Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Wirepoints: Illinois Bill to Prioritize Bondholders Over the Public Must Be Stopped – Wirepoints Original
What would be worse than bankruptcy for an Illinois town or city?
An assetless bankruptcy. That’s when even a formal bankruptcy proceeding can’t help because there’s nothing to work with. It’s when the bank owns everything and nothing is left. That’s when it’s lights out.
Decatur Herald & Review: Hey, lawmakers! Budget mess not a laughing matter
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in his state budget address this month called for spending reductions that “need to be real – no smoke and mirrors” to close an unprecedented deficit poised to top $5.3 billion June 30. He also put tax hikes on the table, specifically on services like auto repairs and haircuts, but not for medicine, food or retirement income.
Rauner said increases can’t come without reforms to improve the job climate, and renewed his push for lawmakers to make serious cuts.
News-Gazette: One more step toward a strike
Thousands of state public employees say they’re ready to walk out.
It’s looking more and more like the irresistible force has met the immovable object.
What’s next? It’s impossible to predict with certitude, but the chances of a first-ever strike by state employees are growing ever larger.
Chicago Tribune: Rauner to meet with Chance the Rapper this week
Gov. Bruce Rauner let it slip that he’s planning to meet with Grammy winner Chance the Rapper this week, though his office declined to say when or where.
Rauner mentioned the planned meeting in passing at a Black History Month event at the Thompson Center on Friday. He was praising Dorothy Jean Tillman, a theater and performance artist who was given a young achievement award for her work as a children’s book author and ensemble member at the Harold Washington Cultural Center.
Crain's Chicago Business: Rauner's on a quest for more Medicaid savings
Gov. Bruce Rauner is overhauling a key Medicaid program that’s intended to rein in costs, but hasn’t saved enough money and has drawn the ire of doctors and hospitals alike.
Insurers will have to bid for a piece of the state’s managed care program, which is projected to cost more than $9 billion in 2018, or nearly a quarter of Rauner’s overall proposed $37.3 billion budget. He plans to narrow the number of carriers that now participate in managed care, possibly by more than half.
Chicago Tribune: Employee alleged by prosecutors to bribe Dorothy Brown faces sentencing
A Des Plaines man who allegedly paid a $15,000 bribe to Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown to secure a job is scheduled to be sentenced Monday for lying to a federal grand jury investigating pay-to-play allegations in Brown’s office.
Sivasubramani Rajaram, 48, pleaded guilty last year to one count of perjury, admitting in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he falsely testified he had not talked with Brown after his 2014 hiring. He also acknowledged lying to the grand jury when he said he had spoken only “three or four times” to another high-ranking clerk’s office employee — identified by prosecutors only as Individual B.
WBEZ: Pastors, Savvy Connections and Chicago Schools: How One Private Company Raked In $50 Million
This is a story about how a savvy company came to Chicago and raked in more than $50 million in contracts from the school system in just four years, becoming one of the district’s biggest vendors.
Camelot Education runs six small schools that re-enroll high school dropouts or students who have been expelled. It’s a service the city needs, the school district insists, and by most accounts Camelot runs solid programs that are making a difference for some troubled teens.
Chicago Sun-Times: CPS teachers on their own for basic classroom supplies
Learning in a classroom without paper, pencils, books and crayons is hard.
Randy Foust knows this all too well. She teaches first grade at Washington Irving Elementary School, a Chicago Public School where eight out of 10 students come from low-income families.
Chicago Sun-Times: Stop stalling on school funding for kids
The last thing Illinois needs is another task force to study how to pay for public schools.
Been there, done that.
Chicago Tribune: Emanuel's 'people plazas' program struggling to achieve liftoff
When Mayor Rahm Emanuel got the City Council to approve his “people plazas” program in spring 2015, he envisioned it as a way to transform dozens of empty pieces of land and underused public spaces around the city into inviting places for Chicagoans to meet up and hang out.
The parcels would get city money for physical improvements and greater attention to keeping them clean, along with occasional cultural installations like live music or art exhibits to draw people in. Companies would be allowed to advertise in the plazas, sponsor them or set up shop to sell food and coffee to raise money and eventually make them self-sustaining.
Chicago Sun-Times: CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson still waiting on state crime bill
Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson has been vocal, especially in recent weeks, about his frustration with state lawmakers not passing legislation to stiffen penalties for “repeat gun offenders.”
Johnson hinted at a cause of some of that frustration during a news conference Friday to announce dozens of arrests in overnight raids.
Bloomington Pantagraph: Council to review $213.8 million city budget with 3% increase
While Bloomington’s proposed $213.8 million budget for the next year is about 3 percent higher than this year’s, it will be balanced without raising taxes or fees, city officials say.
“The biggest increases are for infrastructure and streets,” Mayor Tari Renner said. “Essentially it’s a balanced budget with no tax or fee increases, and we’re providing the same core services. So obviously I am happy.”