 State 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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