Leader Jim Durkin calls on the Governor to explain spending

The Illinois Senate and House Republican Leaders today – in concert with members of the Legislative Audit Commission – called on Governor Quinn and his Administration to lift the curtain of secrecy and come clean on new spending for a rebranded version of his failed Neighborhood Recovery Initiative.

“We’ve seen a disturbing pattern of a lack of transparency from Governor Quinn and his Administration,” Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno said. “Every week we see new reports about the mismanagement of the NRI program. Every week, Governor Quinn spins that he’s fixed the problems. It’s the same claim he made about the patronage scheme at the Department of Transportation and we all know now that just wasn’t true.

As Gov. Pat Quinn's aides sought to pump up an anti-violence program ahead of his November 2010 election bid, they decided to add to the pot $3.76 million in federal disaster recovery funds from Hurricane Ike to make loans to small businesses.

In the rush to get the program launched, the Quinn administration hired a financially troubled West Side business development group to dole out loans, despite concluding the organization had recently misspent state grant funds.

The group, Chicago Community Ventures did not make a single loan, but was allowed to keep more than $150,000 when the contract was nixed, the Tribune has found.

Rep. Tom Demmer, sponsor of "Rita's Law"

When out-of-staters are asked what comes to mind when they think about Illinois, government corruption is right up there near the top of the list.

Illinoisans would ruefully agree.

And who can blame them?

Illinois’ last two governors, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich, ended up in prison on corruption charges, and before them, ex-governors Otto Kerner and Dan Walker did time for their crimes.  Read the rest of the opinion piece in the Morris Daily Herald

Newly released emails from Gov. Pat Quinn’s office show politics appeared to trump credentials when deciding how big a serving some nonprofits should get from his now-tarnished $54.5 million Neighborhood Recovery Initiative anti-violence grant program.

Emails from Quinn’s former top aides recount how Cook County Recorder of Deeds Karen Yarbrough, a Maywood Democrat who had been the suburb’s state representative, approached Quinn’s administration in January 2011 to oppose giving NRI funding to a longtime social service provider in Maywood. Dave McKinney and Frank Main have the story in the Chicago SunTimes.

Taxpayers in Illinois pay an additional $1,038 per person in taxes because of the state's corruption, according to a recent study by two university professors.

The cost of corruption, however, is much higher than that.

John Mikesell, from Indiana University and Cheol Liu, from the City University of Hong Kong, determined that that 10 most corrupt U.S. States – which includes Illinois – would have spent 5.2 percent less between 1997 and 2008 if they had only an average amount of corruption.

The analysis also found that the most corrupt states spend less on elementary, high school and college eduction, health care and hospitals than their less corrupt counterparts.  Read the Herald-Review opinion piece in its entirety.

Illinois has become the first state in the nation to enact a comprehensive set of standards to ensure transparency in the management and oversight of state grant funds.

The Grant Accountability and Transparency Act, signed into law by the Governor on Wednesday, strengthens and streamlines requirements for all state grants across all state agencies. The reforms include stronger state grant procedures to bring them in line with federal standards; improved conflict of interest disclosure requirements; and strict, real-time auditing of all state grants.

The new law is in response to a report by the Illinois Single Audit Commission, created last year by legislation spearheaded by Leader Patti Bellock, which found that, currently, the Illinois grant process has no common application, no common grant agreement, a lack of transparency, no uniform administrative rules, and a lack of a State-wide non-compliance list.  Many of these issues are what result in the ability to misuse grant funds.  The legislation co-sponsored by Leader Bellock and signed by the Governor remedies all those current failures. Read more.

Rep. Dwight Kay

A metro-east lawmaker says investigators might not have received all of the emails they sought in connection with Gov. Pat Quinn's scandal-tainted Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, an anti-violence program that critics say was used as a political slush fund.

The grant program is the subject of a federal investigation and also came under fire from the state's auditor general. The auditor general, in a blistering report issued in February, found there were "pervasive deficiencies" in how the program was operated.

But some emails from Quinn subordinates involved with the program might have been hidden from the auditor, according to Rep. Dwight Kay, R-Glen Carbon. The News-Democrat has the story by Brian Brueggemann.

Rep. Ron Sandack a member of the Legislative Audit Commission spoke at a recent press conference about the scandal-ridden anti-violence program.

Gov. Pat Quinn's scandal-plagued anti-violence initiative directed thousands of state dollars to a nonprofit that purported to provide services for former inmates, but actually never existed, according to a published report Wednesday.

Project Hope, Inc., which was run out of a suburban Chicago day care center, received $15,770 through Quinn's 2010 Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The newspaper cited state records that also showed it took months for officials to notice.  Read more from the Associated Press in the Pantagraph.

Illinois Transportation Secretary Ann Schneider said in April she knew nothing about potentially illegal patronage hiring at the state agency she runs.

Now, Schneider is refusing to discuss how her stepdaughter secured a job and promotion at the Illinois Department of Transportation — and whether the proper personnel procedures were followed.

Read the story by Patrick McCraney of the Better Government Association in the Chicago SunTimes.

Rep. Darlene Senger calls for investigation of costs
associated with Get Covered Illinois

A Republican lawmaker has called for investigations into spending costs associated with promoting President Barack Obama's health care law in Illinois.

The Associated Press reported that a key subcontractor working on the "Get Covered Illinois" campaign was owned by three former aides to powerful Democrats.

They were among consultants whose hourly billing rate of $282 is raising questions about whether Illinois did enough to rein in taxpayer costs. Their firm could take assignments directly from Gov. Pat Quinn's administration under a provision of its subcontract. The Southern reports the AP story.

Cook County has long been ridiculed for allowing dead people cast votes, but the state may have just garnered a new distinction.

It paid $12 million in health care for people who were already dead — including in one case, for a person who had died in 1989.

A new financial audit released by Auditor General Bill Holland’s office on Thursday found that the Illinois Department of Health and Family Services had 8,232 people still on Medicaid rolls qualifying for benefits, even though they were dead.

The state paid monthly premiums totaling almost $7 million for 561 people who had already been dead for an average of nearly two years before they were enrolled in a state managed care program. Read the entire Chicago SunTimes story.

Chicago – Neighborhood Recovery Initiative (NRI)
Governor claims ignorance, scandal grows. Claiming that he had been “reading the paper” and had just learned about the involvement of a key Chicago politician with his $55 million Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, Gov. Quinn admitted this week that questions about the Chicago-based program were “troublesome.”

The beleaguered governor spoke to the press as new questions swirled concerning the involvement of Cook County Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown and her husband, Benton Cook III. At the time NRI was in full operation, Cook was a supervisory employee of the Chicago Area Project, a nonprofit social-work organization active in Chicago’s troubled West Garfield Park neighborhood.

1. Political slush funds
- Funds slated for anti-violence program are handed out to Chicago alderman and others right before an election.

2. Clouted families cashing-in 
- Politically connected family members were paid through state contracts

The bipartisan, bicameral Legislative Audit Commission voted 10-1 to grant itself subpoena powers so that it can investigate Governor Quinn's scandal-ridden anti-violence program.

In March, State Rep. David Reis called for a federal probe after a report issued by the Audit General found "pervasive deficiencies" in planning, implementation and management of the Neighborhood Recover Initiative.

Get Week in Review sent to your email inbox. 

Taxes – Graduated Income Tax
So-called “fair tax” will not appear on November ballot.  Although state senators who support a graduated income tax attempted to move a constitutional amendment to carry out this goal (SJRCA 40), Republicans blocked this amendment and helped prevent it from meeting its deadline for General Assembly action. The General Assembly cannot place this amendment on the November 2014 ballot and it will not, therefore, become law.

State Representative David Reis (R-Ste. Marie) today welcomed the federal Department of Justice’s investigation into Governor Quinn’s scandal-ridden Neighborhood Recovery Initiative (NRI).

“I’ve long held Quinn’s $54 million NRI program was a politically-motivated, re-election program subsidized by taxpayer dollars,” Reis said.  “I applaud the Justice Department’s recent probe into the program and their commitment to dismantle possible criminal wrongdoings of taxpayer resources.”

Federal prosecutors have requested the Illinois Comptroller’s Office to release information regarding the NRI program.  The federal probe is separate from Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s March subpoena to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for records tied to the NRI.  Read more.

In the News
The Pantagraph
Herald & Review

Sign the Petition

While the deadline passed without Senate action on a graduated income tax proposal, Illinoisans are not out of the tax hike woods. Democrats continue to push to make the 67% temporary tax increase of 2011 permanent, even as prosecutor's subpoena records tied to state programs. 

What Illinois needs are more jobs and a stronger economy, not mismanagement and higher taxes. If you agree, tell the Democrats to roll back the temporary tax as they promised by signing our petition.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office subpoenaed records tied to Gov. Pat Quinn’s troubled Neighborhood Initiative Program and then withdrew the request when the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity promised to provide the information, according to a published report Tuesday.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the subpoena asked for program files, notes, memos and correspondence, and the identities of related field auditors and compliance monitors. Officials say the information was given to the state’s attorney Tuesday.

“The director of DCEO Adam Pollet has no tolerance for any misconduct or misuse of funds by our grantees,” Dave Roeder, spokesman for the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, said. “We are actively working with the state’s attorney’s office to provide all the records and information it requests.” The Washington Times has the AP story.