Budget
Human Services appropriation bill signed into law.  HB 213, which had been approved by the Illinois House by a vote of 69-47-0, became law on Friday, June 21 as P.A. 98-27.  The measure contained numerous line items for State health and human services programs, especially in the fields of medical assistance, senior living and care, veterans’ living and care, and the care of persons with mental health and developmental challenges.  The $9 billion budget was criticized by many budget experts for avoiding the hard choices that Gov. Quinn and the General Assembly majority party had earlier said they were prepared to make.  Unexpected one-time income tax receipts enjoyed by the State in April 2013 allowed the State’s “budgeteers” to allocate nearly full funding to a wide variety of social need programs.  HB 213 was one of six State budget bills that are required to be signed prior to the start of FY14 business on July 1, 2013.  Other bills, which awaited action included appropriations measures for public safety and the general operations of the State.

Arbitrator's ruling threatens a big savings program
Chicago Tribune Editorial for June 28, 2013 

Illinois has removed from its Medicaid rolls this year more than 60,000 people who didn't qualify for the government benefit. That's an astonishing number, and it appears there are still many people getting benefits who don't qualify.

A contractor hired by the state is churning through hundreds of thousands of questionable Medicaid accounts, part of a state effort to save the enormously expensive health care program for low-income people.

We've strongly backed this effort, which had bipartisan support in the Illinois legislature. Every dollar spent on people who are ineligible for benefits — some of them don't even live in Illinois — is a dollar not available for essential state services.

Now this vital scrub of Medicaid is in jeopardy, thanks to a grievance filed by AFSCME, the state employees union. An arbitrator recently ruled that the state couldn't hire the contractor, Virginia-based Maximus Health Services Inc., to do the job.

The work should be done by the state's union workforce, ruled the arbitrator, Edwin Benn.

Read the entire Chicago Tribune Editorial...

Amid the glitz and celebration of America’s centennial year, November 7, 1876, was truly a date for the history books. That day saw a razor-thin Presidential election that was not resolved until the following March, it saw a ham-handed attempt to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln from his Springfield tomb, and it was the day that voters in the 2nd District elected Rep. John W.E. Thomas (R-Chicago) as Illinois’ first African-American state legislator.

Thomas’ path to the General Assembly began eleven years earlier when Governor Richard Oglesby signed legislation repealing Illinois’ discriminatory “Black Laws,” a series of statutes which prevented African-Americans from voting, serving on juries or entering into contracts.  In the years after the Civil War, barriers to African-American participation in Illinois politics fell like dominoes: repeal of the Black Laws in 1865, full suffrage for African-American males in 1870, defeat of proposed restrictions on voting rights for African-Americans at the 1870 Constitutional convention. The post-war march of civil rights then led directly to a seat in the state House with John W. E. Thomas’ election in 1876.

There was standing room only as Illinois’ pension conference committee met for the first time Thursday in Chicago. The bipartisan 10-member committee comprised of State Senators and State Representatives has been tasked with producing a compromised bill that enacts meaningful reform to the worst funded pension system in the nation. The committee heard testimony from state agencies, the business community, advocacy groups and unions who pleaded their cases and offered their positions and priorities to be read into the record.

Illinois House Republican Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) tapped state Rep. Darlene Senger (R-Naperville) and state Rep. Jil Tracy (R-Quincy) to serve on the pension conference committee to represent the Illinois House Republicans because of their expertise on this pressing issue. On the pension reform discussion table are topics that need to be considered that will have an impact to our state’s finances, the economy, taxes, spending and the budget. State Rep. Senger cited a

Standing room only for Day 1of
Pension Reform Conference
Committee Meeting 

representative’s remark from the Fitch credit rating agency, that Illinois currently has what is equivalent to a junk bond rating for a corporation because we have failed to enact meaningful pension reform.

Despite recent reports that the conference committee would clear the slate of previous pension proposals, most of the testimony offered yesterday was geared around components of Senate Bill 1 and the union-backed Senate Bill 2404. Senate Bill 1 has passed the House and Senate Bill 2404 has passed the Senate, but neither bill has advanced in the other chamber. It was established yesterday that Senate Bill 1 goes further in savings than Senate Bill 2404.

Governor Quinn has tasked the pension conference committee to produce a compromised piece of pension reform legislation by July 9 when session reconvenes. It remains unclear if that will happen.

The pension conference committee will reconvene in Chicago on July 3rd at 9am.

In June of this year, for the first time since December 2005, the Illinois General Assembly appointed a conference committee. The subject for this one is SB1: Pension reform legislation. That committee will meet in Chicago at 11 AM on Thursday, June 27 in room C600 of the Bilandic Building to start the steps necessary to reach consensus on pension reform. Additional meetings will likely be necessary. If agreement can be found, the conference committee will report its recommendations to the General Assembly, perhaps as early as July 8. The final step will be a vote by the entire legislative body.

The General Assembly has long been able under House and Senate Rules to appoint conference committees to resolve differences between versions of specific legislation that had passed out of the respective chambers.

While most new laws are enacted at the beginning of the new year (January 1), some take effect at other times of the year. This year there are five new laws effective as of July 1, 2013, they include:

1.  “Julie’s Law” prohibiting court supervision from being granted to people caught driving more than 31 miles per hour above the posted speed limit.

2. Creation of the Sex Offender Evaluation and Treatment Disciplinary Board established under  SB 3638 to assist the Department of Professional Regulation in the licensing of sex offender evaluators and treatment providers.

3. SB 3764 providing greater guidance as to the name of a debtor to be provided on financing statements.

4. Banning zinc air button batteries from being sold in Illinois under the state’s Mercury-added Product Prohibition Act.

5. Continued funding of the Illinois Community Care Program for seniors as part of House Bill 206 which grants a $142 million supplemental appropriation to the program, as well as additional funds for group health insurance and old bills at the Department of Alcohol and Substance Abuse and Developmental Disability Community Services.

Budget/Pensions

General Assembly holds special session on pension issues; appoints conference committee.  The rarely-used conference committee section of House and Senate rules enables both chambers, in the event of an otherwise insoluble impasse, to appoint ten members (six members of the majority party and four members of the minority party) to discuss how to break the deadlock.  SB 1 (Cullerton/Madigan) has been approved by both houses of the General Assembly with different answers to the State’s pension crisis.  The Senate has repeatedly turned down the House’s language, and the Senate language is characterized by many parties as not adequate to solve the crisis and has not been called in the House for a vote.  

The SB 1 Conference Committee will attempt to resolve the issue in a way that will allow the Governor to call the General Assembly back into special session with language in front of them that can gain the approval of both chambers.  The Governor has asked for new language to be prepared no later than July 9.