Tag: Illinois

Jumping the COVID vaccination line: the next casualty of common sense – Wirepoints

Mary Pat Campbell
Jumping the COVID vaccination line: the next casualty of common sense – Wirepoints

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The state’s current vaccination category, 1B, includes the 1.9 millions over the age of 65, as well as the 1.3 million younger people who are first-responders or “essential workers” such as teachers, grocery store workers and transit workers. To date, about 150,000 Illinoisans aged 65 and over have been fully vaccinated, while nearly 390,000 residents aged 16-64 are already inoculated.

But groups both inside and outside that list have been demanding they take top priority. Everyone from politicians to teachers to bartenders to transit workers to librarians and more. That is patently absurd. There are a limited number of vaccines and if everybody is at the front of the line, then no one is. That’s why getting the elderly vaccinated has been so problematic.

…..

As long as we’re vaccinating the line jumpers who are younger than 60, we’re vaccinating the wrong people. Every needle in the arm of a younger Illinoisan – barring frontline health care workers – leaves an elderly Illinoisan at great risk.

Author(s): Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Publication Date: 22 February 2021

Publication Site: Wirepoints

WEAK ACCOUNTING STANDARDS ENABLE ILLINOIS BUDGET DEFICITS

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/weak-accounting-standards-enable-illinois-budget-deficits/

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Bad accounting has helped Illinois politicians avoid balancing the budget for 20 years, despite a constitutional requirement to pass a balanced budget each year. Government accounting standards that fail to offer transparency and accuracy in financial reporting have also contributed to the state’s $260 billion pension crisis, the primary reason Illinois has the lowest credit rating any state has ever received.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has proposed changes it calls “improvements” to the accounting standards for governments. However, watchdog groups such as Truth in Accounting have criticized the proposed changes and urged the adoption of more stringent standards that would require governments to balance their budgets the way most businesses are required to do. Illinois has grown accustomed to using lax accounting methods to hide its budget deficits, racking up debt year after year. The state’s taxpayers would benefit from tougher standards that impose fiscal discipline.

Author(s): Justin Carlson

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute

Illinois budget gimmicks continue; we have an opportunity to fix them!

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/illinois-budget-gimmicks-continue-we-have-an-opportunity-to-fix-them#new_tab

Excerpt:

Cash basis accounting allows governments to ignore long-term liabilities, such as the pension and health care promises they made to their government workers, teachers, and firefighters. It also allows governments to shift money around or borrow money to make the budget appear balanced. This method is so deceptive that the IRS does not allow corporations making more than $26 million per year to use it. 

In his address, Gov. Pritzker highlighted that the budget includes the “full required pension payments,” which amounts to $9.3 billion. These payments are based upon a pension funding scheme so outrageous that an SEC official called it a “balloon payment on steroids.” 

After the state was charged with securities fraud for making such claims in bond offerings, the state had to start being honest in its bond offering documents. In the official statement related to the Illinois General Obligations Bonds of October 2020 is the following quote: “The State’s contributions to the retirement systems, while in conformity with State law, have been less than the contributions necessary to fully fund the retirement systems as calculated by the actuaries of the retirement systems.” These actuaries say the amount required to properly fund the pensions is $14.5 billion, which is $5.2 billion higher than the amount included in the Governor’s budget.

Author(s): Sheila Weinberg

Publication Date: 17 February 2021

Publication Site: Truth in Accounting

ILLINOIS’ POOREST HIT HARDEST BY COVID-19 JOB LOSS, MANY STILL UNEMPLOYED

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-poorest-hit-hardest-by-covid-19-job-loss-many-still-unemployed/

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Illinois households earning less than $40,000 were four-times as likely to lose their jobs from February-April 2020 and nearly 11 times as likely to still be out of work compared to those earning $75,000 or more.

As Illinois tries to rebuild after the worst year for jobs in state history, low-income Illinoisans find themselves even farther behind than others. Job losses suffered during COVID-19 and state-mandated mitigation protocols disproportionately fell on these families.

Author(s): Vincent Caruso

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute

WEAK ACCOUNTING STANDARDS ENABLE ILLINOIS BUDGET DEFICITS

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/weak-accounting-standards-enable-illinois-budget-deficits/

Excerpt:

Bad accounting has helped Illinois politicians avoid balancing the budget for 20 years, despite a constitutional requirement to pass a balanced budget each year. Government accounting standards that fail to offer transparency and accuracy in financial reporting have also contributed to the state’s $260 billion pension crisis, the primary reason Illinois has the lowest credit rating any state has ever received.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has proposed changes it calls “improvements” to the accounting standards for governments. However, watchdog groups such as Truth in Accounting have criticized the proposed changes and urged the adoption of more stringent standards that would require governments to balance their budgets the way most businesses are required to do. Illinois has grown accustomed to using lax accounting methods to hide its budget deficits, racking up debt year after year. The state’s taxpayers would benefit from tougher standards that impose fiscal discipline.

Author(s): Justin Carlson

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute

No rating red flags stand out in Illinois’ proposed budget

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://fixedincome.fidelity.com/ftgw/fi/FINewsArticle?id=202102191505SM______BNDBUYER_00000177-bb7c-d32d-a5f7-bbfd87c10001_110.1#new_tab

Excerpt:

The prospects for new federal aid and a proposed budget that avoids negative rating triggers should preserve Illinois? investment-grade status, but neither moves the needle on the structural and pension albatrosses.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed $95.5 billion fiscal 2022 budget, with a $41.7 billion general fund, clears what was estimated late last year as a $5.5 billion gap, using higher revenue projections and a combination of structural and one-time maneuvers.

In addition to higher tax collections and federal Medicaid matching dollars now expected, the budget holds spending level to fiscal 2021. It raises about $900 million in revenue by curbing corporate tax breaks, keeps some funds earmarked for local governments, the capital fund, and transit agencies and delays repayment of some inter-fund borrowing. It does not rely on an income tax or other general tax increases and it does rely on more federal funds as they are not yet approved.

Author(s): Yvette Shields

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Fidelity Fixed Income

Great news in Illinois on COVID is going underreported, and so is the primary reason – Wirepoints

Mary Pat Campbell
Great news in Illinois on COVID is going underreported, and so is the primary reason – Wirepoints

Excerpt:

Vaccinations, obviously, are starting to make a difference. Over 2.1 million of Illinois’ 12.7 million people have had at least their first vaccination. That’s about 17% of the state.

But something far bigger is at work: the huge number of Illinoisans who have acquired natural immunity because they were already infected, mostly without knowing it. That’s probably over 7.6 million Illinoisans – about 60% of the state.

How can that be? It’s because the actual number of infections is about 6.5 for every reported case because most cases go unreported. That’s the current number used by Marty Makary, a professor at the John Hopkins School of Medicine, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week. Illinois has about 1.73 million reported cases, so you just multiply that by 6.5.

The virus, in simple terms, is finding nowhere to go. Far over half of its potential victims are either naturally immune or have been vaccinated.

Author(s): Mark Glennon

Publication Date: 21 February 2021

Publication Site: Wirepoints

‘Pension Spiking’ For D-86 Teachers Under New Pact

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://patch.com/illinois/hinsdale/pension-spiking-d-86-teachers-under-new-pact

Excerpt:

The Hinsdale High School District 86 board on Thursday approved a two-year agreement with the teachers union, including a “pension spiking” provision and relatively small pay raises.

The agreement is retroactive to the beginning of the 2020-21 school year. Over the two years, teachers are expected to see base salary increases amounting to 2.2 percent.

Under the agreement, the teachers will now get 6 percent annual increases in the last four years of their careers, up from the current 3 percent.

Author(s): David Giuliani

Publication Date: 29 January 2021

Publication Site: Patch

Lightfoot urges Pritzker to veto firefighters pension bill

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/2/18/22290071/chicago-firefighters-pension-bill-unfunded-liabilities-martwick-lightfoot-governor-pritzker-veto

Excerpt:

A bill that awaits Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s signature would boost pensions for about 2,200 active and retired firefighters, but Mayor Lori Lightfoot wants the governor to veto it. Sun-Times file photo

Mayor Lori Lightfoot is urging Gov. J.B. Pritzker to veto a bill boosting pensions for thousands of Chicago firefighters, arguing it would saddle beleaguered taxpayers with perpetual property tax increases and cripple a pension fund dangerously close to insolvency.

The bill, introduced by state Sen. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, a Lightfoot political nemesis, passed in the waning hours of the lame duck session and awaits Pritzker’s signature or veto.

It removes the “birth date restriction” that prohibits roughly 2,200 active and retired firefighters born after Jan. 1, 1966 from receiving a 3% annual cost of living increase. Instead, they get half that amount, 1.5% — and it is not compounded.

Author(s): Fran Spielman

Publication Date: 18 February 2021

Publication Site: Chicago Sun-Times

When it comes to pensions, we have crises of leadership on more than one front

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/when-it-comes-pensions-we-have-crises-leadership-more-one-front

Excerpt:

I’m not saying solving Illinois’ pension mess will be easy. It won’t. But dead silence surely won’t solve it. Voters hired Pritzker to fix problems. On this huge problem, he’s been a sad failure.

Which leads to pension story No. 2: That’s the utter turmoil that seems to have overtaken one of the larger public retirement systems in the state, the $11 billion Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund, which receives a nice chunk of Chicago homeowners’ property tax payments every six months.

When I last looked at the fund in October, its executive director and other key officials had just resigned, one commissioner had been censured by other board members, and board President Jeffery Blackwell was publicly complaining of an agency “culture of intimidation, intentional misinformation, discrimination, slander, misogyny, fear-mongering, blatant racism, sexism and retaliatory actions.” But interim Executive Director Mary Cavallaro said in a statement there was no reason to worry, and that “the fund is committed to ensuring financial stability, operational efficiencies and seamless service to members.”

Well, guess who now has resigned—with a blast? That would be Cavallaro. “I can no longer tolerate the chaos and toxicity of the boardroom, along with the vile disrespect and insults directed toward me, the leadership team and the hard-working staff of the fund by certain misinformed trustees,” she said in a letter to the board. “I have grave concerns about the ability of fund operations to sustain the continued loss of key staff members because of bad trustee behavior and poor board governance.”

Author(s): Greg Hinz

Publication Date: 18 February 2021

Publication Site: Crain’s Chicago Business

The pension front

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://capitolfax.com/2021/02/19/the-pension-front/

Excerpt:

There’s really nothing to strongly disagree with. The city has routinely moved the birth date restriction, but it’s been done in a way that the costs are not funded, which pushes the fund closer to insolvency. This bill would essentially take that routine practice, make it official and force the city to finally pay for it.

Author(s): Rich Miller

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Capitol Fax

MADIGAN WILL RETIRE WITH $2.9 MILLION PUBLIC PENSION AFTER CONTRIBUTING JUST $350,000

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/madigan-will-retire-with-2-9-million-public-pension-after-contributing-just-350000/

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Because of a pension sweetener for politicians that Madigan helped create, the former speaker’s pension will spike more than $66,000 the year after his first full year of retirement, then grow 3% each year thereafter.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan will start receiving $7,100 in monthly pension benefits starting in March, but just more than a year later his benefits jump 78% to $12,600 per month.

The next year will bring him $66,000 extra thanks to a special pension sweetener available only to politicians, which the former speaker helped pass. It was eliminated for lawmakers elected after 2002.

Author(s): Adam Schuster

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute