QUOTE OF THE DAY
Chicago Sun Times: Senate passes Preckwinkle’s county pension reform
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s pension-reform package passed the state Senate on Tuesday despite opposition from some public employee unions that contended her plan is unconstitutional.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, passed 36-16 and now moves to the House, but its lightning-quick progression through the Senate came without clarity on how exactly the county intends to pay for Preckwinkle’s plan.
“If we do nothing over time, in 20 years, in 24 years, the [pension] fund will be totally insolvent,” Raoul said.
Chicago Tribune: Soda tax defeated at Capitol
A panel of House lawmakers today voted down a proposal to impose a tax of one penny per ounce of sugar-sweetened beverages, saying it would have cost consumers an extra $2.88 per case of soda.
Sponsoring Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, said she hoped the tax would generate up to $600 million a year in a state grappling for new dollars while steering people away from unhealthy drinks linked to obesity and diabetes.
Only two members of the House Revenue and Finance Committee voted in favor of the bill. Seven opposed it.
Chicago Tribune: Madigan makes power play for Lincoln library and museum
The latest political power play at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum comes from Speaker Michael Madigan, who is pushing a plan to set up the center as a free-standing state agency despite opponents’ concerns it would become a patronage haven.
With the budget still unsettled and less than a week until adjournment, the Democratic speaker used the Memorial Day session to move through a committee a plan that would make the library and museum more independent of Gov. Pat Quinn. The speaker’s bill would remove the library from under the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. The Quinn administration was largely silent on the issue, but estimated the cost for the switch would be $2.4 million at a time when other historic sites are considered for closure because of the state’s budget crunch.
Madigan’s proposal could benefit some of his friends. The Springfield presidential museum is run by Eileen Mackevich, a Madigan friend. Madigan confirmed she is a longtime acquaintance of Stanley Balzekas, whose family runs the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture. Madigan acknowledged his Southwest Side office is at the same 13th Ward address as the museum, and that Balzekas is the landlord.
Chicago Tribune: Rep. Derrick Smith’s bribery trial begins today
As the final days of the state Legislature’s spring session wind down, lame duck state Rep. Derrick Smith finds himself in a federal courtroom in Chicago today as his scheduled trial gets underway on charges of bribery and extortion.
Jury selection is set to begin at about 10:30 a.m. after U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman refused last week a defense request to delay the trial so Smith, a Chicago Democrat, could be in Springfield to vote in the closing days of the legislative session.
In a last-minute filing, Smith also claimed that a worsening back injury from a car wreck last month would make it difficult for him to sit through the proceedings, but the judge told him he could stand during the trial if it helped.
Front Page Mag: The Most Corrupt Village in America
When the police stopped Luvina Mobley Smith, they found a pound of pot in her car and five EBT food stamp cards which drug dealers often take in payment for drugs. It would have been an ordinary enough story except that Smith, despite being a convicted felon, was also the Deputy Clerk of Alorton.
Luvina is the daughter of Callie Mobley, Alorton’s former mayor, who had collected double her salary and served time in jail for income tax evasion. Mayor Mobley, who had been the mayor of Alorton for two decades, had been doing the same thing back to her days as liquor commissioner.
St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly warned, “Alorton City Hall is becoming a criminal narco state at the expense of the citizens of Alorton.”
Washington Post: Why the major test for Obamacare premiums might wait until 2017
The health-care story of the summer will be 2015 premiums, but a new analysis suggests 2017 could be the key year for gauging the Affordable Care Act’s implementation.
Stephen Parente, a University of Minnesota health economist who advised Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign, used the Obama administration’s final 2014 enrollment reports and his microsimulation model to project health plan prices and enrollment over the next decade. His projections, shared first with the Washington Post, find an increase in individual plan enrollment in 2015 and 2016, before sharply dropping off in 2017 and then slowly decreasing below 2015 levels by 2024. At the same time, he projects a steady decrease in employer coverage that will be steeper than the gains in Medicaid enrollment, resulting in a greater number of uninsured 10 years out.
Points and Figures: The Pension Crisis and Startups
Startup companies rarely show a net profit. Because of that, they rarely pay tax on income. This causes many startups to ignore local government waste and issues that they don’t think affect them. But, those issues do ultimately affect them in different ways.
What’s standing in the way?
- Fear
- Really bad legislation that limits who can do business with the government
- Public unions
Pando Daily recently had an article that pointed out tech people should care about the public pension crisis. Pension managers are under pressure and are responding by assuming more risk. Public pensions are beginning to allocate more of their money to alternative investments. Because more money is being allocated, it is driving up market valuations. Public pensions also own a fair amount of public tech company stocks. If there is a 2000 type crash their balance sheets might look even worse than they do today.
Chicago Tribune: State budget would put off tough decisions until after election
Illinois Democrats on Tuesday rolled out a new state spending plan that puts off many tough decisions until after the November election by relying on a series of time-tested budget tricks.
To make ends meet, at least on paper, lawmakers would bump up how much money they think will come in, borrow from special funds, put off paying bills, lower estimated health care costs and skip putting in money to pay for raises for unionized workers.
The $35.7 billion spending plan — roughly $300 million more than this year’s budget — is a compromise that emerged after lawmakers declined to extend a temporary income tax increase that’s set to start expiring in January but also refused to make deep cuts.
Southtown Star: A high school that almost didn’t happen graduates its first class
Saturday wasn’t a day of I told you so.
It was a day to celebrate Southland College Prep’s first graduating class, all 71 of whom are college bound. The Richton Park school, the only public charter secondary school to serve the suburbs, faced much opposition before its inception in 2010.
“This is what happens when adults do their jobs,” Ronald Bean, the school’s chairman, told the audience at Saturday’s graduation ceremony at the Harris Theater at Millennium Park. “This is the result of willing students, a committed faculty, a dedicated administration and a board that understands what its job is.”
Four years ago, Southland College Prep Charter High School was fighting to get up and running. Rich Township High School District 227, where Southland’s students come from, argued that the charter school would divert much-needed state aid and sued to shut it down.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
