Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Chicago Tribune: Strike vote by big Illinois worker union starts Monday
Voting begins Monday in a first-ever strike authorization vote by Illinois’ largest state worker union.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 is taking the unprecedented step of asking its nearly 30,000 members who are eligible to strike if they would be willing to do so in order to counter the contract demands coming from Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Chicago Tribune: Interest payments on Illinois' unpaid bills add to vast cost of budget impasse
The enormous cost of Illinois’ record-breaking political impasse is hard to quantify.
There are intangible costs. Enrollment at public universities has dropped as students look for stability out of state, some women can’t be tested for cancer until they’re showing symptoms and thousands of people have lost mental health services, drug treatment and child care.
Belleville News-Democrat: That ain’t Monopoly money those Springfield characters are playing with
If this were a board game, you would have quit long ago because there was no way to win at “Illinopoly.”
“At a meeting I attended just this morning, a comment was made that, ‘as soon as deals in Illinois are close to done, someone always tries to blow it up,’” said state Rep. Avery Bourne, a Republican from the Litchfield area.
Chicago Tribune: Illinois fails to support disability services, report finds
A federal court monitor is criticizing Illinois for failing to ensure that people with developmental disabilities receive adequate support within their communities for a second year in a row.
The monitor’s annual report, issued last week, says a lack of state funding to raise caregiver wages has created unprecedented shortages of workers who assist developmentally disabled residents when they move out of institutions and into apartments or group homes. The services include everything from eating and hygiene to learning life skills.
Decatur Herald & Review: State's pension liabilities grow even as payments made
The budget impasse that has plagued Illinois for nearly two years has disrupted the flow of funds to public universities and community colleges, social service providers, and even state agencies, but money has kept flowing to the state’s underfunded pension systems.
State law requires payments into the pension funds for teachers, university employees, state workers, lawmakers and judges regardless of whether there’s a budget.
News-Gazette: As AFSCME strike vote looms, Rauner still has time to act
Starting Monday and for the following 20 days, nearly 30,000 strike-eligible state employees will be voting on whether to authorize their union leaders to call a first-ever strike against the state of Illinois.
The vote will take place in each union local throughout the state as part of an effort by the union’s negotiating team to gauge the feelings of rank-and-file members.
News-Gazette: New angle on budget battle
The attorney general is trying to force a settlement of Illinois’ budget dispute by obtaining a court order denying salaries to state workers.
The budget fight was a mess before Attorney General Lisa Madigan considerably complicated it last week by asking the courts to block the state from paying its 62,000 employees if a budget agreement is not reached by Feb. 28.
Now the stakes are even higher. The ruling the veteran Democratic attorney general seeks, if granted, could either force a shutdown of state government or put so much pressure on Gov. Bruce Rauner and legislators that they might rush to approve a bad budget deal just to get angry constituents off their backs.
News-Gazette: Paying the price
Rep. Scott Drury, a Democratic member of the Illinois House from Highwood, got clocked, and that wasn’t the worst of it.
Everybody, including state Rep. Scott Drury, D-Highwood, knows members of the Democratic caucus of the Illinois House don’t mess with Speaker Michael Madigan.
But, in a display of principle-driven courage, Drury did it anyway. He was the only Democrat in the 67-member caucus who refused to support Madigan’s bid for another term as speaker. He followed up that effrontery by voting against House rules that give Madigan complete control of the legislative process.
Chicago Tribune: Report says youth unemployment chronic, concentrated and deeply rooted
Chicago is making scant progress in its ongoing battle against rampant youth joblessness, new statistics show, though there is a modicum of good news.
The share of 20- to 24-year-old black men who were neither working nor in school declined modestly between 2014 and 2015, from a dismal 47 percent to a still-dismal 43 percent, according to a report set to be presented Monday at the Chicago Urban League’s annual forum on the youth unemployment crisis.
Chicago Tribune: City wants more Midway-area homeowners to sign up for soundproofing
Outside of Francisco Robles’ brick town home less than two blocks from Midway Airport, jets are so loud that conversation stops until they pass.
But inside Robles’ front room, dominated by a large portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the sound is muffled by the new door and windows installed through a city insulation program last spring.
WBEZ: Chicago’s Murder-Clearance Rate Falls to Historic Low
The Chicago Police Department last year solved fewer than one in five murders committed during the year, the lowest rate for that crime in at least a half century, according to new police figures.
Of the 763 murders tallied by police in 2016, the department “cleared” just 151 — or 19.8 percent — down from a 2015 rate of 25.4 percent, according to the figures, obtained by WBEZ using the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.