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Quad-City Times: Department of Corrections to take over Kewanee youth detention center
The Illinois Department of Corrections has committed to reusing a youth detention center that is scheduled for closure, a group of state lawmakers from central and northwestern Illinois announced Friday.
The Department of Juvenile Justice plans to close the Illinois Youth Center at Kewanee as it transitions to more community-based programs for young people convicted of crimes. That’s despite a recommendation from the General Assembly’s bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability to keep the facility open.
Reps. Mike Smiddy, D-Hillsdale, and Don Moffitt, R-Gilson, and Sens. Neil Anderson, R-Rock Island, and Chuck Weaver, R-Peoria, issued a joint statement Friday saying they had received a letter from Gov. Bruce Rauner in which he committed to repurposing the youth center as an adult correctional facility. The exact use has yet to be determined, but supporters had suggested using it as a place to care for older inmates near the end of their lives.
Chicago Tribune: School leaders urge Rauner to change education funding formula
Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 issued a statement Friday reporting Supt. Donaldo R. Batiste has joined 13 other superintendents from around the state in urging Gov. Bruce Rauner “to support a fix to the education funding formula that systematically discriminates against poor and low-income students from across the state.”
An open letter to Rauner was issued Thursday through an initiative called Better Funding for Better Schools, and Batiste was joined locally by North Chicago Supt. Ben Martingale in signing the letter.
Greg Hinz: Emanuel wimps out again in clash with Madigan over CPS aid
With just 10 days to go before state lawmakers are scheduled to head home for the summer, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his Chicago Public Schools team have been ramping up their PR blitz to get more money out of Springfield for the near-bankrupt school district.
Just in the last week, principals were directed to prepare for budget cuts of up to 30 percent, a step that would kneecap even the best schools. And CPS CEO Forrest Claypool held a rally zapping Gov. Bruce Rauner and signed a letter charging that the governor “is proposing an approach that would continue the broken status quo.”
But Claypool and Emanuel have been far more taciturn on a related plan: a bill already approved by the Illinois Senate that would give CPS a desperately needed $375 million boost next year. In fact, they haven’t said a word, even though House Speaker Mike Madigan could allow the bill to come up for a vote any time.
CNN: Pensions may be cut to 'virtually nothing' for 407,000 people
The Central States Pension Fund has no new plan to avoid insolvency, fund director Thomas Nyhan said this week. Without government funding, the fund will run out of money in 10 years, he said.
At that time, pension benefits for about 407,000 people could be reduced to “virtually nothing,” he told workers and retirees in a letter sent Friday.
In a last-ditch effort, the Central States Pension Plan sought government approval to partially reduce the pensions of 115,000 retirees and the future benefits for 155,000 current workers. The proposed cuts were steep, as much as 60% for some, but it wasn’t enough. Earlier this month,the Treasury Department rejected the plan because it found that it would not actually head off insolvency.
KWQC: Construction underway in Illinois on $3.8B oil pipeline
Construction is underway in three of four states on a $3.8 billion pipeline that will carry oil from western North Dakota to Illinois.
Work on the Dakota Access Pipeline has begun in North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois, spokeswoman Lisa Dillinger told the American News (http://bit.ly/1WGgmwu). The 1,150-mile pipeline also will cross Iowa, but regulators there declined this week to act quickly on a request to allow Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners to begin construction in that state.
The pipeline will carry nearly half a million barrels of crude from western North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields each day to a tank storage facility in southern Illinois. It’s been approved by regulators in all four states. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers still must issue permits for the pipeline to cross the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
Northwest Herald: Bill would exclude future county board members from IMRF pensions
A friendly amendment to a bill by state Sen. Pam Althoff to set new guidelines for how local elected officials participate in the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund would forbid future county board members from participating at all.
Senate Bill 2701, which cleared the Senate, requires local elected officials participating in IMRF to keep records of their hours worked to ensure they are meeting the annual requirement of either 600 or 1,000 hours a year. But an amendment filed in the House by state Rep. Jack Franks, who helped instigate an ongoing IMRF investigation of the McHenry County Board’s work hours, would abolish IMRF pension eligibility altogether for members of county boards elected after this year.
Althoff, R-McHenry, said that Franks, D-Marengo, called her beforehand, and that she is OK with the change because a number of county boards in the wake of the IMRF audit are examining whether to end pension participation on their own.