CAPITOL RECAP: Governor's office gives glimpse into budget proposal

[February 11, 2021]  By Capitol News Illinois

SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker’s office says he will propose a budget with no tax increases for the upcoming fiscal year, and the deficit is now projected at about $2.5 billion less than previously thought.

The governor introduces his proposed budget each year, but lawmakers in the General Assembly have the ultimate say as to what funding gets appropriated. Pritzker is scheduled to outline his full budget proposal on Feb. 17 in a virtual message, although details have not been finalized, according to his office.

In a brief, 250-word outline of the upcoming fiscal year 2022 budget proposal, the governor’s office said the state will keep spending flat from a year ago while closing “corporate tax loopholes” worth $900 million. The outline did not identify any specific loopholes.

Pritzker’s office said the FY22 budget will continue to include $700 million in state government spending cuts his administration initiated this year upon the failure of the graduated income tax constitutional amendment.

Cigarette taxes would be moved into the general revenue fund as well, according to the outline. In 2019, the General Assembly increased the tax on a pack of cigarettes to $2.98, up from $1.98. The tax increase was to go to the state’s Rebuild Illinois capital infrastructure plan.

There would also be no new state funding for the evidence-based funding model for K-12 education, according to the outline.

The evidence-based funding model was passed in 2017 and called for an added $350 million in state investment in schools each year to be driven toward the districts that were furthest from funding adequacy based on a number of factors. But this year will mark the second straight in which the state did not direct any new money toward the formula.

In a bit of good news, the deficit for FY22 is now projected to be $3 billion, down from the $5.5 billion of previous estimates, as the state’s economy “performed more strongly than expected.” The governor’s office also cited his decision to expedite repayment of $700 million borrowed from the federal Municipal Liquidity Facility program as a contributing factor to the lowered anticipated deficit.

The new fiscal year begins July 1 and lawmakers generally look to pass the annual operating budget by the time of the scheduled adjournment of the General Assembly on May 31 each year.

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VACCINE PHASE EXPANDED: Gov. JB Pritzker announced Wednesday that the state plans to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to individuals of all ages who have comorbidities and underlying conditions by Feb. 25.

Speaking at a news conference in Quincy Wednesday, Pritzker said the expansion of eligibility under Phase 1B of the state’s vaccine distribution plan comes as a result of increased availability of doses at the federal level.

Pritzker said the expansion of eligibility would include individuals with comorbidities as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as diabetes, cancer, lung disease or heart disease.

According to a Wednesday news release from the governor’s office, areas that have “substantially completed” their existing Phase 1B population can move ahead with the vaccine expansion earlier than Feb. 25 at the determination of local public health officials and the Illinois Department of Public Health.

As of Wednesday, Illinois had administered over 1.48 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, equaling 69 percent of the 2.1 million doses allocated to the state thus far. A total of 62,923 doses were administered across the state Tuesday.

Pritzker said the state has secured a 5 percent increase in vaccines received per week from the federal government, and he expressed optimism that the state would continue to receive more vaccine doses as a result of increased production.

Pritzker praised President Joe Biden’s administration for invoking the Defense Production Act and said the White House also plans to launch a new Community Health Center vaccination program in the coming weeks to direct vaccines to populations “hardest hit” by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Senate Health Committee, chaired by Sen. Julie Morrison, D-Lake Forest, announced it would hold a hearing regarding the state’s vaccination efforts at noon Thursday, citing a need for “greater efficiency” in the rollout of the vaccine.

According to a news release, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike is expected to testify at the hearing, along with officials from the Chicago and Sangamon County health departments.

Representatives of Walgreens and CVS pharmacies are also expected to participate in the hearing. The companies are responsible for administering vaccines at long-term care facilities through the federal government’s Pharmacy Partnership program.

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COVID-19 UPDATE: The state’s seven-day rolling positivity rate continued to hold steady at 3.3 percent Wednesday, Feb. 10, as IDPH announced 2,825 new cases out of 82,885 test results. The positivity rate has not moved more than a tenth of a percentage point for the past week.

Public health officials announced 53 additional deaths due to COVID-19 Wednesday, bringing the statewide death toll to 19,739 since the pandemic began. Illinois has recorded over 1.1 million cases of COVID-19 to date.

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NEW HOUSE RULES: The Illinois House adopted new rules on Wednesday, Feb. 10, that Democrats say are intended to make the legislative process more transparent, but Republicans argue they don’t go far enough in reforming how the General Assembly operates.

House Majority Leader Greg Harris, D-Chicago, said the rules are “just a first step in reforming ways of the past and injecting more transparency and accountability, while ensuring our chamber operates effectively and fairly.”

One new rule limits any individual to serving no more than five biennial sessions, or 10 years, in either the office of speaker or minority leader. Madigan served in that role for all but two years from 1983 until this January.

Another major change allows legislative committees to meet and take votes remotely “in the case of pestilence or public danger.” The inability to meet virtually has been a handicap for the House since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which virtually shut down the 2020 regular session as well as the fall veto session.

House leaders have said they plan to limit most legislative activity to remote committee meetings at least through the end of February, and they don’t plan on the full House coming back into session to vote on bills until sometime in March or April.

Other changes are more technical in nature, but still important to the legislative process, including rules that apply to the Rules Committee itself. That’s a committee, usually made up of top legislative leaders, where all bills and resolutions go first and then get referred to other committees.

The committee also had the option of sitting on bills and not referring them to any other committee, thus ensuring they would never receive a hearing or come up for a vote.

Under the new rules, in odd-numbered years, the Rules Committee will be required to refer all House bills it receives to a substantive committee before the deadline for committees to act on bills, as long as the bill was filed in a timely fashion. Exceptions exist if the principal sponsor asks for it to be held for some reason.

Republicans, however, argued that the change would make little difference because individual committee chairs could still stifle legislation, either by never calling a hearing on a bill or by referring it to a subcommittee, which would be under no obligation to ever meet.

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UNEMPLOYMENT ISSUES: Representatives of the Illinois Department of Employment Security on Wednesday testified before the Senate Labor Committee about fraudulent claims, continued delays in responding to unemployment applicants and a multibillion dollar deficit in the fund that pays out benefits.

Acting Illinois Department of Employment Security Director Kristin Richards and members of the department’s staff fielded questions about the backlog that individuals face when they contact the agency with questions about their claims.

While the agency has seen fewer traditional unemployment claims, it has continued to see individuals file roughly 700,000 to 800,000 claims per month since August through the pandemic unemployment programs created through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and other federal programs. Those include the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, and the Extended Benefits program

IDES has put in place a callback system to reduce wait times for callers and a web form online for people to submit questions, but Richards said individuals still wait between one to two weeks for a call back from the agency, depending on the subject of the call.

Richards also announced during the virtual committee meeting that the department will begin to send out waivers next week to individuals who had received an overpayment of benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federally funded program providing unemployment benefits to gig workers and others not traditionally eligible for them.

By law, claimants who were overpaid benefits must repay the money they were not due under unemployment laws. The waiver authority provided in federal law allows the state to waive the repayment in certain circumstances if the overpayment was not the fault of the claimant.

The overpayment waivers are available through the federal Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act, or CAA, which was signed into law in December.

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CEJA REFILED: Lawmakers on Tuesday, Feb. 9, reintroduced the Clean Energy Jobs Act, or CEJA, which was originally introduced in 2019 as an overhaul of the state’s energy industry crafted with a focus on carbon reduction as well as social and environmental justice.

Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, House sponsor of CEJA, joined Senate sponsor Sen. Cristiana Castro, D-Elgin, and other advocates Tuesday in pledging to pass CEJA by the end of May.

The Future Energy Jobs Act of 2016 made clean energy one of the fastest growing job sectors in the state and laid the foundation for the future of energy efficiency in Illinois by creating renewable energy credits among other provisions. CEJA is an attempt to build on that existing legislative framework.

Over one year ago, in Gov. JB Pritzker’s State of the State address, he promised that he would prioritize clean energy legislation. But amid the ongoing bribery scandal and the COVID-19 pandemic, CEJA took a back seat to other matters in the General Assembly while advocates continued to push for passage of the energy overhaul.

Yet with the election of President Joe Biden, tackling climate change has become a national priority, and advocates say it’s the perfect time to put CEJA back in the spotlight in Illinois.

Advocates say CEJA would push for a “just transition” to renewable energy for communities affected by the closure of plants that not only provide jobs, but act as a tax base for school districts.

It would do so by creating Clean Jobs Workforce Hubs, which the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition describes as a network of frontline organizations that provide direct and sustained support for minority and disadvantaged communities, including job opportunities.

The 900-page bill, filed by Williams as House Bill 804, would increase development of renewable energy sources, such as wind turbines and solar power, by committing Illinois to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, cutting carbon from the power sector by 2030, reducing pollution from gas and diesel vehicles in the transportation sector, and creating jobs and economic opportunity across the state.

Although the original version of CEJA included provisions to protect consumers and prevent utility corruption, Williams said the bill now contains stronger language in response to the deferred prosecution agreement in which ComEd admitted to a yearslong bribery scheme aimed at influencing the state’s former House speaker, Michael Madigan.

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NEW GOP CHAIR: The Illinois Republican Party Central Committee on Saturday named Springfield attorney Don Tracy as its new chairman, replacing Tim Schneider, who had held the post for more than six years.

Tracy, a partner in the firm Brown Hay and Stephens, also served as chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board during former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration.

Tracy was chosen over two other candidates, Mark Shaw, who is the Lake County GOP Chairman and president of the Illinois Republican County Chairman's Association, and Scott Gryder, the Kendall County Board Chairman. Tracy is also the first party chairman since 1988 who is not from Chicago or the collar counties.

He now faces the challenge of unifying the state party organization, where divisions have erupted over the impeachment of former President Donald Trump.

On Thursday, two days before the chairmanship election, the state party issued a statement saying that while it strongly disagreed with U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger and other Republicans who voted for impeachment of President Donald Trump, “we will let the voters be the arbiters of any vote taken by an elected official.”

“The stakes of the 2022 election here in Illinois – defeating Gov. JB Pritzker and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, winning back congressional seats, and electing Republican judges to the Illinois Supreme Court – are too monumental to engage in a circular firing squad,” the statement read.

Republican U.S. Reps. Rodney Davis, Darin LaHood and Mike Bost all issued statements Monday praising the choice of Tracy as the new chairman.

“Illinoisans have had enough of the Democrats’ destructive policies in Springfield, and I know Don’s conservative leadership will help put the GOP on a path to help fix the many challenges our state faces,” Bost said in a statement. “I am excited to work with Don and unite our party for victory in 2022!”

Democrats, on the other hand, responded to Tracy’s election by criticizing his ties to both Trump and Rauner, and by criticizing his tenure as chairman of the Gaming Board.

Tracy served as chairman from February 2015 until June 2019 when he resigned following an Office of Executive Inspector General’s report that found he had engaged in improper political activity by making several campaign contributions while serving on the board, in violation of the Riverboat Gambling Act.

Capitol News Illinois file photo of Gov. JB Pritzker.

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SENIOR RACIAL DISPARITIES: The senior advocacy group AARP is backing forthcoming legislation aimed at addressing racial disparities in health care, economic security and digital connectivity for Illinoisans over 50.

AARP Illinois, alongside community advocacy groups such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Chicago Urban League and the Resurrection Project, released a report Monday analyzing substantial gaps between white Illinoisans aged 50 and over, and minority groups in that age range.

The research was conducted by Loyola University Chicago.

That report, as part of the “Disrupt Disparities Initiative,” provides several policy recommendations to be taken up as bills in the General Assembly to solve some of the challenges faced by older Illinoisans.

One of the policy recommendations under the subject of economic security is to expand the Illinois Secure Choice savings program, a retirement savings program for workers, to be available to workers at small businesses even if they have just one employee. Currently, businesses that do not provide a retirement plan for their workers are only required to enroll in Secure Choice if they have 25 employees or more and have been operational for two years.

Another policy recommendation to be solved via legislation is the expansion of eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit to include caregivers and adults who are 65 and over. According to the report, Black and Hispanic Illinoisans are overrepresented in low-wage jobs not covered by the EITC.

Sen. Jacqueline Collins, D-Chicago, said during a Monday news conference that the process of filing legislation initiating some of the changes is underway.

Many of the health issues highlighted in the report have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Black, Hispanic and Asian Illinoisans have died at rates higher than their share of the state population, and at higher rates than their white neighbors.

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NEW SENATORS: Two new Democratic Senators were sworn in Saturday, Feb. 6, to fill vacancies in the Illinois General Assembly.

Doris Turner, a former Springfield city councilperson, and Mike Simmons, former policy director for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, are also the two newest members of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus.

Simmons fills the vacancy left by former Sen. Heather Steans, who resigned at the end of January from her seat representing the 7th Senate District on Chicago’s north side.
 

He was chosen by the Democratic committeemen and committeewomen from the Chicago wards that comprise the 7th Senate District.

He is the first openly gay person to serve in the Illinois Senate, the first person of color to represent Chicago’s north side lake front district and first Ethiopian-American to serve in the General Assembly, Simmons wrote in a statement on social media.

Simmons is the founder and CEO of Blue Sky Strategies, a firm specializing in “equitable urban planning, youth empowerment, government accountability, and anti-racist public policy,” according to the website.

He also serves as the deputy director of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, an initiative of the Obama Foundation that seeks to build “safe and supportive communities for boys and young men of color where they feel valued and have clear pathways to opportunity,” the website states.

Before that, he worked as a deputy commissioner in the city of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development, and as policy director under Rahm Emanuel’s administration.

Doris Turner will finish out the term of former Sen. Andy Manar, who resigned last month as Senator of the 48th Senate District in central Illinois to take a job as a senior advisor for Gov. JB Pritzker.

She was appointed Saturday by the Democratic county chairs of the 48th Senate District. The 48th Senate District includes all or parts of Christian, Macon, Macoupin, Madison, Montgomery, and Sangamon counties.

She served on the Sangamon County Board before her election to the city council in 2011, and will step down from her role as Sangamon County Democratic Party chair, said Dan Kovats, who is first-vice chair of the Sangamon County Democratic Party.

Turner, out of eight total candidates, was the unanimous choice of the six county chairs on Saturday, according to a news release. Kovats was the Sangamon County chair proxy for Turner.

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INDOOR DINING LAWSUITS: Although the governor’s latest indoor dining ban has been lifted in all areas of the state, some lawsuits brought by restaurants challenging the ban remain active.

Among those are the cases filed by Tom DeVore, a southern Illinois lawyer who represents Sen. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, and advises hundreds of other business clients who are staying open during the pandemic.

DeVore has argued, on behalf of restaurants, that Pritzker lacks the authority under the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act – the statute through which the governor’s lawyers have claimed his authority is derived – to close businesses via emergency order. DeVore instead argues this power belongs to the Illinois Department of Public Health under the Illinois Department of Public Health Act.

This week, DeVore filed a motion asking a Sangamon County judge to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuits he initiated on behalf of two downstate restaurants against Pritzker and eight local health department officials in COVID-19 mitigation Region 4.

DeVore argues the lawsuits are no longer necessary, citing statements from health department officials from four of the eight health departments that they never enforced the executive orders because they lacked the authority to do so.

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EPA INVESTIGATION: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched an investigation into the Illinois EPA over whether the planned relocation of an industrial scrap shredder on Chicago’s southeast side unfairly discriminates against communities of color.

A complaint filed in December by a pair of local community advocacy groups accused the Illinois EPA of unfairly discriminating against majority Latino and Black communities in the area by allowing a construction permit to be issued to General III LLC for a scrap metal recycling facility.

The complaint, filed by attorneys for the Chicago Southeast Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke and the Southeast Environmental Task Force, spurred the EPA’s External Civil Rights Compliance Office to open an investigation on Jan. 25.

The facility’s owners, General Iron Industries and RMG Investment Group, filed an application in late 2019 to relocate an existing scrap recycling facility from its current location on the near north side in Lincoln Park to a location on the southeast side.

The proposed new facility would be located on the bank of the Calumet River about a mile away from the Illinois-Indiana border, and just a few blocks away from George Washington High School. The IEPA issued a construction permit for the location on June 25.

Community members and activists are accusing state and city authorities of not doing enough to protect vulnerable communities which are already dealing with environmental issues in the area, claiming the facility’s relocation to a predominantly Latino community is a clear example of environmental racism.

A pair of explosions at the Lincoln Park General Iron facility in May prompted the city of Chicago to order the facility’s temporary closure, the latest in a list of safety issues that has included fires, building code violations, and citations for noise complaints, improper storage of hazardous materials, and excessive air pollution.

A spokesperson for the U.S. EPA said that the agency’s External Civil Rights Compliance Office will serve as a neutral fact finder in the case and will compile relevant information from all involved parties and to inform their next steps.

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TRANSGENDER PRISONERS LAWSUIT: A federal district court in Southern Illinois denied a request Thursday from the Illinois Department of Corrections to dismiss a class-action lawsuit against the department for its treatment of transgender prisoners.

That case, Monroe v. Jeffreys, was originally filed in 2018 as Monroe v. Rauner by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of five transgender women in IDOC custody. According to the ACLU of Illinois, the prisoners have experienced “denials of basic medical treatment” and “inordinate delays” in care.

The case became a class-action lawsuit last year after the court certified transgender individuals in IDOC custody as collective plaintiffs.

The ACLU won a preliminary injunction in the case in 2019 when U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel ordered IDOC to reform its policies for dealing with transgender inmates. Prior to the ruling, IDOC was found to have used a “Transgender Care and Review Committee” to make medical decisions regarding trans prisoners, despite the committee having no members qualified for professionally treating gender dysphoria.

As a result, Rosenstengel’s order required IDOC to bring in qualified medical experts to develop care plans for transgender detainees based on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s standards of care, give inmates medical evaluations for gender dysphoria and provide monitored hormone therapy to transgender prisoners seeking to transition in custody.

IDOC’s attempt to have the case dismissed through summary judgment was based “in part on the efforts that have been made to comply with the preliminary injunction,” an argument the court rejected Thursday. Its opinion stated the defendants “have not yet implemented the policy changes they describe, and many practices which gave rise to this suit are still ongoing.”

Even though IDOC has not fully implemented every reform ordered in that 2019 injunction, the court issued a Jan. 6 opinion that “(IDOC officials) are indeed still working diligently to implement the Court's preliminary injunction order,” and acknowledged delays were unavoidable due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the court has denied IDOC’s request for a dismissal, it also denied the plaintiff’s request in January for an independent monitor to be appointed to oversee IDOC’s compliance with the mandated reforms.

A spokesperson for IDOC said the department could not comment on pending litigation.

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JOBLESS CLAIMS DROP: First-time unemployment claims in Illinois dropped sharply in the last week of January as most regions in the state slowly began reopening following the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security reported Thursday that 40,008 workers filed initial claims for regular unemployment benefits during the week that ended Jan. 30. That was a 58 percent drop from the previous week when 95,481 people filed claims.

Still, that number was more than four times higher than the same week a year ago, before the pandemic took hold in Illinois.

The four-week rolling average number of new claims also dropped 2 percent, to 81,476. But that was still seven times higher than the comparable period in 2020.

The Illinois job market also outperformed the U.S. labor market during the week. Nationwide, according to U.S. Department of Labor numbers, first-time jobless claims fell 2.8 percent, to 816,247.

For the week that ended Jan. 23, the number of Illinois workers receiving continuing unemployment benefits fell less than 2 percent, to 322,670. Nationwide, that number fell 2.4 percent, to just over 5 million.

The state’s overall unemployment rate for January won’t be released until later this month. In December, that rate climbed seven-tenths of a point, to 7.6 percent, which was more than double what it had been a year earlier.

Also in December, Congress passed the Continued Assistance Act, or CAA, which renewed two federally-funded unemployment programs that were set to expire at the end of that month. The act also provides an additional $300 per week in benefits, half the amount of supplemental benefits that had been included in the original Coronavirus Aide, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES Act. Those supplemental benefits had expired the week of July 25.

Another program the act renewed is the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA program, which provides benefits to independent contractors, self-employed individuals and others not covered by traditional state unemployment insurance. But state officials throughout the country, including Illinois, had complained that the initial program was fraught with fraud because it did not require applicants to verify their previous employment.

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OPIOID SETTLEMENT: The state will receive $19.8 million from a settlement reached Thursday between a coalition of attorneys general, including Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and the consulting firm McKinsey.

McKInsey has been investigated and sued by multiple states for its role in the opioid epidemic. The settlement, totaling $573 million, will be the first multistate settlement related to the opioid crisis to result in substantial payment, according to a Thursday release from Raoul’s office.

According to Raoul’s office, the settlement “will be used to abate and address the impact of the opioid epidemic throughout Illinois and the other participating states.”

McKinsey was sued due to its work for Purdue Pharma, the company behind the manufacture of OxyContin, an addictive opioid, which helped exacerbate the opioid crisis. The states’ investigation of Purdue found the company had implemented marketing schemes presented by McKinsey to target vulnerable populations and push physicians to prescribe more opioids for over a decade.

According to the settlement, when states sued Purdue Pharma in 2019, McKinsey partners attempted to destroy evidence of their work for Purdue. Along with the monetary payments, the settlement also requires McKinsey to prepare tens of thousands of internal documents relating to its work for Purdue and other opioid companies, investigate the partners responsible for the attempted destruction of evidence, implement a strict ethics code and end its consulting work for companies involved in the sale and manufacture of Schedule II and Schedule III narcotics.

Raoul reached the settlement alongside 52 other attorneys general for 46 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.