THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All...Assistant at IEMA made $48k per month...Slow first week of veto session...Harmon returns tainted red light cash
October 30, 2023
Good morning, Illinois.
Happy Monday, unless of course, you stayed up to watch the Bears lay an egg in LA last night.
This is that weird week in between the two weeks of veto session where stuff is simmering under the surface, but we really won’t see movement until next week when everyone goes back to Springfield. So, we’ll see what the week holds, won’t we.
The House and Senate return a week from tomorrow. Governor Pritzker doesn't have anything on his public schedule.
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YOUR MONDAY FREE FOR ALL
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Assistant in Illinois emergency agency quits amid questions over pay that peaked at $48K a month (Chicago Sun-Times)
Illinois taxpayers have been paying $28,000 to $48,000 a month for the executive assistant to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency’s director.
Between February and August, the assistant accounted for $240,761.30 in billings — double the salary of her boss, Alicia Tate-Nadeau, during that period.
Tate-Nadeau — appointed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in 2019 to lead the emergency agency overseeing pandemics, natural disasters and an influx of migrants — wouldn’t agree to an interview.
In response to questions about the costs, the state emergency agency’s spokesman, Kevin Sur, said the contractor, Amy Gentry, resigned effective Thursday and that a state employee hired as the director’s assistant but “temporarily assigned” elsewhere would return to her former $84,000-a-year post Friday.
Gentry has recently been paid $156 an hour through a set of massive contracts earmarked for Illinois’ COVID-19 response. Her total billings to the state emergency agency in other contracting roles through August top $1.03 million.
Time sheets show Gentry billed her time — as many as 350 hours a month — as “director support, Springfield/Remote,” or “Executive Assistant to the Director (Springfield/Remote), though invoices to the state define her pay rate and position as “Planner-IDPH” to “assist Illinois Department of Public Health on planning efforts.”
“It is because of Amy’s extensive knowledge on multiple gubernatorial disaster proclamations that we were able to address multiple issues/declared disasters and serve our agency and the people of Illinois,” Sur said. “Amy’s hours logged with our agency are reflective of her work, which have spanned multiple disasters.”
The state official who approved paying Gentry and the other contractors billing the state emergency agency by the hour is one of four staffers ousted earlier this year for reasons state leaders have repeatedly refused to explain, instead insisting that everyone resigned “for personal reasons.”
All four — forced to step down for “misconduct,” “conduct unbecoming” and “poor performance” — are barred from ever working for the state emergency agency again, their personnel files show.
Public records show they’ve worked closely with Tate-Nadeau at the state emergency agency and previously, too.
There’s something going on at IEMA and it’s going to take some digging.
First week of veto session wraps up with little legislative movement (Capitol News Illinois)
Lawmakers are heading back to their districts after three days of legislative session in Springfield this week that saw little movement on several major initiatives.
They will have a week off before returning to Springfield on Nov. 7 for the second of their annual two-week veto session during which they consider bills the governor vetoed since they last met in the spring.
When they return, they’ll consider measures including reforms to the state’s nuclear policy and a potential extension of a controversial tax credit program that funds private school scholarships.
In a 43-15 vote Wednesday, the Senate passed a measure sponsored by Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, that would require schools and state-run facilities like prisons to offer kosher and halal food options for those with religious dietary restrictions.
The bill, Senate Bill 457, mirrors a similar proposal from Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, D-Bridgeview, which Gov. JB Pritzker vetoed this summer due to technical concerns about the contracting language.
Rep. Larry Walsh, D-Elwood, announced Wednesday that he would not pursue a veto override vote for a policy that would have granted downstate electric utilities – notably Ameren Illinois – the “right of first refusal” for transmission line construction, allowing them to have first crack at the projects.
While there wasn’t a formal vote on the subject, advocates for the Invest in Kids tax credit program for donors to private school scholarship funds flooded the Statehouse this week to rally support for renewing the program before it’s scheduled to expire at the end of the year.
The program, which has been the subject of partisan debate for several years and was originally introduced as a concession to Republicans during the creation of the state’s evidence-based funding model for schools, was not extended during this year’s budget negotiations.
Hundreds of advocates – including school uniform-clad children and a few nuns – rallied inside the Capitol, with their loud chanting in the rotunda at times interrupting debate on unrelated bills inside the House chamber.
Senate President Don Harmon gives back red-light camera company’s campaign cash after Sun-Times report (Chicago Sun-Times)
Asked about accepting campaign contributions from a red-light camera contractor weeks after backing a bill prohibiting politicians from accepting money from the troubled industry, a spokesman for Illinois Senate President Don Harmon said this on Oct. 17:
“In the past 20 years, every single campaign-finance reform enacted into law has been an effort Senate President Harmon has sponsored, initiated or vigorously supported. He maintains the highest ethical standards and will continue to do so.”
Now, a little more than a week later, the spokesman says the campaign cash has been given back.
“They returned those two contributions,” the spokesman says, referring to Friends of Don Harmon for State Senate and the ISDF fund for Senate Democrats.
Each of those campaign funds is run by Harmon, D-Oak Park. Each accepted a $2,500 contribution from Redspeed Illinois on June 30, about six weeks after the General Assembly, with Harmon’s support, passed what was portrayed as reform legislation that banned political contributions from the red-light camera industry and company executives.
The legislation, signed into law July 28, was spurred by corruption scandals involving, among others, a now-former partner in SafeSpeed LLC who was charged with bribing politicians to benefit the business.
In 2016, a separate bribery scandal saw a former chief executive of Redflex Traffic Systems, the city of Chicago’s first red-light camera operator, get 30 months in prison for bribing a city official.
Harmon’s spokesman now says the Illinois Senate president’s acceptance of the Redspeed money was “an oversight” brought to light by a Chicago Sun-Times report. The money “has been returned; your story highlighted the issue.”
The spokesman won’t say who committed the oversight in accepting the money initially.
Related: Illinois lawmakers banned campaign contributions from red-light camera companies — then accepted them (Chicago Sun-Times)
LAST WEEK ON THEILLINOIZE.COM
Rep. Kelly Burke on Cancer, Leaving the House, and Priorities
Opinion: The General Assembly Should Do the Right Thing and Extend Invest in Kids
POLITICAL POTPOURRI
Donald Trump Jr. voices host of grievances during fundraising stop in Addison (Chicago Tribune)
Illinois cashes in with 3,000 jobs from Stellantis-UAW deal (Crain’s Chicago Business)
State estimates $1.3 billion drop in business taxes for local governments (Daily Herald)
Police called to high school after official alleges altercation with Sen. Willie Preston (D-Chicago) (Chicago Tribune)
‘Power and control’ frame Edward Burke’s legacy. A federal jury will soon decide that legacy’s ending. (Chicago Sun-Times)
Former deputy governor joins U of I's board of trustees (Crain’s Chicago Business)
Milan farmer Scott Crowl announces bid for 17th congressional district (Quad-City Times)
What to know about the Chicago Bears’ possible move from Soldier Field — and which other suburbs are vying for the stadium (Chicago Tribune)
Paxton Media Group Acquires The Southern Illinoisan Newspaper (WPSD-TV)
Editorial: Governor's plan makes wise use of consolidation for early childhood education (Daily Herald)
Editorial: Buck union pressure, extend scholarship program (Champaign News-Gazette)
Opinion: Lawmakers, keep moratorium on new nuclear power plants in Illinois (Chicago Sun-Times)
Opinion: Illinois can help small businesses avoid retirement savings crisis (Chicago Sun-Times)
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