* 12:40 pm - The House is now debating a proposal to inject some supplemental funding into IDOT’s badly frayed budget. This is a “clean” bill, unlike the Senate’s proposal, which directly tied funding for IDOT (and other stuff) to the passage of the governor’s health care proposals.
IDOT has exhausted its transfer abilities within its Road Fund budget, so this proposal would allow the department to transfer more money to pay for things like gasoline, etc.
Listen or watch at this link.
* 12:48 pm - The bill passed 108-0. It now goes to the Senate.
…Adding… The bill’s sponsor is Rep. Jay Hoffman, the governor’s House floor leader. It was just common sense to de-link IDOT’s money woes from the governor’s health care agenda. So, I, for one, am happy to see that that at least some semblance of common sense finally prevailed. I kinda doubt the disease will spread, however.
* 1:00 pm - Rising gas prices aren’t the only thing hurting the state’s budget…
Just as Illinoisans are pinching pennies at the grocery store, the fallout from rising food prices is hitting state government.
The cost of providing food to prison inmates, aging veterans and developmentally disabled residents at state institutions is on pace to be up by $7 million this year, according to a review of state payments to vendors.
That’s more than a 10 percent increase over 2006, when the state spent about $64 million on everything from corn flakes to green beans.
* 1:13 pm - I was hoping to get this list by now, but I need to move on to other tasks today, so here’s last night’s CBS 2 story on Todd Stroger that many of you have already heard about…
Stroger critics, who asked not to be identified, gave CBS 2 a printed list of more than 1,300 top county jobs, all of them exempt from laws against patronage. Many are filled by workers with ties to key Stroger allies including House Speaker Michael Madigan; Mayor Richard M. Daley and his brother, County Board Finance Chairman John Daley; County commissioners Jerry Butler, Bill Beavers and Robert Steele; and former 19th Ward Committeeman Thomas Hynes, a longtime Stroger family friend. […]
Laura Lechowicz Felicione, the daughter of a former commissioner is a “special counsel” at $160,000.
Bruce Washington ran Stroger’s father, John Stroger’s, campaign. He’s a capital planner at a $133,000.
Gene Mullins is a Stroger pal from elementary school. He’s a new media liaison at a $120,000.
…Adding… Greg Tejeda has more at Illinoize…
The logical next step would be “Exposing Daley.” If one is going to go after the governor and the county board president, then “getting” the mayor of Chicago would be the natural completion to the trio of political powerhouses.
Somehow, I doubt there will be any such report.
* 1:29 pm - More good government…
Auditor General William Holland found that Illinois ended each of the last three years with an average of $1.5 billion in unpaid bills.
He also found the Department of Healthcare and Family Services did a poor job of handling the bills it did manage to pay.
There was no clear system for deciding who got paid first. The state held bills for nearly two months before even starting the process of paying them.
Illinois could owe up to $$81 million in interest on overdue bills.
The summary digest is here, the full report is here.