Governor Rauner signed pivotal legislation today that will limit the future size and scope of community college severance agreements.

Prompted by a $763,000 contract buyout approved by a former College of DuPage (COD) Board for outgoing College President Dr. Robert Breuder, State Representative Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) filed HB 3593, which limits future buyout or severance agreements to no more than one year of salary and benefits. Even though a newly-elected COD Board of Trustees voided the Breuder deal, Ives said her bill will prevent other college boards from inking similarly excessive deals for underperforming administrators.

“That agreement was irresponsible and disrespectful to the taxpayers who fund the College of DuPage,” said Ives. “While the new board seems to be acting more in line with the best interests of the college’s stakeholders, this new law will prevent mismanagement at the levels we’ve seen at COD from happening in the future.” Read more.

Today Governor Rauner signed into law legislation which will include severance and settlement agreements that use public funds under the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. Current law did not prohibit such agreements from containing confidentiality clauses. Representative McDermed’s House Bill 303 is a much needed win for government transparency. Read more.

State Representative Margo McDermed (R-Mokena)’s bill to address runaway severance agreements passed the House on Wednesday with a vote of 114-2. HB303 amends the Illinois Freedom of Information Act to ban to ban a government body from concealing the terms of a severance agreement funded by tax-payer dollars.  It provides protection for trade secrets, proprietary information, or other exempt information.

“Taxpayers should be entitled to look at the terms of an agreement that a public body, using taxpayer funds, reaches” Rep McDermed said. “This is a victory for public entity transparency.”

The bill was initiated in response to egregious cases of severance payments in the past few years such as a $763,000 severance agreement provided to the outgoing President of College of DuPage, Robert Breuder, and a $700,000 severance agreement given to former Metra CEO Alex Clifford. The bill is a part of the College of DuPage reform package. Read more.

Representative Margo McDermed  is taking up legislation originally proposed by her predecessor, Renée Kosel, that takes aim at a situation involving the College of Dupage that is currently enraging local taxpayers.

Read more.

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It's been a discouraging few weeks for those of us who'd hoped that the prosecution of Dan Rostenkowski, George Ryan, Rod Blagojevich any number of aldermen might have made a change in Chicago's and Illinois' continuing culture of corruption.

It hasn't made a difference. At least, not enough of a difference.

The mess at Metra and a few other related matters have lifted a grand curtain on how Chicago works, providing a peek at the wheels of government and what oils them. And that peek suggests that, in many, many ways, we're still living somewhere around, say, 1957. Still allowing local and state government to be not a place where the public is served, but a place to set up a family business and profit as much as possible for me and mine. Greg Hinz at Crain's has the rest of the story.