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.

Sept. 6, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois taxpayers continue to pay for more local units of government — nearly 7,000 — than any other state, according to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

That includes municipalities, townships, library districts, school districts, park districts, water and sanitary districts, mosquito-abatement districts, airport and transit authorities, hospital boards, tax-increment-financing districts — all of which provide services for Illinois taxpayers.

But services come with a cost, says one government watchdog. Cons? They’re expensive to operate. They duplicate services. Many lack transparency. It’s exhausting to monitor all of them and how they’re spending money.

Pros?

“They’re good if you want to be employed as a politician,” said Brian Costin, director of government reform for the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

Illinois has 6,968 units of local government, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s preliminary 2012 Census of Governments, released last week. Considering the state’s population of 12.8 million, that means there’s one governmental body for about every 1,800 residents.

“You could go to a local government meeting every day of the week and still not be able to make all the meetings,” Costin said. “I think that’s something where citizens get discouraged. They say, ‘I can’t keep up on everything that’s going on, so I’m just not going to participate.’”

Illinois leaves No. 2 Pennsylvania in the dust by more than 2,000. The Keystone State has 4,905 units of local government. Rounding out the top 10:

• Texas: 4,856,
• California: 4,350,
• Kansas: 3,806,
• Missouri: 3,752,
• Ohio: 3,702,
• Minnesota: 3,633,
• New York: 3,454,
• Wisconsin: 3,123.

The 10 states with the fewest units of local government:

• District of Columbia: 2,
• Hawaii: 21,
• Rhode Island: 134,
• Alaska: 177,
• Nevada: 190,
• Delaware: 338,
• Maryland: 347,
• Virginia: 497,
• Louisiana: 530,
• New Hampshire: 542.

Illinois lost a few governmental bodies in the past five years. The 2007 Census of Governments showed Illinois had 6,994 local units — still No. 1 among the other states.

Still, consolidating or eliminating local government is not easy. Voters have to push for a ballot referendum, and officials and lobbyists often resist the idea, because someone most likely will be out of a job. Occasionally, bodies decide on their own to merge.

“I think it’s easier to create a new one than to consolidate,” Costin said, noting that the creation of tax-increment-financing, or TIF, districts has surged throughout Illinois. All it requires is a majority vote of the overlapping taxing bodies to approve a TIF. These special taxing districts funnel money to areas that local officials deem blighted in an effort to attract development.

Illinois in 2011 authorized a 17-member Local Government Consolidation Commission, charged with examining local governments and, among other things, reducing “the multiplicity of local governments” and eliminating “overlapping and duplicating of unnecessary powers.”

Members include state senators, state representatives, residents appointed by the governor and people who represent various units of local government. The commission is supposed to file a report by the end of 2012 but is seeking more time.

Illinois currently has 2,831 “general purpose” units of government, such as municipalities, counties, villages and townships. It also has 4,137 “special purpose” units, including 3,232 special districts and 905 independent school districts. Special districts include mosquito-abatement districts, sanitary districts and transit authorities.

Illinois has 1,400 townships alone, the most of any state. Townships, which are a taxing body, usually staff crews for rural road maintenance and snow removal. They sometimes undertake additional roles.

In a Sept. 3 editorial, Chicago-based government watchdog the Better Government Association called for township reform in Illinois.

“In fact, Illinois law actually requires very little of townships — some provide welfare services and run food pantries — but those functions could be incorporated into nearby towns and villages that already offer similar programs,” BGA President Andy Shaw wrote. “Still, townships continue to hoard tax dollars and sit on cash cushions that would make King Midas jealous.”

Costin said he believes Illinoisans are ready to talk about consolidation of governmental services but they have little power to force the conversation.

“If there’s no legal avenue for the citizens to push for consolidation, I don’t see a lot of the agencies themselves saying, ‘Let’s make an effort to see how we can save the taxpayers money,’” he said.

Sept. 4, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — When it comes to attendance, Illinois’ congressional delegation earns above-average marks.

But attendance and missed votes don’t tell the full story about a congressman’s performance, according to one Illinois political observer.

“You count what you can. But for the average voter who’s maybe not very engaged, they’re going to be looking for these kinds of cues that give them some sense of how effective somebody is,” said longtime Illinois political observer Kent Redfield. “Whether they take it seriously and, for better or worse, whether they miss a lot of roll calls are measures.”

All of Illinois’ seats in the U.S. House of Representatives — 18 in all after losing one in the redistricting process — are up for grabs in November.

Of the state’s 19 sitting U.S. representatives, only Democrats Bobby Rush of District 1 and Luis Gutierrez of District 4 have missed more than 10 percent of roll-call votes during their time in office, according  to the latest figures from Govtrack.us, which tracks federal legislation and lawmaker votes in Congress.

Both have been in the U.S. House since 1993, and more than 13,000 votes were taken during that time. Rush missed 1,760 of them, and Gutierrez, 1,548.

Fourteen representatives missed between zero percent and 3 percent of their votes.

U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-District 14, who joined Congress in January 2011, has the best record, missing only four of 1,503 votes during his tenure.

U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-District 13, has been in office since 1999 and has the second-best record, missing only 68 of 9,679 votes.

The median for missed votes among congressional lawmakers is 2.4 percent, according to Govtrack.us.

Some candidates say they miss more mundane and procedural votes, because they are meeting with constituents and interest groups as well as advocating for particular issues and meeting with interest groups — all of which make them better representatives of those who elected them.

But a candidate’s voting record, especially missed votes on key legislation, can be damaging material for an opponent’s campaign ads, said Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

“It really can be political dynamite because it translates so easily into an appeal that the average voter can understand. ‘I’ve got a job. I’m supposed to do things. I’m supposed to be there. I’ve got work days, and I can’t just blow off work,’” he said.

“So when a congressman misses a lot of roll calls, it’s really easy to make the case that the congressman is skipping work and therefore is not paying attention to the basics. And if they don’t have the kind of character to show up for work, then how can you trust them on all of this other stuff. It fits very easily into a more extended narrative of whether they’re really up to the job.”

Rush, who has missed 13 percent of roll-call votes during his tenure, did not respond to a request for an interview Tuesday through his spokeswoman.

Rush missed a large number of votes in 2008 when he was being treated for cancer.

That, Redfield noted, is an example of why voting records alone without context can cause confusion for voters.

Voters can consider the types of legislation the candidates helped pass, the perks the candidates brought home for the district, their leadership roles in sponsoring legislation — all of which help paint a more accurate picture of the job lawmakers are doing, Redfield said.

“If you can make the case that, ‘I make the important votes, and here are the other important things I’m doing,’ that may be sufficient,” he said. “It’s just that without any context, missing votes translates into not doing your job and not taking the job seriously. Without context that’s a very compelling negative argument.”

Aug. 29, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois communities that bought into the promise of cheaper rates from a clean-coal plant in southern Illinois may experience buyers’ remorse when their bills arrive, according to a report unveiled Wednesday.

But others say the report’s findings are flawed because they are based on comparisons to current market rates, which are low because of decreased demand for power.

The Prairie State Energy Campus, a 1,600-megawatt coal-fired plant in rural Marissa about 40 miles southeast of St. Louis, has experienced project delays and increased construction costs, more than doubling the price tag to nearly $5 billion. Original estimates put the cost at $2 billion.

The increased costs will be passed on to consumers, raising rates by at least 40 percent more than what investors originally expected them to be, according to a report by the Massachusetts-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which researches environmental and energy issues.

The costs are “real, immediate and likely to continue,” said Tom Sanzillo, one of the report’s authors.

More than 200 municipalities and electric co-ops, serving 2.5 million customers in eight states, invested in the project, which was spearheaded by St. Louis-based Peabody Energy. The municipalities and co-ops signed 30-year contracts to obtain power from the plant on promises it would be a less-expensive, stable power source.

The Prairie State Energy Campus is “an unnecessary financial burden on ratepayers and local governments rather than the much-needed financial relief that was promised,” Sanzillo said.

At least one community, Hannibal, on the Mississippi River in central Missouri, this summer approved a 3 percent rate hike for customers to offset the added construction costs and delays.

“We’re in almost a million and a half bucks, and we don’t have a dime of revenue,” Bob Stevenson, director of the Hannibal Board of Public Works, said in a June St. Louis Post-Dispatch report. “All I can say is, I had other plans for that money.

The Illinois Municipal Electric Agency owns a 15 percent share in the project. Phillip “Doc” Mueller, vice president of government affairs at the agency, said the IEEFA report is flawed.

“The study seems to fundamentally misunderstand the place that Prairie State holds in our total energy portfolio,” Mueller said.

IMEA represents 32 Illinois communities that own and operate their own utilities. The agency’s main responsibility is to provide long-term electricity at wholesale prices through various means, such as owning portions of power plants in other states, contracting with Midwest energy company Ameren, buying off the market and investing in Prairie State.

Mueller said IMEA members are not going to see power costs that are at least 40 percent higher, as the report predicts.

“What (the report’s authors) have done is compare the current market price of power with Prairie State, and the only way the report makes any sense is if you buy all of your power off the market all the time. But if you do that, then you open yourself up to the higher market prices as they go up and down through the year and as they go up over time,” he said.

“Our job, and this little piece of Prairie State that we’ve got, is actually intended not to hurt our people. It’s intended to provide a cost hedge for the long term because inevitably the market prices we’re seeing out there now are not going to hang around. When natural gas goes up and the market goes back up, the market prices will follow.”

Sandy Buchanan, executive director of Ohio Citizen Action, the state’s largest consumer and environmental organization, said ratepayers there have not been given full and complete information about the Prairie State project, its operations, the financial risk and the cost.

“What today’s report shows is that the coal plant is turning out to be the financial nightmare many of us feared when the plant was proposed,” she said.

Peabody announced plans for the Prairie State Energy Campus in 2001, when the economy was better and the demand for electricity was higher. The company currently has a 5 percent stake in the project.

Peabody spokeswoman Meg Gallagher on Wednesday said the company still is reviewing the report but found its assertions biased and lacking important facts.

“Among other issues, the report makes a number assumptions on costs of competing fuels and uses this to make flawed estimates for a plant that will be in operation for decades. Even so, the cost of coal for Prairie State is less than half the cost of natural gas at a time when gas is at historically low levels this year,” she said in an email response.

“Ultimately, when the scorecard is complete, we firmly believe Prairie State will continue to provide reliable, clean low-cost electricity for the benefit of millions of customers in multiple states for decades to come.”

One of the plant’s two 800-megawatt generators went online in June, and the second one is expected to go online by the end of the year. The plant includes an associated underground coal mine at Lively Grove that will produce an estimated 6 million tons of high-sulfur coal each year.

IEEFA researches various energy and environment issues. The organization’s mission is “to accelerate the United States’ transition to a diverse, sustainable and profitable energy economy and to reduce the nation’s dependence on coal and other non-renewable energy resources.”

Sanzillo, finance director for the group, is a former deputy comptroller for the state of New York.

Aug. 27, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Gov. Pat Quinn and his staff may tell you about the sausage that is Illinois policy, but they aren’t quite as open about the sausage-making process, according to a review of public records requests by Illinois Watchdog.

Quinn’s office cited the “preliminary drafts” exemption to Illinois‘ open records law in one out of four Freedom of Information requests between April and July, enabling it to withhold documents that could shed light on a range of high-profile policy decisions.

Quinn’s office withheld records about prison and developmental-center closures, consolidation of state police communications centers and shutting down animal disease testing facilities – each of which has affected taxpayers and the economy all over the state.

The “preliminary drafts” exemption was designed to allow policymakers to communicate honestly and openly without the risk of embarrassment. It allows officials to withhold “preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated.”

Quinn’s office may be using the exemption as it was intended, said Springfield attorney Don Craven, who specializes in open government matters. The problem, however, is that the broad exemption leaves taxpayers in the dark about the decision-making process. Illinoisans have no clue what factors were or were not considered in any given policy decision.

“Why did they come to the conclusion to close Jacksonville (developmental center)? You can’t tell what policy considerations went into that decision. You can’t tell what policy considerations were rejected as part of that decision-making process,” he said.  “And all the administration gives you is, ‘We think Jacksonville should close; therefore, it closes.’ And it causes severe frustration.”

Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said the “preliminary drafts” exemption has been part of the state’s open-records law for decades and that it allows “free and frank discussion among policy and decision makers” and “a wider range of ideas that could lead to more effective public policy.”

Anderson noted that final decisions are available under the law.

“Under Gov. Quinn’s direction, we work to be as transparent as possible. The governor’s office receives a high volume of FOIA requests, with many containing complex issues,” she wrote in an email to Illinois Watchdog. “We carefully review, analyze and respond to each request in a transparent fashion and as quickly as possible.”

Quinn’s office received an average of 17 FOIA requests a month between January and July, according to records supplied by the office. Of 77 requests it processed between April and July, the office cited the “preliminary drafts” exemption 19 times. Between January and July, it cited the exemption 23 times.

In addition to withholding records about some of Quinn’s major closure decisions, since January his office cited “preliminary drafts” in withholding records about:

• A third airport in Chicago.
• A Department of Children and Family Services contract.
• Hospital tax exemptions in the state.
• A contracted review of hiring practices under the Rod Blagojevich administration.
• One of Quinn’s nominations to the state’s tollway board.
• A review by the Illinois State Police of its consent-search policies.

It also withheld communications among Quinn’s staff about the location of a southern Illinois news conference in July, at which state workers showed up to protest Quinn’s planned facility closures.

Quinn’s FOIA officer, Benno Weisberg, is based in Chicago. He has been an “associate general counsel” to Quinn since February. Anderson said he also is a legal liaison between the office and 10 state agencies. His salary is $72,000 a year.

In Illinois, individuals whose records requests are denied may ask the state attorney general’s public access counselor to review the denial. Since January, the public access counselor has received 16 requests to review FOIA denials by Quinn’s office, of which six were for denials citing the “preliminary drafts” exemption.

Craven said about once a week he hears from frustrated reporters new to Illinois who received a “preliminary drafts” denial from a public body for records they were able to review easily in other states.

“They say, ‘I can’t believe the way the laws work here,’ to which I respond, ‘Welcome to the Land of Lincoln,’” he said.

It’s unclear if there is a happy medium to the exemption that would satisfy both public officials and the public’s right to know.

“In order to get to a happy medium, you have to have a conversation. And I don’t know anybody on the other side of the table from where I am who wants to have a conversation about that exemption,” Craven said. “They like it just the way it is.”

Aug. 17, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois House lawmakers on Friday kicked out indicted Rep. Derrick Smith, who faces a federal bribery charge for allegedly accepting a $7,000 bribe in connection with his job as legislator.

The vote – 100 in favor of expulsion and six against it – resulted in Smith immediately being removed from the House roll. He is a Chicago Democrat who was serving his first term as a state lawmaker.

Neither Smith nor his Chicago attorney, Victor Henderson, were present for the vote in Springfield. At a Chicago news conference after the vote, Smith said the ordeal allowed him to learn who his friends are, adding that friends “stick by you through thick and thin.”

The six representatives who voted against expulsion were all Democrats: Anthony DeLuca of Crete; Mary Flowers of Chicago; Rita Mayfield of Waukegan; Arthur Turner of Chicago; and Karen Yarbrough of Broadview.

Three Democratic representatives voted “present,” meaning they did not cast a vote either way: Charles Jefferson of Rockford; Andre Thapedi of Chicago; and LaShawn Ford of Chicago.

Three members of the chamber’s Black Caucus – Jefferson, Davis and Flowers – sided somewhat with Smith ,who also is black, questioning the timing and the process to kick him out. They also questioned whether the expulsion process respected Smith’s right to a due process.

Flowers said Smith’s not-guilty plea in federal court allows lawmakers to “infer” Smith is not guilty.

Other lawmakers said Smith and his attorney had opportunities to appear before the House discipline committees and say the lawmaker was not guilty, that he did not do the things he was accused of and that it was not his voice on federal wiretaps that recorded the alleged bribery transaction.

Rep. Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, said Smith had more rights during the expulsion process than former Gov. Rod Blagojevich had during the impeachment proceedings in the General Assembly.

Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, said the vote was one of the most difficult but important votes the House would ever take.

Smith remains on the Nov. 6 ballot in his home district, but he no longer has backing from the state’s Democratic machine. His bribery arrest came after the March primary election. He faces Lance Tyson, a Democrat who is running as a “Unity Party” candidate with Democratic backing.

Aug. 10, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Want to know what conditions are like inside Illinois’ prisons? You’ll have to take someone else’s word for it.

And for the most part, that someone has to be the state of Illinois or the union that represents correctional officers and other prison workers.

Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, is steadfast in his opinion that media tours of the state’s taxpayer-funded prisons, even the minimum-security ones, are a security risk and not a good idea.

“Prisons aren’t country clubs. They’re not there to be visited and looked at. I think we have to make sure they’re secure, and I think the security of the public is paramount when it comes to prisons,” Quinn said during questioning by reporters after he cut the ribbon for the 2012 Illinois State Fair in Springfield.

The issue of prison tours gained traction this week after a report by Chicago public radio station WBEZ that one of its reporters was turned down when he asked for a tour of the minimum-security prison in Vienna to investigate conditions there for prisoners.

Other reporters’ prison tour requests have been turned down, as well.

“I think it’s important that we listen to those who are on the front line at the prison with respect to working there and understanding their decisions regarding the safety of the prison,” Quinn said Friday. “Our corrections officials who are running the prisons are wardens. They have expertise that we ought to pay attention to.”

But Alan Mills, legal director at the Uptown People’s Law Center in Chicago, which represents Illinois inmates in legal cases, said Quinn is off base.

“Clearly, not only is it in the public’s interest, I think it’s the public’s right to know what’s going on in the prisons. Government should never be able to force the public to rely on its own version of the events. That’s what journalists and outside watchdogs are for,” Mills said. “The argument about security is hogwash.”

Mills said state officials have allowed tours of the Stateville and Dwight prisons regularly, and they have run tours of Tamms “when it suits their interests.”

“So there is no reason why they can’t run a tour and allow access to a medium-security prison. Do they have to assign someone to walk you through? Yes, but so what?” he said. “I think the public is legitimately able to conclude from their refusal to let people in that they don’t want people to see what’s going on in there.”

The union that represents corrections officers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has publicized reports from the last month about violence in the state’s prisons. But it’s impossible to confirm the reports because the Illinois Department of Corrections will not release incident reports – even versions with sensitive information blacked out – that document the alleged occurrences.

On June 26, Illinois Watchdog (formerly Illinois Statehouse News) filed a Freedom of Information request with the department seeking records about security incidents and resulting injuries to inmates and staff at each Illinois correctional facility. Watchdog also asked for all documents that describe the cause and nature of the incidents and injuries, from May 2007 to present.

The request was an attempt to independently confirm if, indeed, violence was on the rise in the state’s prisons and to gauge the severity of the violence.

The department’s FOIA officer denied Watchdog’s request, citing an exemption in state law that allows them to withhold “records that relate to or affect the security of correctional institutions and detention facilities.”

“Each of these records is utilized by the department for increasing security at a facility after an incident has occurred,” the department’s FOIA officer replied in a letter.

The records additionally were denied citing an exemption that allows withholding documents that “disclose unique or specialized investigative techniques other than those generally used and known or disclosed internal documents of correctional agencies related to detection, observation or investigation of incidents of crime or misconduct, and disclosure would result in demonstrable harm to the agency….”

The department of corrections did provide a chart showing the number of violent incidents by month and by year, but there was no supporting data for the numbers.

Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford, a Republican and former state senator, for years led tours of the Pontiac and Dwight prisons for members of the General Assembly and the media. He said he understands first-hand that laying eyes on the inside of a prison is extremely valuable when forming or reporting on public policy and state funding.

He said he suggests the governor invite the media into the prisons “unless he’s trying to hide something.”

“I can appreciate the governor is concerned about public safety. I am too. Prisons are not tourist attractions, and for him to say they’re not country clubs, he’s absolutely right,” Rutherford said.

“But to preclude the public under very reasonable requests to have first-hand sighting of how their tax dollars have an effect on policy and how it’s conducted is inappropriate.”

Laurie Jo Reynolds, organizer of Tamms Year Ten, a grassroots campaign to educate people about the effects of long-term prison isolation, said she believes the corrections department under the Quinn administration is more transparent than it was under the administration of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but that more transparency and accountability undoubtedly will improve the state’s prison system.

“It is important that legislators understand the consequences of all the increased sentencing, mandatory imprisonment, reduction of good time and other tough-on-crime policies that they use to get re-elected,” she said, noting also that limited knowledge comes from walking through a prison on one tour.

“For example, you can’t see the effects of long-term segregation and isolation. You can’t see how long people have been in solitary confinement or their mental-health histories,” she said. “This takes more in-depth reporting, and news media historically has not shown that commitment.”

Aug. 9, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Pat Quinn’s office continues to withhold emails that could shed light on whether his staff moved the location of a southern Illinois news conference to avoid protesters.

Even so, his spokeswoman says he remains committed to the issue of transparency in state government.

One document his office released Wednesday, apparently an exchange of emails, is completely censored — or “redacted.” Officials blacked out even the dates and times of the emails and the names of the senders and recipients.

“This is the most redacted email I’ve seen,” said Esther Seitz, a media law attorney in Springfield. “I’ve seen an email where at least the subject and the ‘from’ and ‘to’ lines were disclosed, but the content of this email was blocked in whole.

“Pretty much, (the governor’s office is) withholding the entire document. I don’t see why they’re giving you that email at all. There’s no point.”

Among other things it’s apparent officials redacted the location of the news conference even though the address was provided to reporters ahead of the event. They also redacted the location in a news story emailed by a staffer, saying it was personal information and therefore exempt under the state’s open-records law.

Quinn has long championed openness and transparency in state government.

“Since taking office, Gov. Quinn has improved ethics and increased government accountability and transparency in Illinois,” his spokeswoman, Brooke Anderson, said in an email Thursday night. She cited three websites he launched — data.Illinois.gov, appointments.Illinois.gov and accountability.Illinois.gov — that allow taxpayers to search a variety of information about state agencies, state commission memberships, state expenditures and payroll information.

Illinois Watchdog, formerly Illinois Statehouse News, in July sought access to communications among Quinn’s staff and others about his July 16 appearance at a Waltonville farm in southern Illinois.

Rumors abounded that the governor’s staff changed the location of the news conference to dodge state workers and families who intended to protest his plan to shutter state facilities. The governor’s spokeswoman denied the rumors.

Illinois Watchdog sought correspondence between July 12 and 17.

In a July 26 reply, Benno Weisberg, an attorney and the governor’s Freedom of Information Act officer, said 10 emails were found pertinent to the FOIA request but that they were being withheld in their entirety. He cited an exemption in state’s open-records law that allows officials to withhold “preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated.”

On Wednesday, Weisberg sent a follow-up response to Illinois Watchdog, saying five additional emails were found. Three of them contained the text of news articles about Quinn’s appearance that were emailed among his staffers. Nothing was redacted from those documents.

A fourth document is an invitation from the governor’s staff to a local public official to attend the event. The official sent a brief response, and there was apparently further correspondence, but that, too, is redacted. Also blacked out in the exchange was the address of the Laird family farm in Waltonville, where the news conference was to take place. The address of that farm, 6326 E. Elm St., was identified in the governor’s public schedule released the day before the event.

A fifth document, identified as “Bankers for Monday_Redacted,” is perhaps the most striking because it appears to be an email exchange that is almost completely redacted with black bars. Not blacked out is what appears to be an initial email that contains a news story about the event that was sent by a staffer to others. Again, the location of the Laird farm is blacked out.

Illinois Watchdog is appealing the governor’s decision to withhold any documents related to the request.

Seitz said the “preliminary drafts” exemption of Illinois’ FOIA law is overused because it is vague and there isn’t much case law to help public officials know when to cite the exemption.

“What really is preliminary or non-final, and what really concerns policy? You can construe that very broadly, and that’s why public bodies tend to overuse that exemption,” she said. “I think withholding, literally, an entire email and providing such a cursory reason why that exemption is being invoked here, you’re really left with no check on why the governor’s office used that exemption.”

Aug. 2, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Prison lockdowns and inmate assaults are nothing new in the Illinois prison system. What is new, three longtime observers say, is the public-relations battle that has heated up between the state and the union representing corrections workers.

A volley of news releases and leaked memos since mid-July stemming from Gov. Pat Quinn’s plan to close two state prisons has surprised experts, who the dust up distracts from major flaws in the state’s prison system, including overcrowding, understaffing and cuts to programs for inmates.

“There is increased tension, so there’s an increase in prisoner-on-prisoner fights, but that’s because it’s hot. And the prisons have been on lockdown and they’re overcrowded, and there are no programs left so everybody is sitting in their cells. So there’s a good story here, but it’s not the one being told,” said Alan Mills, legal director of the Chicago-based Uptown People’s Law Center, a nonprofit legal center that handles cases on behalf of inmates.

Recent inmate assaults on both guards and fellow inmates — brought to light by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the union representing prison employees — are tied to the impending closures because prisons already are overcrowded, the union contends. Consolidating inmates will make matters worse, it says.

At a July 19 rally in Springfield, prison employees described a spike in inmates punching, spitting on and biting guards, saying the incidents worsened in recent years because of overcrowding. And a July 24 report documented what a union representative described as “a riot,” fueled by understaffing and overcrowding, at a minimum-security prison in East Moline during a power outage.

Mills has monitored the state prison system for more than 20 years, and he questions why the assaults suddenly are being publicized, when they are the norm, for many reasons, in prisons.

“I’ve been disturbed by the lack of any sort of skepticism on behalf of the press. I don’t see how you can report that anytime there’s an assault it must be related to closing a correctional institution without asking for somebody to prove it. Anytime there’s an incident in any prison … the union puts out a press release,” he said. “Things are terrible, but it has nothing to do with prison closures.”

The Illinois Department of Corrections, meanwhile, ordered a pat-down search of employees as they left their shifts at more than a dozen prisons around the state in July. The union asserts the searches were retaliatory and meant to intimidate whistleblowers. A corrections spokeswoman denied the claim, saying employee searches can occur at any time.

In addition, there have been reports that corrections officials took fans away from inmates, who sit in stifling, un-air-conditioned cells. The heat was a factor in at least one inmate death, according to reports. Corrections officials said fans were removed because parts could be used to make weapons.

And a corrections official tried to stop a newspaper reporter from writing a story about transferring some inmates out of state, telling the reporter that naming them would endanger guards and inmates.

“If you proceed to disclose any information in your possession on this subject beyond yourself, the department will view your actions as attempting to promote disorder within the prison system,” the official wrote.

The tit-for-tat can be confusing for taxpayers, most of whom have little interaction with the prison system and are trying to make sense of Quinn’s plan and the union’s objections, experts say.

Laurie Jo Reynolds, who has taught at Columbia College in Chicago and is the organizer of Tamms Year Ten, a grassroots campaign to educate people about the effects of long-term prison isolation, said the incidents are being used to bolster the argument that no prisons should close.

“I think it deceives the public about what the true issues are. It confuses the public, and it makes it harder for the governor, the (Department of Corrections) and anyone else to pursue evidence-based public policy,” Reynolds said.

“They are creating an environment of scare tactics and fear mongering,” she said. “We all need to work together to reduce overcrowding, and everybody needs to buy into true evidence-based policies to reduce prison populations. But they’re creating such a polarized political environment, it’s not good for the dialogue and it’s also not good for the policies.”

The John Howard Association of Illinois advocates for humane conditions in the state’s prisons, as well as for addressing overcrowding and reducing recidivism. The organization does regular inspections of the state’s prisons, documenting conditions and interviewing staff and inmates.

Executive director John Maki said there is much at stake in the closure debate occurring this summer.

“It’s good for people to argue … but at the end of the day we still have to move forward. What I would hate to see is for these arguments and battles to poison the well, because we definitely need to go back to that well and find ways to reduce our prison population,” he said.

“What we’re seeing here is decades of asking the system to do more than it can possibly do with the amount of resources we’ve given it,” Maki said. “Everyone is feeling that — from the administration to the staff to the inmates. The answer isn’t to have more staff. The answer is to do what other states have done, which is to reduce the prison population.”

Maki, who said the association does not want to get caught in the middle a dispute between prison staff and the governor’s administration, admitted it may be difficult for Illinoisans to decipher what is going on right now.

The prison system really encapsulates the state, he said. Prisons are located throughout Illinois and are populated and staffed by people from throughout Illinois. And the state’s complicated cultural and economic relationships are playing out in the prison debate right now, he said.

“The average citizen should keep in mind that it’s in everyone’s interest to have the most effective prison system possible, but also because we spend more than a billion dollars a year on this system,” he said. “As all these battles are getting played out, citizens should be asking how does this help what we all care about – safer communities and a safer state.”

July 27, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Whether  Gov. Pat Quinn’s staff moved the location for a southern Illinois news conference to avoid protesters remains a mystery.

The governor’s office Thursday denied a Freedom of Information Act request by IllinoisWatchdog.org, formerly Illinois Statehouse News, about planning for the event, held earlier this month.

Watchdog asked for “any and all correspondence to and from governor’s office employees regarding the governor’s appearance in southern Illinois on July 16.” This included correspondence for July 12-17.

Watchdog wants to know if  the news conference was moved from a Waltonville farmstead to a field several miles away, with local police monitoring the entrance.

Rumors abounded that the governor’s staff moved the location to dodge state employees, family members and others protesting Quinn’s plan to close several state facilities in southern Illinois, including prisons and centers for developmentally disabled people.

Quinn’s spokeswoman, Brooke Anderson, denied the rumors.

Benno Weisberg, an attorney and the FOIA officer for the governor’s office, denied the records request. In a letter, he said staff found “approximately 10 emails responsive to your request,” but that they were being withheld in their entirety.

Weisberg cited a FOIA exemption that allows officials to withhold “preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated.”

The denial will be appealed to the Illinois attorney general’s public access counselor.

Don Craven, a Springfield attorney who specializes in open government matters, said the “preliminary drafts” exemption to Illinois FOIA law is overused and that attempts to get lawmakers to rein in the exemption have been unsuccessful.

The justifiable purpose of the exemption, he said, is to allow staff members debating policy to be candid as they’re discussing the nuances of a particular issue.

“It’s got nothing to do with frantic emails or texts among the governor’s staff about where to set up a podium so he doesn’t have to look at state-employee protesters,” Craven said.

“Pat Quinn from four years ago would have demanded that those very documents be released. Pat Quinn from 20 years ago would have demanded that those very documents be released. Those are precisely those kinds of documents that the taxpayers are entitled to see.”

July 25, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Crop insurance — not disaster aid — will cover the losses of most Illinois grain farmers hurt by the summer’s severe drought.

Even so, the state’s taxpayers will be on the hook for millions of dollars – billions nationwide – because of a flawed program that has quietly mutated since 2000, one environmental watchdog group says.

“There’s really a lot of smoke and mirrors behind this crop insurance program,” said Craig Cox, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, which tracks farm subsidies. “We’re growing more and more concerned about who is this program being designed to benefit – crop insurers and farmers, but certainly not taxpayers.”

Gov. Pat Quinn is seeking disaster designations for most of Illinois, because of the drought. Illinois has had the warmest first half of the year on record, and rainfall is at least seven inches below normal levels.

Twenty-six counties already hold the disaster designation. Quinn asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to add 69 counties to the list, meaning farmers in most of the state’s 102 counties would be eligible for loan programs through the USDA.

Congress no longer authorizes the ad hoc disaster programs of old, which sent billions in one-time cash payments flowing into the countryside. These days, lawmakers must find cuts elsewhere in the federal budget to pay for such programs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture can provide low-interest loans and other conservation programs to help farmers.

Loans, though beneficial for emergencies, really aren’t much help to farmers hurting because of drought conditions, which occur gradually, said John Hawkins, spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau.

“Floods happen right now. You’ve got a lot of damage that you have to get rid of like sand in fields and trees and debris. That’s something (in which) you can bring a bulldozer down, and trucks,” Hawkins said. “But with drought, it’s such a slow process because it happens over a series of months that it just kind of creeps up on you, and by the time you figure out ‘I’m really in trouble,’ it’s already too late.”

That’s where crop insurance, which about 80 percent of Illinois farmers have, comes in.

But it doesn’t work like traditional home or auto insurance policies, in which a person or a business takes out a policy, experiences a problem, has an adjuster examine the damage and receives a check to cover that damage based on the limits set when the policy was purchased. Major changes to the crop-insurance program in 2000 have taxpayers picking up more of the tab, Cox said. They pony up millions to help cover premiums, administrative costs and revenue guarantees.

For example, Cox said:

• Taxpayers cover about two-thirds of the premiums for crop insurance policies. The cost to taxpayers has grown from $1.5 billion a year in 2002 to $7.4 billion last year, he said, citing USDA figures. Plus, taxpayers foot another $1.3 billion a year for overhead costs for the insurance companies, such as administering the policies, adjusting the policies, examining the crop losses and more.

• Taxpayers, not the crop insurance company that sold the policy, are on the hook for most of the payout when a farmer suffers a loss. Cox said the formula used to determine the risk sharing on policies is complicated, but the bottom line is as the losses get bigger, the taxpayer pays more. “And when losses get really big, like they’re likely to be this year because of this horrible drought, taxpayers are going to end up on the hook for the vast majority – over 90 percent – of the loss,” he said.

• The latest crop-insurance policies, which are the most popular policies in the Corn Belt, have something called “revenue protection,” insuring a crop based on dollars per acre instead of bushels per acre. The insurers may have no idea how much a farmer gets for his crop at the end of the season, but they pay out an amount based on the insurer-established harvest price and the actual yield. If it’s less than the per-acre guarantee established when the policy was taken out, the company pays the difference.

• In addition, these revenue-protection policies allow the guaranteed payment to be adjusted according to grain-price fluctuations. If the price of corn or soybeans, for example, rises during the growing season, the policies calculate the guarantee based on the highest price.

“That’s turned crop insurance on its head,” Cox said.

“It’s no longer simply protecting a farmer from a loss of yield. It’s now protecting the farmer against a loss in yield, a drop in prices or a combination of the two. Taxpayers pick up a big chunk of that premium. And so these policies have become insanely popular. It’s really hard to find a corn or soybean farmer that still insures his or her crop with an old-fashioned yield-protection policy.”

The cost to the government for the crop insurance program in Illinois between 1995 and 2011 was more than $1 billion, according to figures from the Environmental Working Group based on USDA data.

Think taxpayer dollars here.

The reality, Cox said, is that disaster assistance really isn’t needed for grain farmers.

“If that farmer loses his entire crop, he’s going to get more money from the insurance policy than he expected to get if he saw no loss in yield at all and sold his entire crop under the insured price when he bought that insurance policy,” Cox said.

Not necessarily so, Hawkins said, noting not every farmer will be made whole by their crop insurance. The goal is to at least get them some money so they can start again the next year.

Food is a national-security issue, he said.

“If you don’t have somebody raising it, we’d be in a world of hurt. Farm programs are there to ensure that we have an affordable, safe food supply. I think if you did away with disaster aid or some of the other, even crop insurance, you would insert an extremely high level of volatility on farm owners,” he said.

“If we have another year like this, you’d probably have a lot of people just get out of the business. People wouldn’t be very eager to enter (farming) either, because of the investment and time. Whenever you have a disaster like this you’re always glad there is crop insurance or some kind of cushion there that farmers can depend on to get them through the short times so that when we have normal crops we’ll still be there.”

Any business, particularly farming, is inherently risky. Typically.

But in this case, it’s the taxpayers who will pay. Again.

It could be a record year for insurance payouts because of the drought, which stretches across much of the country. Estimates run from nearly $20 billion by the chief economist for the USDA to $40 billion by the president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, Cox said. No one will know until the harvest is in and the insurance companies make their payments.

Illinois is nowhere near the top of the heap when it comes to total crop-insurance costs by state. At $902 million, it ranks 16th. Texas’s costs are $7.8 billion. Also in the top 10: North Dakota, Kansas, South Dakota, North Carolina, Minnesota, Oklahoma, California, Missouri and Georgia.

In terms of disaster assistance, Illinois received $318 million between 1995 and 2011. The largest amount of disaster money funneled into Illinois came in 2010, when farmers received nearly $61 million. The smallest amount – $21,000 – came to the state in 1998.

In 2011, disaster payments for Illinois totaled $45.2 million, coming in sixth among states last year, behind Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Kansas and Montana.

During the severe drought of 1988, most farmers did not have crop insurance and relied heavily on government disaster aid. Hawkins said this summer’s drought is the first real test of the crop insurance program in Illinois.

Cox agreed.

“There are very few people who have taken the time to really dig into what the crop insurance program has become since that 2000 act. This has happened very quietly,” he said. “This year, with this drought and these huge payouts and the way these new-fangled policies work, it may indeed draw a lot of attention.”

The Environmental Working Group supports crop insurance, Cox said, but the organization questions how much taxpayers should be responsible for and why taxpayers should be on the hook for the costs. It’s OK for taxpayers to compensate farmers for a significant loss in yield, but that’s about it, he said.

“We think lawmakers ought to just be really smart about what they do in response to this drought,” he said.

“Assistance really needs to go to the people who are really hurting, and we shouldn’t simply do one of these disaster programs that sends money out willy-nilly, regardless of whether it’s going to someone who is already going to be made more than whole by crop insurance, or whether it’s going to a livestock farmer that’s really facing the potential financial viability of their operation.

“Disaster assistance ought to be really carefully targeted to those producers who really need it.”

July 19, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Indicted state Rep. Derrick Smith will be on the ballot come November.

His challengers? Well, no one knows for sure.

Objections are pending for the filing petitions of all three challengers for the incumbent’s seat.

In an ironic twist, no objections were filed against the petition for Smith, who may be kicked out of the House in the coming weeks. His paperwork was filed in November.

One challenger, Lance Tyson, appears poised to give Smith a run for his money in November.

Tyson is a Democrat – just like Smith. Both are black candidates in a predominantly black, predominantly low-income but historically well-organized 10^th House District on Chicago’s west side.

Here’s the rub: Tyson has the backing of the state’s Democratic machine – something Smith had until after the primary election. But the word “Democrat” won’t come after Tyson’s name on the November ballot.

Things get even trickier, as voters will have to know to look for “Unity Party,” the party Democrats set up when they chose to run Tyson against the embattled Smith in an effort to retain control of the seat.

That could be a problem for Democrats, one Illinois political observer said.

“Tyson is favored to win, even though the Democrats will have to do considerable work to make sure the voters in the district know the true Democratic candidate,” said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a former Chicago alderman.

Simpson said Smith automatically will get 10 percent to 20 percent of the vote from people who don’t know any of the candidates but want to vote Democrat, as well as from those people aware that Smith is — or was — a legislator for a little more than a year.

“My assumption is Smith isn’t going to campaign because he’ll be busy fighting his corruption charge. He hasn’t been much of a state legislator, so I don’t expect him to be much of a campaigner,” he said.

Tyson is a well-connected Chicago attorney with ties to both former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley and former Cook County board president Todd Stroger. Campaign filings this week show no donations yet to Tyson’s campaign. He used just more than $2,600 of his own money for mailing services, office supplies and travel.

But White is hosting a fundraiser for Tyson on Tuesday at 312 Chicago, a restaurant in the Chicago Loop. An individual ticket is $150. And the list of endorsements on Tyson’s site already includes numerous politicians, such as White, various Chicago aldermen, Cook County officials and two state representatives, Daniel Burke and Jack Franks, both Chicago-area Democrats.

Smith’s campaign filings this week show he had about $42,000 in his campaign fund at the end of June.

“Smith really has no chance of getting re-elected,” said Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois-Springfield. “He has no support from the Ward organizations in the district and will not be able to raise any money from interest groups, who will not want to have their names on campaign disclosure documents as having given him money.”

It’s not too late for Tyson to make up the fundraising difference, Simpson said, noting that most political campaigns don’t start until around Labor Day, when voters become more focused.

Calling Smith “an embarrassment to the Democratic Party,” Simpson said the real issue is whether Democrats will help Tyson raise money.

“Will Tyson be able to use his contacts with corporations he developed from the time he was in the county board office as chief of staff? Will any political figures, like Rahm Emanuel, endorse him?” he said. “All of that is still to be seen.”

Smith’s Republican challenger is Kimberly Small, a moderate and a businesswoman. No records could be found about her campaign at the Illinois Board of Elections.

Joseph W. Sneed Jr. is running against Smith as an independent. His last campaign filing was in March for the quarter ending Dec. 30. At that time his fund had $128.

Redfield said the House no doubt will vote to expel Smith.

“The Ward organization and Jesse White’s organization will provide all the ground troops and money that the ‘independent’ candidate will need to win,” he said.

Smith, who has been in Legislature just more than a year, is accused by federal prosecutors of accepting a $7,000 bribe in connection with his job as a lawmaker. A bipartisan committee of his House colleagues on Thursday voted to recommend he be kicked out of the House. Only one, Rep. Al Riley, D-Olympia Fields, voted against the recommendation.

The matter now goes to the House for a vote and must have a two-thirds majority to pass. Lawmakers could be called back for a special session to vote, but it is unclear when that might occur.

“I would think the general mood and interest of the House of Representatives would be to dispose of whatever recommendation the committee makes as soon as possible,” Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, said Wednesday.

If lawmakers vote to remove Smith from the House, they would be kicking him out of the 97^th General Assembly, which adjourns later this year. The 98^th General Assembly convenes in January. That means Smith, if re-elected in November, could reclaim his seat in the House then. Nothing prevents a legislator who has been expelled from seeking re-election, and lawmakers cannot expel a colleague more than once for the same offense.

Simpson said he expects the House will vote to expel Smith.

“It’s in many ways a pretty standard corruption case, particularly because the prosecutors do have him on tape,” he said. “And, obviously, all the political figures believe it to be true. If there was a doubt about him being guilty, they wouldn’t be backing a candidate to run against him. They would give him the benefit of the doubt.”

July 16, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

WALTONVILLE – Farm families are “our families, our neighbors” and are owed “an eternal debt of gratitude,” Gov. Pat Quinn said Monday in a brown, drought-stricken field in rural Jefferson County.

Meanwhile, workers and families affected by upcoming state facility closures lined the entrance to a farm where reporters and others gathered before driving several miles to a remote field for a news conference.

Quinn did not stop to speak with the protesters, which included both prison and developmental center employees, as well as families who have relatives who use the facilities slated for closure, according to Ed Caumiant, regional director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.

A police officer turned away the protesters when they showed up at the entrance to a dirt lane that led to the site of the news conference.

“I think it’s, frankly, kind of cowardly to play hide and go seek with your event just to avoid people who have something to say,” Caumiant said.

Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said rumors the location for the news conference was changed to dodge the protesters were incorrect.

“The farm today was selected because the owner volunteered it to allow us to inspect the damage and make the relief announcement,” she said.

Quinn was in southern Illinois to announce a series of assistance programs that will be made available to farmers who have corn crops damaged by the extreme heat and lack of rain.

Unions and lawmakers representing workers affected by the closures have asked Quinn to reconsider. The General Assembly included enough money in its budget to fully fund their operation and save jobs, they argue.

Quinn, a Democrat, said the closures will go forward, noting that some of the facilities are only half full.

“We are not building prisons or any center for the sole purpose of employment. We have to understand the common good comes first,” Quinn said.

“In our state, the Legislature funded those particular institutions, but they underfunded our Department of Children and Family Services, and we cannot have that. We cannot have abused children in dire straits.

“I have to make decisions, many times very difficult, but I make those decisions on behalf of the common good, and I stick to them.”

Monday was Quinn’s first appearance outside of the Chicago area in about a month. That also is roughly the last time it rained in Waltonville field where the news conference took place. The area received sixth-tenths of an inch on June 11, Quinn noted Monday.