Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Crain's Chicago Business: See who's owed the most by deadbeat Illinois
More than 60 businesses and other groups are owed at least $10 million apiece by the state, while 13 of them are due $100 million or more. Those owed the most are in health care, including insurers Aetna Better Health and Blue Cross/Blue Shield parent Health Care Services, each out nearly $600 million.
A list of state vendors, which stretches to 778 names with unpaid invoices of at least $500,000 and totals $6.7 billion, was circulated today by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. The business group is asking members if it should weigh in on how to quicken the payment of the state’s $15 billion backlog of bills. Whether the mountain of debt should be refinanced and how soon has divided Gov. Bruce Rauner and State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, among other politicians.
Chicago Tribune: Home health care workers sue Rauner for withholding 48-cent-an-hour pay hike
Home health care workers sued the state of Illinois on Wednesday, alleging that Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration has failed to make good on pay raises required under the new state budget.
The workers who brought the class-action lawsuit are represented by Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois & Indiana. It’s one of the unions that’s been at odds with Rauner since he took office in 2015.
State Journal-Register: Rauner releases statewide plan to address opioid epidemic
With the goal of reducing overdose-related deaths by one-third in three years, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration on Wednesday released a statewide “opioid action plan” that focuses on prevention, treatment and rapid response to an epidemic of heroin and prescription-drug abuse.
“That’s an ambitious goal,” Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said at a news conference at the Sangamon County Department of Public Health in Springfield.
Chicago Sun-Times: $13.45-an-hour wage cleared for takeoff at O’Hare, Midway airports
Oliwia Pac is in line for a $2.45-an-hour pay raise, but she feels like she won the lottery.
On Wednesday, the City Council guaranteed Pac and nearly 8,000 other contract employees at O’Hare and Midway Airports a pay floor of “no less than” $13.45-an-hour and secured their right to join unions.
Chicago Tribune: $1 million VFW raffle game to resume after local leaders make it legal
A million-dollar VFW raffle drawing that was halted abruptly last month is expected to resume now that local leaders passed an ordinance allowing such games.
But no more tickets will be sold before the drawing takes place, possibly in October, said the VFW commander in rural Morris, southwest of Joliet in Grundy County.
Decatur Herald & Review: Court report: Corrections mental health treatment still lags
A year after a settlement agreement was reached in a landmark federal lawsuit to improve mental heath care at Illinois prisons, a court monitor reported a backlog of more than 3,600 psychiatric appointments, and inmates languishing in “filthy, noisy” segregation cells “inappropriate for housing the seriously mentally ill.”
The report provided to U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mihm in June, but sealed until Friday, outlines the findings of Dr. Pablo Stewart and his three-member team. The team conducted 19 visits to six of the state’s 25 prisons, including each of four maximum security facilities, the two reception and classification centers and two residential treatment units.
Chicago Sun-Times: Plan to fingerprint ride-hailing drivers, curb surge pricing stalls
So much for the requirement that ride-hailing drivers be fingerprinted and surge pricing reined in over the objections of Uber and Lyft.
At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, the ordinance that Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) muscled through the Transportation Committee he chairs wasn’t even called for a vote.
Chicago Sun-Times: Black Caucus chairman wants income caps lifted from MBE program
The chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus proposed Wednesday that Chicago lift the cap on gross income and personal net worth that has forced black construction companies out of the city’s minority set-aside program, only to continue to suffer “discrimination.”
Currently, companies owned by minorities are forced to “graduate” from the set-aside program when their average gross receipts exceed $27.5 million over the previous three fiscal years.
Daily Herald: Poll shows voters upset with beverage tax commissioners
Voters could cap the re-election bids of four Cook County commissioners from Chicago over their support for the sweetened beverage tax, a new poll suggests.
The latest in a series of polls by We Ask America, a subsidiary of the Illinois Manufacturers Association, offers a snapshot into the unpopularity of the penny-an-ounce pop tax that took effect on Aug. 2.
Northwest Herald: McHenry Educational Support Professionals union rallies for 'living' wages
From paraprofessionals to translators, secretaries, custodians and maintenance workers, it takes more than only teachers to run a successful school, officials from the McHenry Educational Support Professionals union said.
However, support staff have been working without a contract since July, union President Pat Phillips said. Fair wages and rising insurance costs are the key problems the union hopes to change, she said.
Daily Herald: Kane County creates automatic punishment for officials who blow budgets
Kane County Board members drew a budgetary line in the sand Wednesday by adopting a new financial policy: Spend more money than you’re given, and the board will strip that amount from your subsequent budget.
A preliminary vote Wednesday showed ample support. The final vote may not go as smoothly.
Rockford Register-Star: Rain leaves Rockford Park District short on revenue
Outdoor activities are at the mercy of Mother Nature, and this year she was not merciful to the Rockford Park District.
An extra nine inches of rain this spring and summer left the district about $560,000 short of the revenue it expected by July from outdoor recreation such as golf and swimming. Rockford saw 22.84 inches of rain from May to August this year, according to the National Weather Service.