Today, Mary Lynne Paris will retire from The Arc. Mary Lynne and I have worked together for 35 years. To say I will miss here advise and council will certainly be an understatement. We will celebrate her retirement with a special lunch today!
Tomorrow I am back in Chicago. I will be a panelist along with Dr. Heller on Caregiving: The Politics, Ethichs, and Realities of Long-Term Care hosted by Health & Medicine Policy Research Group.
Friday I am taking some time off for a few days and will return around July 7th.
From The Morning Spin below.
Tony
All quiet on the budget front
By Kim Geiger
For the third week in a row, Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan has canceled a planned Wednesday session day in Springfield, saying lawmakers’ time would be better spent in closed-door working group meetings.
“The bipartisan working groups of legislators will meet three times this week, continuing their efforts to achieve a compromise on the state budget,” Madigan said in a statement. “Gov. Rauner has been supportive of these groups’ efforts, and I agree with his recent comments that until there is a compromise budget, lawmakers should not be brought back to Springfield.”
When Madigan canceled the session last week, Rauner was asked why he hadn’t exercised his power to call the General Assembly into a special session. The governor said then that it would be a “waste of time” to call lawmakers back “when they’re not ready to vote.”
Now he’s saying he’ll start “evaluating” his options, as just over a week remains before the state enters a new budget year, though that traditional deadline didn’t seem to matter much last year. The governor signed the schools budget and vetoed the rest.
This time around, Rauner wants lawmakers to approve a six-month spending plan to keep universities, government operations and human services afloat through the November election, and a full-year funding bill for K-12 public schools.
The short-term spending plan was first suggested by the governor on the final day of the legislative session, a few days after Democratic Senate President John Cullerton floated the concept and Rauner’s GOP legislative allies shot it down. Madigan handed it off to the working groups, which had been working on negotiating a larger budget compromise.
The governor now contends the working groups have been hijacked by Madigan, and he disputes the speaker’s claim that the groups are making progress.
“I believe what’s being done is the leadership on the other side of the aisle is using the working groups as an excuse not to do anything, to delay and create a crisis,” Rauner said Tuesday as he called on lawmakers to return to the Capitol and take votes on his short-term spending solutions.
Tony Paulauski
Executive Director
The Arc of Illinois
20901 S. LaGrange Rd. Suite 209
Frankfort, IL 60423
815-464-1832 (OFFICE)
815-464-1832 (CELL)
Tony@thearcofil.org