NorthernStar: Obama calls for budget compromise
During President Barack Obama’s address to the Illinois General Assembly on Wednesday, a call for a budget was met by standing applause, said Rep. Bob Pritchard (R-Hinckley).
Obama spoke for more than an hour to address the budget and promote compromise in a democracy, Wednesday, at the Illinois House chamber in Springfield. Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate from 1997 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Fiscal Year 2016 proposed budget includes a reduction in funds to public entities, and a lack of agreement on the proposed budget has resulted in a seven-month impasse. Without a finalized budget, funds such as state appropriations to higher education cannot be appropriated fully.
Sun-Times: Lt. Denis Walsh, a key Koschman cop, quits in face of firing
Lt. Denis Walsh has resigned from the Chicago Police Department one week after interim Supt. John Escalante moved to fire him over his role in the 2011 reinvestigation of David Koschman’s killing — a case that was closed without charges against a nephew of then-Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Walsh’s resignation ends the disciplinary case that Escalante filed against him with the Chicago Police Board, which decides punishments for cops.
Walsh, who had been suspended without pay, can now retire and begin collecting a pension of as much as $90,000 a year, records show.
The Southern: House Democrats revive bill to send stalled contract talks to arbitration
Illinois House Democrats have revived an effort that would send stalled contract talks to binding arbitration and prohibit a state worker strike or lockout.
The move comes after Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration took steps to have negotiations with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees declared at an impasse. The roughly 38,000 state employees AFSCME Council 31 represents have been working under the terms of their previous deal since it expired June 30.
Greg Hinz: How'd your alderman vote on limiting city inspector's power?
It looks like Paddy Bauler was right. To paraphrase the infamous ward boss, the Chicago City Council still ain’t ready for reform—not really.
Overshadowed by yesterday’s presidential visit to Springfield, aldermen yesterday substantially watered down a crucial ethics bill that would have subjected them, their deeds and their spending to oversight and investigation by city Inspector General Joe Ferguson.
The IG still will able to probe alleged corruption involving aldermen and their staffs, but won’t be able audit council spending for waste, misuse and more. That means, for instance, that City Council Finance Committee Chairman Ed Burke, 14th, still will be able to pretty much personally control the city’s huge workers’ compensation claims operation without having to answer questions from Ferguson, who already was empowered to audit spending in almost every other city program.
AP: Chicago man wins $1M lawsuit alleging police rigged lineup
A Chicago man has won a $1 million verdict in a lawsuit that accuses police of rigging a photo lineup to ensure he would be wrongly identified as an armed robbery suspect.
Jermaine Durdin spent nearly two years in the Cook County Jail before he was found not guilty in the 2010 robbery of several hundred dollars from an ice cream truck.
His attorney, Basileios Foutris, says the lineup shown to the victim was so suggestive that it was like “putting an arrow over” his client’s head.
The robber was described as an African-American teenager with a light complexion. Durdin was the only person with a light complexion in the lineup.
The city says it will seek a new trial.
NBC Chicago: 29 School Districts Get Help Financing Building Projects
The Illinois State Board of Education has approved 29 school districts for low-interest and zero-interest bonds to pay for the construction and remodeling of schools.
The districts will be able to borrow, in total, $495 million through the Qualified School Construction Bond program. The program was created in 2009 as part of federal stimulus package after the Great Recession.
WirePoints: New Study Details Illinois Pension Excess at the Top, Hardship Below
Public union leaders forever pound their chests about wealth inequality and how our pension system protects the middle class. In fact, Illinois public pensions may be the worst tale of two cities. The gluttony bankrupting us is at the top, which includes union leadership, but it’s very a very different story for the rest.
A great new research piece on Teacherspensions.org, a project of Bellweather Education Partners, looks at it for Illinois teachers. Remember from earlier stories that the average member of the state’s teacher retirement system retiring now after working 33 years for 3/4 of a year gets a pension of $67,000 per year, and that about 3,400 in that system get pensions over $100,000 per year. Also remember that Tier 2 teachers — those hired after 2010 — are forced to pay extra to subsidize older, Tier 1 members who get far more generous benefits. (They’ll pay $6.75 billion towards the Tier 1 unfunded liability over the coming three decades. 21% of what they pay in will go to those older workers’ pensions, as detailed here.)
But the study goes further and shows just how rigged the whole system is. Among its other findings:
Indystar: Indiana might consider extending sales tax to services
It’s the time of year when many of us prepare our income tax returns, and that brings us, believe it or not, into a discussion of Indiana’s sales taxes.
Here’s how. If you buy a book to help you understand tax preparations, you’ll pay the list price plus the state’s 7 percent sales tax. But if you hire someone to prepare your returns, there is no sales tax.
And here’s why this is relevant now: There was language floating around the Statehouse that proposed extending the state’s sales tax to services, with no exemptions. No bill was introduced this year, but it has the attention of Statehouse denizens and might be a sign fiscal leaders are thinking deeply about the state’s tax structure ahead of next year’s budget-writing session.