Posted on 06/25/2017 11:25:52 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
It's possible Illinois is about to come down with a statewide case of Seasonal Affected Disorder.
The season is construction, which an old joke says is one of two in Illinois. The disorder is the continuing one in Springfield, where the ongoing budget crisis is about to shut down road projects during the height of that season.
And the affected are everyone from officials who work to put needed projects together, to the drivers who have to negotiate construction zones and torn up streets.
In Aurora, workers last week got the barriers and cones out to reduce Farnsworth Avenue, near Mountain Street, to one lane in each direction, in preparation for replacement of a bridge, and three drainage culverts.
The project has been years in the making and would correct a place that suffers severe road flooding in heavy rains. As it is, the project was expected to take two years.
"But just when we're about to get started, this," Schroth said.
The project is set be halted because it has federal funds – as do most major construction projects – and money from the feds is generally administered by the Illinois Department of Transportation. If there is no budget as of July 1, IDOT cannot distribute the federal funds because the legislature cannot appropriate them.
There still is the possibility of a last-minute budget deal, or of stop-gap spending resolutions, as has happened the past two years. But the projects affected already have lost at least 10 days of work, because IDOT ordered them stopped as of June 16. Any work that's been done since then on any of the affected projects has been to get work sites stabilized for the shutdown, not to advance the projects.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
The state is unable to solve their pension problem, which is most of their problem. I used to work for a public employee union in CA, and in meetings with CALPERS they all had a good laugh that they didn’t have to be fiscally responsible because when the taxpayers couldn’t pay anymore, the federal government would have to bail them out.
Illinois is about to experience the perils of Democrat rule.
Yep, and a few years back we had a 26% increase in state income taxes.....drop in bucket.
The best thing for America (and Conservatives) would be a rapid string of state government bankruptcies, ending with a a major US Dollar currency crisis and Fed.gov default.
Sorry folks, there really is no other way - progressives and the left have control over government and society purely because they can create massive amounts of debt, and spend massive amounts of money, in a printed, unbacked currency.
Conservatives must stop playing the role of responsible bean-counters for the progressive-left’s crazy spending and social-engineering plans.
We are seeing it again with the debate over “reform” (forget about repeal now) of Obamacare
JUST SAY NO.
Illinois bonds hit hard after Medicaid ruling
Medicaid is unaffordable.
Maybe Illinois needs to look in the Good Book for the answers to their problems. . .they are turning to everything else but God.
Nehemiah 6:15-16
So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.
Holy cr@p.
Yup - or as Newt Gingrich once put it in reference to Bob Dole, "tax collector for the welfare state."
This is what happens when you dip into the funds that pay for the roads to pay off buddies. Eventually the money dries up.
Good luck with the state pensions.
Hahaha. Look inward. The voters elect LIBs. What do they expect? LOL
Thats not gonna help the rats come 2018.
How can we blame Trump
Workers’ comp fraud can’t be left on back burner, law firm argues
Politics
Ruth de Jauregui | Jun 26, 2017
The budget battle in the Illinois Statehouse has allowed workers’ compensation fraud to continue largely unchecked, the law firm Keefe, Campbell, Biery & Associates (KCBA) contends.
The Chicago-based law firm argues that Illinois has failed to provide the manpower and resources to effectively combat fraud, as the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Fraud Unit (WCFU) was reduced to two investigators in 2015 – an inadequate number to investigate the increasing number of complaints. While cases more than tripled that year, from 100 to 331, the unit accomplished only three convictions in 2015 and again in 2016.
KCBA points out that neighboring Ohio prosecuted approximately 132 cases, an average of 11 convictions per month. The American Insurance Association (AIA) agreed with KCBA’s argument.
“We think Illinois should do it tougher and bigger and bolder in pursuing workers’ compensation fraud,” Stephen Scheider, AIA’s Midwest region vice president, told KCBA, the firm said. “There’s certainly a lot more that can be done. When you look at states like Florida and Ohio, obviously they’re doing something right.”
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