Saturday, May 22, 2010
 
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Ill. House, Senate go into last week to finalize budget

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[May 22, 2010]  SPRINGFIELD -- The Illinois House has announced plans to return to Springfield on Monday, with lawmakers scheduled to work through Wednesday to pass a fiscal 2011 budget. The Illinois Senate will reconvene on Wednesday at 4 p.m. to consider the budget proposal.

InsuranceState Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, explained that the General Assembly has until midnight on May 31 to approve a budget by a simple majority vote. If a budget isn't accepted by then, a supermajority vote will be required before the budget can be approved.

Also this week, Illinois Auditor General William Holland recently released an audit of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's last year in office, which revealed a litany of problems related to the way his administration hired legal help.

According to the audit, Blagojevich spent millions of taxpayer dollars on outside lawyers instead of using attorneys who were already on the state payroll, which had been standard practice. The report also mentions that the former governor opted not to use the attorney general's office, often going around Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

Nor did he seek competitive bids for the legal services; more than $5 million of $7.2 million in contracts weren't competitively bid. In addition, Blagojevich reportedly used taxpayer dollars to hire lawyers for his own impeachment-related issues.

Additionally, in what was apparently an attempt to disguise the administration's growing legal costs, the Blagojevich administration distributed the bills among other state agencies. Holland said that out of the $7.2 million worth of legal work performed during Blagojevich's last year, the governor's office paid less than $22,000.

Burdening other agencies -- including the departments of Public Health and Transportation -- with the unrelated expense meant that the agencies had less money to spend on their own programs and services.

The list of offenses found by the audit confirms the astounding mishandling and mistreatment of Illinois government at the hands of Rod Blagojevich -- at the expense of Illinois taxpayers.

Another report, released by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, revealed that Chicago-area transit agencies, along with public community colleges and universities, counties and municipalities, spent millions in taxpayer dollars on lobbyists in fiscal 2009.

The ICPR facilitated an annual survey of local governments and public agencies and found that more than 119 governmental units spent over $6.3 million to hire more than 80 lobbying firms in the 2009 fiscal year. This figure is 23 percent higher than the first year the survey was conducted, in 2007.

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The top five lobbyist spenders were the Chicago Transit Authority, DuPage County, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, Metra, and the City Colleges of Chicago. Combined, these entities spent a total of $1.3 million, more than 20 percent of the total lobbyist costs identified.

As a result of the group's study, the ICPR is advocating an increase in the amount of lobbying information that is made public.

Additionally, the organization believes that there should be greater enforcement of the state's lobbying laws.

Finally, late last week Gov. Quinn signed Senate Bill 3004. This legislation ensures unemployed small-business workers will continue to receive COBRA health care insurance coverage and premium discounts provided under the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The new law applies to those who worked in a company with 19 or fewer employees, and it extends the insurance premium subsidy from 12 to 15 months. The legislation ensures that former small-business workers will be eligible for premium reductions for as long as the federal government has funds available. The law becomes effective immediately.

[Text from file sent on behalf of Sen. Larry Bomke by Illinois Senate Republican staff]

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