QUOTE OF THE DAY
Wall Street Journal: Prudential to Take Responsibility for $3 Billion in Pensions From Motorola
Prudential Financial Inc. will take over the pension responsibilities for 30,000 retirees at Motorola Solutions Inc., MSI +0.44% in the latest big deal in which a corporation offloads to an insurer some of the risks of running an old-fashioned pension plan.
As part of the deal, the monthly benefits paid to the retirees will remain the same.
Motorola has agreed to purchase from Prudential a “group annuity contract.” Motorola will transfer about $3.1 billion in U.S. pension liabilities and their risk to Prudential, and it also will hand off a portfolio containing approximately $3.1 billion of bonds and other assets, company executives said.
Crain’s: Topinka, Simon and a pile of unpaid Illinois bills
With Illinois battling the nation’s worst unfunded pension liability, the two outspoken statewide office holders vying for its check-writing job are sparring over whether the incumbent has been open enough about how she priorities the multi-billion dollar backlog of unpaid bills.
Democratic challenger Sheila Simon, the lieutenant governor, is trying to paint Republican Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka as an old-style politician using clout to push various agencies to the head of the line. But Topinka says she has a better understanding of the intricacies of the office.
Topinka, a former state treasurer and Illinois GOP chairwoman, likens the job to being a “skunk at a picnic” and sports faux skunk slippers on occasion at the Capitol during her office’s annual cheesecake day in May. Simon, currently lieutenant governor under Gov. Pat Quinn, sews her own clothes and plays banjo in an all-female bluegrass band called “Loose Gravel.”
Chicago Tribune: Tollway: Free tolls for employees curbed in 2015
For Illinois Tollway employees, the free rides may finally come to an end next year.
A new contract between the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and its biggest union calls for members to give up their agency-issued I-Pass transponders next year.
The Tollway also intends to end the long-standing perk in new contracts with two other unions, as well as with the agency’s non-union employees, Executive Director Kristi Lafleur said Thursday.
Washington Post: The new HHS secretary’s biggest task: A better Obamacare experience
About four months after Kathleen Sebelius stepped down from one of the most politically challenging posts in the Obama administration, we’re starting to get a feel for how her successor will run the show.
The new Health and Human Services secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, this week delivered her first speech directly addressing the Affordable Care Act and followed that up with an hour-long on-the-record conversation with more than a dozen health-care reporters the next day. During both sessions, she offered a common plea: move past the partisan acrimony surrounding the health-care law and focus on solving actual problems that emerge.
The former budget director came into the HHS job with pretty strong bipartisan support and a solid reputation as a manager. With so much mismanagement and miscommunication behind the colossally flawed launch of HealthCare.gov, the administration’s pick of Burwell signaled it didn’t want to make the same mistakes again.
Wire Points: The one question to ask every candidate for the Illinois House
In private, few Illinoisans of any ideology would disagree that House Speaker Michael Madigan is at the core of most everything rotten in Illinois. Yet voters and the press forget that the Speaker is elected anew by House members after their own elections, which are coming again in November.
Will you vote to re-elect Michael Madigan as Speaker of the House? That question may seem partisan and pointless but it’s not. It’s the first question every House candidate should be asked. Yes or no.
True, all Republicans will answer ‘no’ — House members vote for Speaker on party lines so that doesn’t make all Republicans good, so this isn’t about them. And it’s also true you should not expect any Democrat to answer ‘yes.’ Madigan likely will be unopposed among Democrats for Speaker again, but that doesn’t mean somebody couldn’t refuse to vote.
Daily Herald: Elk Grove could hire retired cop to review red-light tickets
The Elk Grove Village Police Department may consider hiring a retired police officer to review recorded video of red-light violations.
Currently, a sworn police officer evaluates the recorded traffic violations before issuing red-light tickets, but state law allows retired cops to do the job if a municipality so chooses.
This week, the village board approved changes to the village code that would allow the police department to hire a retired officer for the job, freeing up the on-duty officer for other tasks.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
