Week of January 11, 2010

This week, the General Assembly returns to Springfield on January 12th for two days. There are several committees scheduled for January 11th and there will be session on Tuesday and Wednesday, January 12th and 13th. As always, you can follow the proceedings via the Internet by going to www.ilga.gov and clicking on the “audio-video” link under House. There is also a complete copy of the spring legislative calendar linked to that site. The January session was scheduled to be for three days originally, but the Thursday January 14th date was cancelled. Remember, after these two days, the General Assembly will not be scheduled to meet until after the Primary Election February 2nd.
It appears that the highlight of the two day January session will be the Governor’s “State of The State” address which will be delivered by Governor Quinn on Wednesday, January 12th at Noon from the House Chambers. You can listen into the speech live at the link referenced earlier.
The governor certainly has a difficult speech to deliver. At this time, the state is almost 6 months behind on some bills and at least 92 days behind on paying bills. Last year at this time, the state was 48 days behind. Also last year at this time, there were around $1.8 billion in unpaid bills backlogged at the Comptroller’s office, a year later there are over $5.1 billion in backlogged obligations. When you add to that the fact that beginning in March the state must repay $2.25 billion plus interest in short-term loans that were issued to address the FY2009 budget problems, well it is an understatement to refer to our economic situation as merely a crisis.
Governor Quinn has proposed for a long time that the answer to our economic problems is an increase in the income tax from three percent to five percent along with new sales taxes on many services. He has also proposed that Illinois continue the practice of not making the full actuarially calculated payment to the state’s five pension plans and just pay normal costs. It will be interesting to see if he changes course somewhat in light of continuing high unemployment reports. Most economists believe that raising income taxes during this recession is a mistake and could slow any signs of economic recovery.
Last week, I asked for your input regarding the possible sale of the Thompson Correctional Facility to the federal government in order for the site to be used as a combination Federal maximum security prison and Department of Defense compound to house Gitmo detainees. I had a lot of input regarding the issue and I thank all who took time to e-mail, call or write. As expected, the responses were mixed. The jobs aspect was a major consideration for many who thought the idea should be given a chance and the fear of housing terrorists was the number one concern of those opposed. So, it seems that if we could sell the prison for housing federal maximum security inmates only, most opposition would go away. Of course, that will not happen. Last week, an influential government panel approved the closing of the facility as a state operated entity and that would seem to clear the way for Governor Quinn to move forward.
Of course, there are several more steps that would take place before the sale is finalized and the federal government would have to come up with the money for the purchase. In the meantime, keep those comments coming in.
Finally, one piece of legislation that might be considered this week is an attempt to reform the way teachers and principals are evaluated in Illinois which would require that teacher and principal evaluations include a component that measures student performance on statewide assessments. The legislation is part of the State Board of Education’s attempt to secure federal funds from the Department of Educations’ Race to The Top competition. The legislation would require the lowest performing schools in the state (mostly in Chicago) to include, by September of 2012, a significant portion of the final evaluation of a teacher to include consideration of how whether or not students scored well on assessments in the subject area taught by each teacher. Other schools in Illinois would also have to move to this type of evaluation system by the year 2016. The implementation would depend upon funding becoming available.
There are many details about the reform effort that are interesting and I have been very active in the development of the legislation. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about this proposal. It comes in the form of SB315 and could be up for a vote this week.
I have heard some very positive comments about the Fair Map Amendment that I wrote about recently. I fully support the concept of taking the mapping process out of the hands of politicians and putting the job into the hands of an independent commission. You can go to www.ILFairmap.com to read about the initiative. If you are willing to help, please let me know. We need an army of people who are ready to take their government back! You can write me at: P.O. Box 125, Hutsonville, IL 62433, call me at 618-563-4128 or 217-558-1040 or e-mail me at reddyunit1@aol.com. You can also read more on my web site: www.peopleforeddy.com or and follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RepEddy and www.tweetillinois.org.