets, as well as the number of jobs you wish to force out of state.”
