Dec. 11, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – A hybrid “cash-balance” pension plan proposed by a group of rank-and-file Illinois lawmakers last week is a step in the right direction, but falls short of setting the state on a course for a healthy pension system, one national expert says.

It doesn’t do anything to address the state’s crippling unfunded pension liability, and the proposal doesn’t offer cash balance to all state workers, said Bob Williams, president of State Budget Solutions, which monitors government pension debt across the country.

Converting to defined-contribution plans is the best answer to the state’s multi-billion-dollar problem, he said.

“If you’re in a hole, stop digging. Cap the existing defined-benefit problem. Don’t let it get any deeper. And then convert (employees) to an IRA or defined-contribution model,” Williams said. “But to allow the hole to just keep getting bigger every year…”

Cash balance is an idea that has caught on in some states, including Louisiana, Nebraska and Kansas. All three recently approved moving to cash-balance plans for state employees.

Cash-balance plans have some elements of both defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension plans. Illinois’ state employees, teachers and others have defined-benefit plans, which many observers see as unsustainable, particularly given Illinois’ $96 billion unfunded liability — a figure State Budget Solutions pegs at more like $200 billion.

Cash balance is a way for government employers, such as the state of Illinois, to take a step toward defined-contribution plans without going all in. Here’s how the plan works:

• Each employee has an individual account, and both the employee and the employer contribute to it.
• The employee has no say in how the money is invested. The accounts are managed in one blended fund, and employees are guaranteed a specific return on their accounts.
• Employees can receive additional money if returns are better than expected.
• Upon retirement, employees receive an annuity based on the account balance and may have additional benefit options, such as rolling some of the money into a private 401k or IRA.

Illinois’ latest pension-reform proposal, pitched last week by Democratic state Reps. Elaine Nekritz of Northbrooke and Daniel Biss of Evanston with the support of about 20 other lawmakers, includes a cash balance component only for new teachers and university employees.

Under the plan, teachers would contribute 9.4 percent of their salary. Their employers — taxpayer-funded local school districts — would pay 6.2 percent into the account. But schools would have flexibility to pay in more if they want to, as part of union negotiations, for example. Illinois’ Teachers’ Retirement System would manage the account, and members would be guaranteed a return of at least 4 percent each year.

Currently, Illinois teachers outside of Chicago pay in 9.4 percent of their salary, the school districts pay in a little more than a half percent, and the state of Illinois pays in about 28 percent of teachers’ salaries. The state’s Teachers’ Retirement System currently has an expected rate of return of 8 percent, downgraded earlier this fall from 8.5 percent.

Laurence Msall, president of the Chicago-based Civic Federation, which researches and analyzes Illinois’ budget problems, said he believes it’s important that the architects of the Nekritz-Biss plan are not just shifting the funding responsibility to the local school districts – they’re also giving districts some say in the plan.

“And allowing those local school districts to have control rather than just the Legislature determining what the specific benefits are is a step in the right direction,” he said.

The proposed cash balance could be beneficial for employees who qualify, but more analysis is needed, said Amanda Kass, a pension expert with the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, also a Chicago-based organization that monitors Illinois’ budget and pension issues.

“I would like to see the data on it to see if it offers a benefit to teachers and state university members. But I also think it should be extended to all of the retirement systems that were affected by Tier 2, not just two of them,” she said.

(Illinois has a two-tier pension system, in which employees hired since 2011 receive different benefits than those hired previously.)

In contrast to Illinois’ cash-balance proposal:

• Nebraska has had a cash-balance plan since 2003, when it closed the defined-contribution plan it had offered employees from 1967 to 2002. Employees contribute 4.8 percent of their salary to the plan, and employer contributions are set at 156 percent of the employee contribution. Members are guaranteed a return of at least 5 percent each year.
• Louisiana enacted legislation earlier this year to create a mandatory cash-balance plan for most state workers and some members of the Teachers’ Retirement System. It kicks in July 1, 2013. The plan is optional for other workers. Employees contribute 8 percent of their salary. Each account will receive an employer credit of 4 percent of salary, plus interest on the account. That will be contingent upon the actuarial rate of return on investments in the retirement system but won’t go below zero.
• Kansas enacted legislation this year to replace its defined-benefit plan for most state workers and teachers with a cash-balance plan on Jan. 1, 2015. Members will contribute 6 percent to their account, and the employer will contribute from 3 percent to 6 percent, depending on the member’s length of employment. Members are guaranteed a 5.25 percent rate of return.

Williams said there are benefits and drawbacks to cash-balance plans. On one hand, the employer has more control over how the plan is doing. On the other hand, the employer is under pressure to make good rate-of-return assumptions because it’s liable for it either way.

The Nekritz-Biss plan could go to lawmakers during the Legislature’s lame-duck session in January. The reform proposal also calls for raising the retirement age by zero to five years based on an employees’ age, requiring employees to pay more into their pensions, restricting cost-of-living increases and gradually shifting teacher pension costs from the state to local school districts. It also includes language that the courts can get involved if the state fails to make required pension payments.

Ultimately, any comprehensive pension reform proposal must address how to grapple with the state’s unfunded liability, which has become a financial black hole, Williams said.

“They really have to address the (unfunded liability) problem, because eventually the state’s credit rating is going to become so low that they’re going to be paying too much money for bonds and things like that. And it probably will hit the school districts first,” he said.

“To me one of the biggest problems is in good times legislators increase benefits, because it’s good times. They don’t look at the unfunded liability. In bad times, legislators delay putting money into the pension systems, and they don’t make that up,” Williams said.

“The easy thing is they can look you in the face and say, ‘We balanced the budget without raising taxes.’ Yeah, but what did you do? You created this liability that someone has to pay off sometime.”

Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka

Dec. 6, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — A proposal in the state legislature to borrow $4 billion to pay down the state’s backlog of bills could mean a double-whammy for Illinoisans who ponied up to pay off old bills as part of a 67-percent “temporary” personal income-tax hike.

The problem is that none of that tax money has gone to pay down the backlog, which now stands at a half-billion dollars more than it was two years ago.

It’s a structural issue, said state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.

“This is not hard to understand. If you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, you get the same result,” she said.

“If you borrow $4 billion, you’ll pay off the backlog now, but then that cycle will start all over again, and you’ll have another backlog because the structure stays the same, and at the same time now we’ll have a $4 billion bond debt that’s been added on to what we have already.”

In January 2011, Illinois lawmakers promised to use part of a 67-percent personal income tax hike to pay down old bills — bills that amounted to $8.5 billion. Today, as they consider borrowing $4 billion — again to pay down old bills — the backlog stands at more than $9 billion.

As of Wednesday, there were 196,141 unpaid bills at the comptroller’s office, amounting to $6.9 billion. Add to that the bills that haven’t been sent to the comptroller yet, including $1 billion in Medicaid payments and $1.4 billion in employee health insurance payments.

So where did the tax money meant for old bills go? To pensions and Medicaid, experts say. That, coupled with a spending problem, is why the state is coming around again, looking for money to pay unpaid bills, said Ted Dabrowski, vice president of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

“That promise is broken. All it did was fill the coffers. It allowed the state to pay down the pensions. And that increased tax load helped them avoid reforms on pensions and allowed them just to keep spending more money,” he said.

Topinka agrees. Lawmakers may be trying to do the right thing, but borrowing to pay down the old bills is “a short-term, feel-good ‘aah’ that ends up an ‘ugh,’ she said.

“What happened to the magic tax increase that came out last session that was supposed to pay for the unpaid bills? That went totally to Medicaid and totally to pensions, and we did not get Dollar One to pay for unpaid bills,” she said. “So now they’ve still got the unpaid bills to pay and they want to borrow $4 billion.”

The borrowing proposal, House Bill 6240, has 17 co-sponsors, all Democrats. But bill sponsor Rep. Esther Golar, D-Chicago, facing opposition to the plan, asked for more time before a committee vote. The Legislature returns Jan. 3 for its final “lame-duck” session, and it could come up then, but its future is uncertain.

Phone calls and an email to Golar’s office this week were not returned.

Ultimately, more borrowing is out of the question, Topinka said, and that means vendors will have to continue to wait, at least until the economy improves and revenue picks up.

“The state really cannot afford to do this because we might be able to pay them this time around, but if they are doing work with the state the next time around, we will be in the same hole, if not worse, because now we will have the interest payment on a greater debt load we have to pay,” she said. “So it doesn’t solve the problem.”

Until the state changes its ways, its debt will continue to mount, vendors doing business with Illinois will have to wait months to be paid, and taxpayers will be on the hook for even more, the experts say.

Topinka said she believes the economy is improving and, given time, will enable the state to pay down the backlog in a more reasonable manner.

Most vendors, she added, probably would tell her to borrow the money so they can be paid, but that only stands to make the state’s finances worse.

“They (the vendors) have not done anything wrong here. They need to be paid,” she said.

Dec. 5, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Two Illinois pension experts are divided on the merits of a new reform proposal that seeks to cut pension costs but does little to address the state’s pension borrowing issues.

The plan is either a dramatic step toward rescuing the state from financial ruin or a potentially unconstitutional failure that lacks teeth, depending on who you ask.

“We question why so much time and political capital is being expended on a policy initiative that doesn’t address or solve the problem,” said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. “It doesn’t solve the problem created by the unfunded liability. In fact, it’s sort of more of the same. It’s a mishmash of some of the proposals that have been on the table.”

But Laurence Msall, president of the Chicago-based Civic Federation, said the proposal is reasonable, sensitive to lower-paid employees and those close to retirement, and shares the pain of digging the state out of debt among all stakeholders — the government, state employees and taxpayers.

“The greatest concern for most employees is they want to know they are going to receive the benefit they’ve been promised,” Msall said.

The plan, put forth by Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, and Rep. Dan Biss, D-Evanston, has bipartisan support from 21 other lawmakers — an early show of solidarity that other pension plans have not enjoyed.

It is unclear if enough other lawmakers will be willing to move it through the Legislature by Jan. 9, the final day of the General Assembly’s “lame-duck” session and the date Gov. Pat Quinn set as the deadline for comprehensive pension reform. Nekritz and Biss said it’s a framework that’s up for discussion.

Illinois has a $94.6-billion in unfunded pension liability, the worst of any state in the nation. The Teachers’ Retirement System alone has unfunded liabilities of $52.1 billion. Investment houses are watching Illinois and may lower its credit rating if the Legislature takes no meaningful action soon.

Cost savings from the latest proposal are unknown because the pension systems’ actuaries have not analyzed it, officials said.

Illinois Watchdog spoke with Msall and pension expert Amanda Kass from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and asked them to weigh in on some of the main points of the Nekritz-Biss plan, which is in House Bill 6258.

Increases the pension contribution of workers hired before 2011 by 1 percent the first year, 2 percent after that.

Msall: “We’re glad to see that. All of the changes that are proposed in this have a financial impact on the state’s unfunded liability and the cost of the pension program going forward. So it’s good they’re including that. What we don’t know is how significant that savings is, and until you see the actuarial study and calculation you can’t say whether the state can actually afford to continue to make those contributions.”

Kass: “It would generate savings for the state because the employees and the state share in the cost of the benefits, so if you increase employees’ contribution rates you generate savings for the state. But I don’t think it’s constitutional. Arizona passed legislation a few years ago increasing employee contributions, but it was overturned a year after it was passed. The state then had to refund all the money back to the employees from their over-contribution.”

Increases the retirement age for employee as follows: no increase for those 46 and older, one year for those 40 to 45, three years for those 35 to 39 and five years for those 34 and younger.

Msall: “I think their proposal to not impact the people closest to retirement age right now at the state of Illinois (who) have less time to adjust their savings and planning for their retirement is a sensitivity to what the impact these changes might be on future retirees. I think it’s positive.”

Kass: “I think it’s probably unconstitutional. You generate savings because essentially you’re reducing people’s benefits and making them pay more by requiring them to work longer.”

Cost-of-living adjustments will apply only to the first $25,000 of a worker’s pension ($20,000 for those eligible for Social Security). And they’re delayed until the worker turns 67, or five years after retirement, whichever comes first.

Msall: “Tying it to only the first $25,000 of someone’s retirement benefit is something they’ve done in Rhode Island. It is something that has been discussed,” he said. “I think it certainly shows a sensitivity of this coalition and of the legislators to try and protect the people who are the most vulnerable, the people with the lowest pensions, the people with the most difficult situations in terms of reliance on a pension that’s already been earned.”

Kass: “I think it’s problematic for a couple different reasons. I first wonder why they picked $25,000 because that’s not the average benefits for the majority of people in the five systems,” she said, noting that changing the COLA also may be considered unconstitutional because it affects retirees. “For the five state systems, about 80 percent of the people aren’t coordinated with Social Security, so their state benefit is kind of their sole source of retirement income. The cost of living adjustment’s really important to ensure the benefit keeps pace with inflation over time.”

Shifts pension costs from the state back to local school districts at a rate of a half percent of payroll each year.

Msall: “It’s not so much the politics of the cost shift, it’s the fiscal reality of the state having $8 billion in unpaid bills and paying such a large portion of its operating budget to the pension. Having raised the income tax and all of the money going into the pension and not significantly reducing the unpaid bills makes it a financial and mathematical reality that the state is going to continue to look for ways to shed its responsibilities and obligations.”

Kass: “You have to look at what the state contributes to education overall. In Illinois, the state contributes about 27.6 percent of education funding from the state. The national average is at 46.7 percent. So Illinois’ education funding is predominantly reliant on property taxes, and doing that cost shift wouldn’t change that. It probably would just exacerbate it.”

The proposal also includes a guarantee that the state could be sued if it fails to make its required pension payments, and it plans for the state to achieve 100-percent funding of its pension systems in 30 years. It also would require that money used to pay off pension obligation bonds would be used to pay down the unfunded liability once the bonds are paid off.

What’s missing from the plan?

Msall: “There’s nothing in that right now for city of Chicago, County of Cook, the downstate police and fire pension funds, all of which leaders have been asking to be included as part of the pension reform. That should be included. The same challenges and the same problems all were created by the Illinois Legislature when they created these pension funds, so they’re creating enormous financial pressures on our local governments.”

Kass: “I think the real aspect that needs to be fixed is the debt repayment, how they’re amortizing the unfunded liabilities. This legislation doesn’t flatten that out, so every year the state’s contribution increases significantly. It’s a back-loaded repayment schedule. This isn’t fundamentally redoing that. Instead, it cuts benefits for retirees and current employees. That ostensibly makes it possible to reduce payments, but without seeing the data it’s unclear what kinds of savings are actually generated.”

Does the plan appear to be constitutionally sound?

Msall: “Basically the constitutionality of any pension change or any significant employment benefit is always the likely subject to a lawsuit. This will certainly be litigated if it is enacted, but the hope would be that the courts would recognize the dire financial condition of the State of Illinois.”

Kass: “I don’t think the majority of it is constitutional.”

What are the chances of the proposal making it through the Legislature in January?

Msall: “If this type of reform does not make it through the legislature, two things are at great risk: one, the state’s financial stability going forward, its credit rating and its credit worthiness, and two, the solvency of the major pension funds. I can’t predict how they will get to 60 votes. This appears to be a larger group and more diverse group of state representatives than have ever spoken out jointly in support for a package and a comprehensive approach for the pension changes that need to occur.”

Kass: “I’m not sure. I know there’s a lot of talk that some pension legislation is going to have to pass this year. I know there’s a lot of pressure from bond rating agencies. I’m not sure if it’s going to be this piece of legislation or another piece of legislation, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if a piece of legislation gets passed this year. If it’s January or this spring, I’m not sure.”

Nov. 5, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — A massive amount of outside spending on congressional races in Illinois underscores the importance of the Land of Lincoln when it comes to parties’ swinging or retaining control of the U.S. House on Election Day.

It also shows a diminishing amount of local influence in such races now, Illinois political experts say.

“These races have all been so nationalized that any sense of local control has just been lost,” said John Jackson, a visiting professor at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. “Local funding is important, but it’s a minor part of the story now.”

Illinoisans across the state can see the effects of outside spending just by turning on the television, where seemingly endless political ads, mostly for congressional races, are wedged between programming — or, rather, where programming is wedged in among the political ads. Continue reading →

Nov. 1, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

CHICAGO — Larry Thomas may not come from an average west-side Chicago family, but he’s something of an average west-side Chicago voter.

Thomas’ family has some pull in the neighborhoods of the 28th Ward – his brother is native Chicagoan and basketball legend Isiah Thomas.

The family’s political influence is one reason Illinois House candidate Lance Tyson tapped Larry Thomas for support in his bid for the 10th Legislative District seat that until recently was held by freshman lawmaker Derrick Smith. Smith, of course, is the same lawmaker indicted on federal bribery charge and kicked out of the House earlier this year.

With that kind of support, and with that kind of an opponent, what possibly could keep Tyson from having an enormous lead over Smith less than a week from the Nov. 6 election? Continue reading →

Oct. 29, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois’ teacher pension system could go broke if the state does not figure out a way to fully fund the system soon, the leader of the retirement system and others have warned again.

Illinois’ Teachers’ Retirement System is seeking $3.4 billion from the state for its portion of the pension costs for fiscal year 2014. That’s about $500 million more than the system sought from the state for the previous fiscal year.

“TRS faces the real risk of future insolvency because of insufficient state funding over the last 30 years,” said Dick Ingram, executive director of the Teachers’ Retirement System, who  previously has made the same dire prediction.

“TRS absolutely will be able to meet its obligations to retired teachers in the near future, but we cannot guarantee retirement security for future generations of teachers unless the state meets its total obligations.” Continue reading →

Oct. 24, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Opposition to a proposed pension-related constitutional amendment that will go before Illinois voters Nov. 6 is creating strange bedfellows — from public employee unions to good-government groups that agree the question is not worthy of a change to the state’s constitution and does nothing to address the pension crisis. Continue reading →

Oct. 22, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Voters take note: judicial elections matter.

That’s according to observers around the country who monitor judicial elections and the influence of campaign spending on the courts.

Chances are a judge has touched your life or the life of a loved one in some way, they say, and that’s why it’s important for voters to research judicial candidates — whether they serve on the U.S. Supreme Court or a local circuit court — before heading to the polls.

Take, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling that upheld President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Or, closer to home, how was your last run-in with a judge over a speeding ticket? Continue reading →

Oct. 4, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — When it comes to Illinois coal, a lot is riding on the outcome of the November presidential election between Democrat President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

To put it simply, if you’re for coal in Illinois, then you can’t be for Obama, said Phil Gonet, president of the Illinois Coal Association, a Springfield-based group that promotes Illinois coal.

“Obama’s record to us is quite clear. He’s no friend of coal,” Gonet said, noting that Romney recently made a campaign stop at an Ohio coal mine and that his staff has talked to the National Mining Association. “We believe there will be a place for coal in energy policy in a Romney administration, so it’s real clear to us.”

Romney brought up coal during Wednesday night’s presidential debate, which focused on domestic policy, saying he supports the industry.

“By the way, I like coal. I’m going to make sure we can continue to burn clean coal,” the former Massachusetts governor said, telling Obama, “People in the coal industry feel like it’s getting crushed by your policies.”

There’s a reason the coal industry feels that way, said Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club Illinois chapter. Illinois already has begun moving the direction of a clean-energy economy.

“I was surprised by how frank Mitt Romney was about his opposition to clean energy and his allegiance to fossil fuels and sources of the past,” Darin said. “I think that’s what his policy proposals suggest he would prioritize, but I did not expect him to be so blunt about it because I don’t think that’s what most Americans want.”

The Sierra Club has endorsed Obama for another four years in the White House. During Wednesday night’s debate, Obama said he and Romney agree on the importance of increasing domestic energy production.

“But I also believe that we’ve got to look at the energy sources of the future, like wind and solar and biofuels and make those investments,” Obama said.

Obama has proposed several rules among different federal agencies that make it difficult to mine coal or burn it to fuel power plants, Gonet said.

“We don’t believe that any of these rules have any solid scientific basis in terms of improving health or safety, and we believe they’re designed pretty much solely to put coal out of business. So this is a key election for us,” he said.

Coal, once king in Obama’s home state of Illinois, has been in a slump for decades because of tightening environmental regulations. Illinois coal is “dirty,” or high in sulfur. Amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990 required power plants to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, which essentially meant they had to install expensive “scrubbing” equipment or get their coal from other states, such as Wyoming, where the sulfur content is low.

Illinois coal production was cut in half, and mining jobs dwindled from 10,000 to 3,500.

However, coal is making a comeback in the Land of Lincoln, Gonet said, because it has become more economical for some power plants to install scrubbers and burn Illinois coal. In 2011, 85 percent of the coal produced in Illinois went out of state. Coal production nationwide is down, but it’s on the rise in the Illinois Basin, a region that includes Illinois, western Indiana and western Kentucky.

More Illinois coal is going out of the country, too. According to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, about 7-million tons of coal, was exported in 2011.

Illinois’ coal production peaked in the 1920s when everyone relied on the fossil fuel — homes, businesses, the railroads, the electric industry and more. Illinois produced about 100 million tons of coal each year for a few years in the ‘20s.

It dropped to about 60 million tons per year in the 1980s and 1990s but held steady. After that it dropped to 30-some-million tons a year but is on the rebound. Illinois coal production rose 13 percent between 2010 and 2011, Gonet said. In 2010, the state mined between 40 and 45 million tons and is on tap to mine more than 50 million tons in 2013.

Mining jobs are on the rise, too. About 4,400 people work in the industry now. Three new mines are expected to be operating by the end of the year, and another is under construction in Hamilton County. Of the 23 coal mines in Illinois currently only two have unionized labor.

“That’s why this election is so critical, because Obama has regulations out there that will make it harder for us to not only mine coal but to send it out of the country,” Gonet said.

Darin said there are other ways to create energy-related jobs in Illinois, such as building wind farms that cut down on pollution. Illinois has about 20,000 wind jobs, in part because of a 25-percent clean-energy goal 2025. A key federal tax incentive for wind developers expires at the end of the year.

“Illinois clean-energy companies have said they’re going to have to scale back or perhaps even stop developing if that rug is pulled out from under them. And Romney has committed to doing that,” Darin said.

“I think last night we saw a very stark choice between continuing down that path to jobs and a healthier environment or going back to being reliant on dirty fossil fuels.”

Sept. 26, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Efforts to purge voter rolls in three financially strapped southern Illinois counties are over for now, but state election officials say they are continuing efforts to clean up Illinois’ lists of registered voters.

Alexander and Massac counties at the southern tip of the state culled more than 4,000 voters from the rolls for reasons, such as death and moving.

“Having good, clean election rolls avoids any possibility of people attempting impersonation voting,” said Ken Menzel, an attorney with the Illinois State Board of Elections. “While it’s not a huge problem from what we can tell, keeping your rolls clean limits the opportunity for mischief along that line.”

Voter purges, which occur every other year in Illinois counties, also help keep down costs associated with running elections. Clean voter rolls mean precinct officials have a better idea of how many voters to expect, how many ballots to print, how many machines to have on hand and how many election judges to pay.

“If you can get a few hundred people out of your voter rolls, you can consolidate people tighter into precincts, so you’re only paying to serve people who are still there and might show up to vote,” Menzel said.

Three counties in far southern Illinois, Alexander, Massac and Pulaski, were unable to purge their voter rolls as frequently as other counties because of budget constraints, causing their voter-to-over-18-population percentages to get out of whack.

Often in counties where families stay put for a long time, the percentages hover around 80 percent; more transient areas, such as large cities and suburbs, have much lower percentages. Once the percentages approach 100 percent or higher, election officials want to know what’s going on.

In May, Alexander County was at 117 percent, and Massac County was at 106 percent. By early September, Alexander dropped to 80 percent and Massac dropped to 88 percent. Alexander County was able to cull more than 2,300 voters from its rolls that in May stood at more than 7,400 registered voters. Massac culled more than 2,000. Its rolls showed more than 12,600 voters in May.

Much of the expense associated with the purge comes from postage costs when officials mail letters to addresses to confirm if the voters who are registered still live there. The State Board of Elections stepped in to help with postage costs — about $4,000 worth— in Alexander County. The board also assisted Massac County with completing its purge.

Purges had to be completed at least 90 days prior to the election. Pulaski County, which stands at about 115 percent, was unable to complete its purge by the Aug. 6 deadline but expects to finish after the election.

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Civil Justice Reform Initiative at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation conservative think tank, said there are other low-cost steps counties can take to try to root out duplicate voter registrations, such as examining the Social Security Master Index for deaths and state corrections records to take felons off the rolls.

“It doesn’t cost a lot of money to do comparisons between voter registration rolls and other county and state records like the DMV to find people who have notified DMV, for example, that they have moved out of state,” said von Spakovsky. “Are they doing all those steps? If not, then they’re not using all the things that are available to them.”

Von Spakovsky, who was a member of the Federal Election Commission for two years and also worked at the U.S. Justice Department on voting rights issues, said it’s crucial that states work to cut down on duplicate voter registrations.

“When names remain on voter registration rolls of people who have died or have moved away, that provides the means to commit voter fraud,” he said, citing a recent True the Vote study that revealed that an examination of 10 percent of New York’s voter lists turned up 1,500 people registered both there and in Florida. Of those, 31 voted in both states.

“That’s after just checking 10 percent of the voter roll. There you had people taking advantage of being registered in two states, and you had fraudulent voters,” von Spakovsky said. “Does that sound like a lot of votes? Well maybe not, but if you have a close election and those happen all the time, it could make a difference in the election outcome.”

The 2002 Help America Vote Act required states to maintain a statewide voter database, which prompted Illinois to beef up its database and track duplicate registrations from one jurisdiction to another. Officials started flagging, for example, someone who registered to vote while in college and later registered to vote in the city they moved to after graduation.

Starting in 2010, Illinois election officials were able to track names and birth dates to weed out duplicate voters. In the first couple months of doing that, they cleared out about 62,000 duplicate registrations.

Menzel said he expects to see voter registration percentages — registered voters versus U.S. Census data population figures — go back up heading into the November election because of efforts to register voters on college campuses and elsewhere. An official in Champaign County, for instance, recently told Menzel someone brought in 1,600 voter registrations for students from the University of Illinois.

“It’s not going to be a surprise with this being a presidential election year for jurisdictions to all of a sudden creep up, and, to the extent that they purge again in 2014, most of the jurisdictions will roll again back down to a reasonable number,” he said.

Another factor that can skew the percentages is inaccurate U.S. Census figures. Predominantly black communities are undercounted. East St. Louis, for example, has had high voter-to-population percentages, and officials there continue to do purges of the voter rolls. It currently is at 102 percent.

“If they’ve done a heavy registration drive in a community that’s undercounted in the census, their numbers will look bad not because they have fictitious people but because they have people who weren’t counted in the Census,” Menzel said.

“You have to take the figures with the appropriate grains of salt for demographics and all that sort of thing.”

Oct. 2, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — It’s probably going to be dismal year for absentee voting by military members overseas, as evidenced by the low number of requested ballots for the November election.

But one expert says he is fairly certain it’s not about the ongoing drawdown in U.S. troops overseas, or simple disinterest. It’s more about a systemic problem with voting access in the U.S. military.

“The Department of Defense does a lot of things incredibly well. They keep us safe, they protect our freedoms, they’ve done a tremendous job of protecting this country,” said Eric Eversole, founder and director of the Military Voter Protection Project. “But when it comes to other issues, things that aren’t directly related to war-fighting, that’s when they don’t do a very good job often.”

The traditional avenues civilians have for registering to vote, such as signing up at the nearest driver’s services office and registration drives on college campuses, for the most part don’t exist for military members, who frequently move around and work at locations with restricted public access.

A 2009 law — the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment, or “MOVE,” Act — was supposed to help make it easier for military men and women overseas and citizens who live abroad to vote in U.S. elections. It’s part of the 1986 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which also guides overseas absentee voting.

But a Defense Department inspector general’s report in September showed numerous problems with military voting, including installations lacking offices where service men and women can register to vote or pick up absentee ballots. According to the report, investigators tried to contact 229 voting-assistance offices but were able to reach only 114 of them. The MOVE Act requires that all military installations have the offices.

“We concluded the Services had not established all the (voting assistance offices) as intended by the MOVE Act because, among other issues, the funding was not available,” the inspector general’s report reads.

It also noted the offices probably are not the best way to reach young members of the military because they are used to communicating online and using the Internet for information.

The whole situation is complicated, Eversole said, noting that most military installations do not allow groups to hold voter registration drives on bases.

“And I think there’s some long-standing cultural hurdles inside of the military where there often are questions as to whether service members should participate in the political process,” he said.

His group tries to find other ways to remind service men and women to register or seek an absentee ballot, including by advertising in military publications and using the Internet.

“It’s a complicated process, and after years of being disenfranchised, I think there are a lot of voters who say, ‘Why bother?’” he said. “What we try to do … is really try to create a positive message for our service members that emphasizes they ought to participate and that we really want to her their voice in the election, and then provide them with the tools to do so.”

In Illinois, as of Sept. 22, the 45^th day before the Nov. 6 election, the state’s board of elections had received 11,063 requests for absentee ballots for military and overseas voters. On the 45^th day in 2010, the state had received 16,589 absentee ballot requests. That’s about a 25 percent drop, which, coincidentally, is about what Eversole expects to be the average drop nationwide this election.

Illinois elections officials don’t know what’s behind the decrease. In 2010, they received about 2,500 additional absentee MOVE requests after the 45-day mark.

“Whether or not the number of people in the military in Illinois has gone down that are serving overseas this year compared to what it was to two years ago or four years ago, which all could be a factor, that could show a decline in the numbers,” said Rupert Borgsmiller, director of the Illinois State Board of Elections. “All we have is raw numbers. We can’t speculate on why the numbers are down.”

The Illinois Army and Air National Guards had about 4,000 members deployed overseas in 2008, more than 1,200 in 2010 and under 1,000 in 2012. It was unknown how many service men and women in the rest of the military are considered eligible to vote in Illinois.

Eversole said that, ultimately, the important thing is to make sure military members are election ready – that is, they have access to a ballot. Whether or not they vote is up to them.

“I think that’s some of the source of frustration. The MOVE law was supposed to make it easier. What it’s done is make us hope an avalanche of absentee ballots come in in these final weeks before the election,” he said. “That’s not good election management.”

Sept. 28, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Matt Hawkins is a voter worth wooing. He’s black, a military veteran and a politically independent voter who is plugged into social and economic issues in his hometown of East St. Louis.

But the campaign rhetoric in the contentious 12th Congressional District race between Republican Jason Plummer and Democrat Bill Enyart has left Hawkins so turned off that he plans to vote for little-known Green Party candidate Paula Bradshaw.

“She has an agenda; she’s talking about environmental justice. She’s saying, ‘Make sure we give people a chance before we poison them.’ Is that so bad? Is that so un-Democratic or un-Republican that you can’t mention it?” Hawkins, 45, said.

“She has the courage and the agenda that give me the belief that if there was some way she made it to Washington, she would make sure both parties grew up and started acting like adults. For me, that’s the kind of candidate we need in Washington.”

Money has been pouring into the 12th District race, which the New York Times identified as one of 22 most-competitive toss-up races in the country — and for good reason. The 12th District, now stretching from industrial Alton north of St. Louis to rural Cairo at the southern tip of the state, has been in Democratic hands for 20 years. U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello has had the seat since 1988 and is retiring after the election. Before Costello, Democrats Paul Simon, Ken Gray and Glenn Poshard represented the region from 1973 until 1993.

That kind of political longevity is contributing to the frenzy over the seat, said John Jackson, a visiting professor at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

“The important thing, beyond the national implications this year, is that once somebody’s in (that seat), they stay in until they die or retire. We keep them forever,” Jackson said. “So whoever wins will be the odds-on favorite to be our representative for southern Illinois for the next 20 or 25 years.”

Plummer, 30, of Fairview Heights, ran for Illinois lieutenant governor in 2010 and lost. His wealthy family owns R.P. Lumber Co.

Enyart, 62, of Belleville, is a lawyer and a retired adjutant general in the Illinois National Guard. Enyart got a late start in the race,when he was nominated to replace Brad Harriman, who dropped out in May citing medical problems.

Bradshaw is a 59-year-old nurse and activist from Carbondale.

Plummer and Enyart have spent a great deal of time during debates sparring over who has more wealth, who has more military experience, who did or didn’t release their tax returns and who is more like the presidential candidate of their own party. Both have flooded the southern Illinois airwaves with attack ads. Neither candidate has a political record for voters to reference because neither has ever held office.

Hawkins, who watched the 12th District debates online, calls their squabbles “one-upsmanship garbage.”

“If I want to see a fight, I’ll watch boxing. If I want to see a collision, I’ll watch football. When I watch politics, I want to see dedication and professionalism. I want to see real efforts to understand the problems, so we can find solutions,” he said. “I don’t really care about 90 percent of what they talked about.”

Plummer and Enyart have touched on such topics as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, taxation, Medicare and the economy during their debates. But much of the news coverage has noted their jabs and personal attacks during the events.

Jon McLean, chairman of the St. Clair County Republican Committee, said Republican voters in the predominantly Democratic Metro-East county are “very excited” about the 12th District race, noting that this district has not had a competitive race since the late 1990s. He said Plummer is young, fresh and without the baggage other candidates have.

“I think the congressional race locally has a lot of people energized. In Illinois, I think a lot of Republican voters feel their vote doesn’t matter much in the presidential race,” he said. “But in this race, I think they feel we can elect someone who can go to Washington and not vote with Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank, someone who will not be part of this so-called Democratic machine that for years we have become so upset with.”

Meanwhile, Jim Kirkpatrick, chairman of the Williamson County Democratic Committee, a rural southern Illinois county that includes Marion just off Interstate 57, said Enyart has gained a lot of ground in a short amount of time and has a chance to defeat Plummer.

“It’s definitely a crucial seat. But I think Gen. Enyart is a very good candidate. I think he’s doing everything he can to win. I’ve got nothing against Jason Plummer, but, quite honestly, I don’t think he has the experience,” Kirkpatrick said. “If they’re negotiating the future of Scott Air Force Base, who do you want at the table: the two-star general or somebody who’s not really got that much military experience?”

Recent polling by Democrats and Republicans show the candidates neck and neck, but each with an edge over the other, depending on the poll. Many observers agree the race is too close to call and will come down to the wire.

“I don’t think it’s a lead pipe cinch either way,” Jackson said, “I would say whoever does the best job in the ground game in the end and getting out their own people is going to win the game. They’re about equal on the air war on TV.”

Earlier this week, the House Majority PAC, a super PAC for the House Democrats, canceled a large television ad buy in the race, saying the ads are not needed because a poll by the group shows Enyart ahead. Republicans say their polling shows Plummer ahead.

“It’s interesting that the Majority PAC is going to pull out and take their money and go into other races. I think that’s positive,” McLean said. “But I also am cautiously optimistic, because I know that as the race gets closer, they can move money around very quickly. They’re not completely gone. They’ve been on television. They’ve had mail pieces in the mailbox. It’s not like they’re abandoning their candidate. I still think they’re in the race; I just don’t think things are going as well as they originally thought they would.”

Kirkpatrick disagreed, noting that Enyart can capitalize on recent missteps by the Mitt Romney presidential campaign and build more momentum heading into November.

“Both sides are doing everything they can to win it. I really think the Democrats have a good chance of retaining it,” he said.

Sept. 17, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Into its second week, the Chicago teachers strike offers a host of known unknowns — the strike’s actual cost and duration, the outcome of negotiations, and court intervention.

But one thing is certain, the strike has affected the children, particularly the neediest and most vulnerable among them, as the school district scrambles to provide them with food and safety.

The immediate loss of instruction and safety is evident now, but the impact of the strike and the public’s loss of confidence in a struggling school system will be felt for years to come.

For now, officials don’t know what the historic strike — the first since 1987 — is costing the Chicago Public Schools system and taxpayers each day, a spokeswoman said Monday.

For now, a Cook County judge declined to rule Monday on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s request for a temporary restraining order to end the strike, because the strike could end any day now.

For now, the Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates is expected to vote on a tentative contract deal Tuesday. Best-case scenario is students could be back in school Wednesday, after seven days away from their classrooms.

CPS spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said the costs to the taxpayer, like the contract negotiations themselves, are a tangle of “several variables.”

“We don’t know how many days it will continue, and we don’t know how many students we’ll be serving at our Children First sites,” she said.

Children First sites are 147 Chicago school locations where the neediest of the district’s 402,000 students can receive two meals each school day. The students have nowhere else to go and qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches. The sites are staffed with volunteers and CPS administrative staff, so there will be some cost associated with it, but it’s unclear how much at this time, Ziegler said.

“We have a real need to make sure we’re helping to feed our student body, as well as provide a safe and engaging place to go during the day because not everybody has alternate options,” she said. “So the cost of this strike largely will be related to what we need to do around providing these services through these Children First sites.”

The district does not receive government funding on days when children are not in school, but it will receive money on days that would have to be made up as a result of the strike.

Two major sticking points remain in the contract negotiations: a new teacher-evaluation system and job security.

Cook County Judge Peter Flynn on Monday declined to hold an immediate hearing on the city’s request for a temporary restraining order, saying there could be a hearing Wednesday.

The city filed a request for the temporary restraining order, saying the strike violates state law, which prohibits teachers from striking over such matters as layoff and recall policies, teacher evaluations, class sizes and length of the school day and year.

“The CTU’s repeated statements and recent advertising campaign have made clear that these are exactly the subjects over which the CTU is striking,” reads the city’s motion.

The city also said the strike should be ended for public health and safety issues, including providing nutritious meals and a safe environment for students.

In a statement, CTU fired back, saying the city’s motion was vindictive.

“CPS’s spur-of-the-moment decision to seek injunctive relief some six days later appears to be a vindictive act instigated by the mayor,” the statement reads. “This attempt to thwart our democratic process is consistent with (Emanuel’s) bullying behavior toward public school educators.”

Regardless of the cost, Chicago’s public school students, especially those from poor families, will pay the highest price for the strike, said Jessica Handy, policy director at Stand for Children Illinois, which champions issues related to public education and graduation rates.

“The strike in ’87, that went on for 19 days. Ultimately, it was resolved, but so many children left the district. If they could afford to, they went to private school or to the suburbs if their families could make that sacrifice. If they couldn’t, the kids stayed here and missed school 19 days,” she said.

“The district laid off 700 positions, and with the savings from those layoffs they were able to afford the raises from the strike. Who won there? I think it was unfair for the children and the families and Chicago and the mayor and the union and the teachers. It didn’t serve anybody well. It depleted enrollment and hurt the neediest children the most.”

Sept. 12, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — A new teacher-evaluation process in Chicago public schools could separate the wheat from the chafe in inner-city classrooms, and that has struck fear in the heart of thousands of picketing teachers locked in a bitter battle over the matter.

Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being judged on factors they can’t control. Fear of being told they’re not good enough. Fear of being dumped.

It’s not surprising to many observers that a new state-mandated evaluation process is at the root of the first Chicago teachers strike in 25 years. It’s a big change, but one that’s been a long time coming.

“This is about changing the fundamental relationship between teachers and school systems that teachers have dominated for a long time. That’s threatening for teachers and for their union, and that’s why these fights can be so vicious,” said Marcus Winters, a senior fellow at the New York-based Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning policy group that is following the situation in Chicago. Winters also is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

Most states, including  Colorado, Florida, New Jersey and New York and Washington, D.C., have revamped their teacher-evaluation systems or are working on reforms. President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative encouraged states to implement new evaluation procedures to boost teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom.

“Illinois is in wide company here. I think that’s one of the reasons why this argument has been so strong by the unions,” said Winters, who has done extensive research on the teacher-evaluation system in the United States. “They see the tide really has been turning and that more and more states are moving in this direction toward a system that has much better evaluations for teachers than we’ve had in place,”.

As the third day of the historic Chicago teachers strike closed Wednesday, those familiar with the contract negotiations said the new evaluation system, which would assess teachers on students’ progress during the year, remained a point of contention.

The state law, signed in 2010, requires all Illinois public schools to implement a new teacher-evaluation system gradually by the 2016-17 school year. Chicago public schools are trying to implement a plan that measures student improvement on standardized tests and counts student “growth,” or lack thereof, as part — at least 25 percent — of teachers’ performance evaluations.

Salaries, tenure and job security all will be on the line.

And that has caused teachers to worry that the new system will penalize them unfairly for factors beyond their control — student poverty, hunger, homelessness and uninvolved parents among them.

But others say their complaints are unfounded, as inner-city teachers elsewhere have dealt with the same issues and have managed to excel. They say the new system is superior to the existing evaluation process, which is simpler, based on observation and rarely dings teachers for performing unsatisfactorily.

And they say it will shed light on teacher performance: good teachers will be recognized and rewarded for excellence; failing teachers will be cut loose.

They also point out that Chicago teachers were involved in the developing the new evaluation system.

“We’re seeing some of these picket signs saying, ‘Don’t judge us exclusively on our kids’ standardized tests.’ It’s kind of frustrating when you see how much thought had gone into these evaluation discussions,” said Jessica Handy, policy director at Stand for Children Illinois, which champions issues related to public education and graduation rates.

Handy said teachers, for years, have not gotten much feedback from their evaluators, which made it difficult for them, their schools and their students to improve.

“I think we can all agree they’ve done a crummy job of evaluations in the past. The whole point of an evaluation should be to have a dialogue and help teachers improve,” she said. “We shouldn’t be treating the 22-year-old college student just out of school like a super hero that gets thrown into a class with 32 kids and be expected to work magic with no support. We’ve got to support our educators.”

Sounds reasonable, right? Employees in other lines of work regularly are evaluated on their performance and meeting objectives.

The teachers do have some valid concerns, said Sue Sporte, director of research operations at the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, which researches student success and school improvement matters with an eye toward reform.

How do you assess progress of students who already are at the top of the scale and can’t grow as much because they’ve already got the material down? What about learning-challenged students who come to school hungry or whose parents never read to them? Should they be judged the same as middle-income students whose parents are involved? Should there be a sliding scale?

And what about educators who co-teach? If one teaches math for students in both classrooms and the other teaches reading for students in both classrooms, who gets credit for student growth? What about high school students who have different teachers for every subject? Who gets credit for reading growth?

Those are the kinds of questions being hammered out behind closed doors, Sporte said.

“It’s not as straightforward as it sounds,” she said. “It sounds like, ‘Well, yeah. You saw these kids. Did they learn or did they not?’”

So is it possible to determine who the best and worst teachers are? It depends, she said.

“It depends on what you value that your teachers do. Is it about raising test scores? Is it about raising kids who love school? Is it about developing curiosity? Is it about helping kids develop good habits so they show up and do homework?” she said. “What is it that the public and the parents value in their teachers, because what you measure is what you ultimately value.”

And, ultimately, the reluctance in Chicago comes back to fear, Handy said.

“I would say there’s a lot of rhetoric around it. I think if you tell teachers that you’re going to be judged based on student performance, it’s a scary prospect, especially for teachers who do work in those underserved areas,” she said, noting that underserved children can excel, given the right opportunities. Providing teachers with support and feedback is part of that.

“I would say it’s so important for us if we want a fair system, if we want equity, if we want to get those kids all the support they need in school. We have to support our teachers with honest evaluations and keep those best teachers in the classrooms.”

Sept. 10, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – As striking Chicago public school teachers took to the streets to picket Monday, one taxpayer-minded organization criticized the current salaries of the district’s school administrators and teachers, saying they add up to too much for too little.

Jim Tobin, president of Chicago-based Taxpayers United of America, an organization that advocates for tax relief and responsible use of tax money, said the average teacher pay in the Chicago public schools is $76,000, not including employee benefits or pensions.

“That’s $76,000 for nine months’ employment in a system that isn’t even mediocre. This is one of the lowest-performing school districts in the country,” Tobin said. “And they want a 29-percent pay raise. It just boggles the mind. These salaries are out of the world.”

The Chicago Teachers Union announced at 10 p.m. Sunday that negotiations between teachers and the city of Chicago, which operates Chicago Public Schools, had broken down and that teachers would be on strike beginning Monday morning.

It’s the first time Chicago teachers have gone on strike since 1987. Chicago has the nation’s third-largest public school system, with more than 30,000 educators and 400,000 students at 675 schools.

Midnight Sunday was the deadline for negotiations. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said only two issues – a teacher-evaluation system that links teacher performance to students’ standardized test scores and principals’ ability to let go of teachers who don’t make the grade – remained unresolved.

The Chicago school district is grappling with a $700 million budget shortfall.

“The issues that remain are minor,” Emanuel said Sunday night. “This is totally unnecessary. It’s avoidable, and our kids don’t deserve this. … This is a strike of choice.”

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said the union and school district officials found common ground on compensation but that cuts to health benefits remained a sticking point.

“This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could have avoided,” she said. “We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve.”

David Vitale, president of the Chicago Board of Education, said officials offered teachers a 16 percent pay raise over four years, which was double the amount of a previous offer. He described the negotiations as “extraordinarily difficult.”

According to a Chicago Teachers Union news release, the two sides also negotiated a variety of other matters during the talks. Among them:

• Smaller class sizes.
• More libraries.
• Air-conditioned classrooms.
• More social workers and counselors to help students.
• Restoring art, music, language, technology and physical education classes.
• Textbooks for students on the first day of school instead of waiting several weeks for the materials.
• Training for teachers.
• Concessions for nursing mothers.

Negotiations resumed Monday.

Tobin described as “ridiculous” the raises Chicago teachers are seeking, adding that school administrators are paid even more for doing less. According to 2011 salary figures provided by Taxpayers United, the top administrator in Chicago Public Schools, Chief Executive Officer Jean- Claude Brizard, earned $250,000. Dozens of principals in the list of top-100 salaries in Chicago Public Schools earned $140,000 to $150,000.

“The purpose of the government schools is not to provide education for children but to provide employees with huge salaries and benefits,” Tobin said. “If (teachers) really cared about the children they would be in school and trying to get these kids a better education. But they’re basically concerned about lining their own pockets.”

Teachers at Chicago’s charter schools are not part of the Chicago Teachers Union, and students and educators at those schools were in class Monday.

Charter schools are public schools that are not restricted by the same guidelines as traditional public schools, but they are accountable for achieving certain goals and results, as set forth in their charters. Parents can choose to send their children to charter schools as an option to other, low-performing schools, and they can do so for no extra cost. About 52,000 students attend charter schools in Chicago.

John Tillman, chief executive officer of the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think-tank, on Monday urged those at the bargaining table in Chicago to focus on reforms that empower parents rather than perpetuating “a broken system.” He suggested expanding the number of charter schools in Chicago, establishing opportunity scholarships and continuing to offer merit pay for good teachers who deserve to be recognized and rewarded.

Once those things occur, Tillman said, “…we can begin to chip away at the monopoly that the Chicago Teachers Union has over the city’s educational system.”

“We must empower parents to choose what is best for their children, instead of letting Karen Lewis decide when kids can and cannot learn,” he said.