Believe the real news about this announce­ment is two things.

1) Illi­nois is about to issue $500 mil­lion in new bonds as part of the bud­get plans of Demo­c­ra­tic Gov­er­nor Pat Quinn — the lamest duck gov­er­nor in the coun­try.  This news will only effect the sale of them.

2) The Land of Lin­coln barely dodged the bul­let from drop­ping from an “A-level rated bond” to a “B-level rated bond.”

Illi­nois may have Chicago act­ing as a jobs mag­net to puff up its num­bers, but its rela­tion­ship with its pub­lic employee unions is the dark mir­ror of what Wis­con­sin has done since the enact­ment of Act 10.  Its bud­get is in chaos and a live-action train wreck for all the world to see.

Illi­nois fell to the bot­tom of all 50 states in the rank­ings of a major credit rat­ings agency Fri­day fol­low­ing the fail­ure of Gov. Pat Quinn and law­mak­ers to fix the state’s hem­or­rhag­ing pen­sion sys­tem dur­ing this month’s lame-duck session.

Stan­dard & Poor’s Rat­ings Ser­vice down­graded Illi­nois in what is the lat­est fall­out over the $96.8 bil­lion debt to five state pen­sion sys­tems. The New York rat­ing firm’s rank­ing sig­naled tax­pay­ers may pay tens of mil­lions of dol­lars more in inter­est when the state bor­rows money for roads and other projects.

“It’s absolutely bad news for tax­pay­ers,” said Dan Ruther­ford, the Repub­li­can state trea­surer.
Illi­nois received its bottom-of-the-pack rank­ing when it fell from an “A” rat­ing to “A-minus.”

That’s the same rat­ing as Cal­i­for­nia, but Cal­i­for­nia has a pos­i­tive out­look. Illi­nois’ frag­ile over­all finan­cial sta­tus net­ted it a neg­a­tive out­look, putting it behind Cal­i­for­nia over­all. The rat­ings came out now because Illi­nois plans to issue $500 mil­lion in bonds within days.

Exactly how much Illi­nois’ credit-rating slide ulti­mately will cost tax­pay­ers is unknown until the demand for the state’s bonds is mea­sured in the mar­kets. But Ruther­ford esti­mated the state will pay $95 mil­lion more in inter­est than if Illi­nois had a AAA rat­ing, which is much higher.

Even before the down­grade was revealed, Quinn said in Chicago the “pres­sure is higher than ever” to solve the pen­sion prob­lem because “credit rat­ing agen­cies are scream­ing at the top of their voice” for final action.

[…]

One other omi­nous point in the Stan­dard & Poor’s report is that inac­tion could lead to down­grad­ing Illi­nois to “BBB,” an “unusual” low rat­ing for any state. The agency noted a “lack of action on pen­sion reform and upcom­ing bud­get chal­lenges could result in fur­ther credit deterioration.”

“Most states will build reserves when the econ­omy is per­form­ing well, and that typ­i­cally pro­vides a cush­ion when the rev­enues dete­ri­o­rate,” said Robin Prunty, the S&P ana­lyst who heads the agency’s state rat­ings group. “But Illi­nois has never really car­ried or accu­mu­lated any kind of bud­getary reserves.”

Not sur­pris­ingly, they has been called to deal with pen­sions a mul­ti­tude of times by both Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans in Illi­nois.  Also not sur­pris­ingly, the  state’s pub­lic employee unions have claimed any attempts to change the cur­rent pen­sion sys­tem is uncon­sti­tu­tional and would be fought tooth and nail.

Illi­nois has cre­ated this hell, it is now time for them to burn in it.

Good news, but is it a pyrrhic vic­tory for future state budgets?

Wis­con­sin health offi­cials say smok­ing by mid­dle and high school stu­dents has dropped to an all-time low.

The 2012 Wis­con­sin Youth Tobacco Sur­vey, released Mon­day, found that 13% of high school­ers say they smoke and 2.5% of mid­dle school­ers admit to smok­ing. The last study in 2010 showed nearly 18% of high schooner and nearly 4% of mid­dle schooler smoked.

The sur­vey is done by the Wis­con­sin Depart­ment of Health Ser­vices and the Wis­con­sin Depart­ment of Pub­lic Instruction.

The 2012 fig­ures con­trast sharply with 2000, when 33% of high school stu­dents and 12% of mid­dle school stu­dents said they smoked.

Admit­tedly, it’s a sur­vey, so you could have some lying going on.

The rea­son I bring up future state bud­gets, keep in mind, the for­mer Doyle bud­gets — espe­cially the 2009–2011 state bud­get — were built on mas­sive tax increases on tobacco sales.

If those are going to be lim­ited in the near-future, I got to admit, what­ever white paper the Leg­isla­tive Fis­cal Bureau is going to issue in the com­ing months on that rev­enue source will be an inter­est­ing one to read.

The biggest shock here isn’t that Wirch is on Joint Finance.

It’s that incom­ing minor­ity leader Chris Lar­son (D-Milwaukee) bounced off Lena Tay­lor (D-Milwaukee) to put Wirch on and decided to keep La Crosse’s Jen Shilling — who was a main­stay dur­ing her Assem­bly days — on instead.

A Demo­c­ra­tic sen­a­tor said to have changed his vote for his party’s leader snagged a cov­eted appoint­ment Wednes­day on the Legislature’s pow­er­ful bud­get committee.

Sen. Bob Wirch (D-Somers) and Sen. Jen­nifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) were cho­sen to serve on the Joint Finance Com­mit­tee by incom­ing Sen­ate Minor­ity Leader Chris Lar­son (D-Milwaukee). Ear­lier this month, Lar­son beat his Demo­c­ra­tic col­league Jon Erpen­bach of Mid­dle­ton in a race for minor­ity leader.

After the vote, Erpenbach’s back­ers con­cluded Sen. Bob Wirch (D-Pleasant Prairie) had voted for Lar­son after say­ing he would vote for Erpen­bach. One of them had noticed Wirch had folded his bal­lot mul­ti­ple times and was able to tell which bal­lot was cast by Wirch after the fact.

Justin Sar­gent, Larson’s chief of staff, said that the Mil­wau­kee Demo­c­rat hadn’t con­sid­ered the recent lead­er­ship vote in decid­ing on the com­mit­tee appoint­ments. Shilling, who had run for assis­tant minor­ity leader and lost to Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay), was seen as being aligned with Erpenbach.

Under the soon-to-be replaced leg­is­la­ture, Tay­lor is the cur­rent co-chair of Joint Finance with soon-to-be Speaker Robin Vos (R-Burlington).  What exactly did she do to Lar­son to not only lose her senior­ity from the com­mit­tee, but to be bounced completely.

There’s got to be a story behind that right there.  Is it because the two don’t get along — a the­ory I don’t buy — or because the two faced off against each other in the pri­maries of Mil­wau­kee Assem­bly Dis­tricts where Lar­son (and WEAC) was seek­ing to replace many African Amer­i­can incum­bents who Tay­lor was close with?

It’s prob­a­bly the lat­ter, but the truth is, we’ll never know.  He’s only has two spots to fill, and prob­a­bly has a litany of rea­sons not to give each and every mem­ber of his cau­cus a spot on Joint Finance.

Admit­tedly, it’s not a lot of money, but it’s more money that has been going in there for years — if not the past decade.

It is indeed work­ing Wis­con­sin.  We’d be fool­ish to go back to the old ways of union monop­o­liza­tion of work rules which cost this mil­lions of dol­lars on unnec­es­sary and some­times ridicu­lous conditions.

The MacIver gang is not let­ting it go, and with the silence com­ing from all four­teen Democ­rats, the truth could have the poten­tial of being the biggest cam­paign finance scan­dal in Wis­con­sin history.

I recall talk­ing to a friend in Madi­son as this all broke out and remarked there was no way some­one like Chris Lar­son (I used Lar­son as an exam­ple since he’s young (29), recently mar­ried, and with­out much sav­ings) could afford to stay in Illi­nois long with­out tap­ping into some form of cam­paign fund.

This friend replied with a more sullen answer: None of them can.

 

Well, well, well…what have we here?

Demo­c­ra­tic Gov. Pat Quinn today defended his efforts to limit col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights for thou­sands of state employ­ees, say­ing his pro­posal is a bal­anced approach aimed at ensur­ing a sep­a­ra­tion between rank-and-file work­ers and upper managers.

Quinn is push­ing Sen­ate law­mak­ers to vote on the plan when they return to Spring­field on Wednes­day. House law­mak­ers signed off on the idea ear­lier this year, but sup­port is low among Sen­ate Democ­rats.

“I fer­vently sup­port the right to bar­gain­ing, right to form a union,” Quinn said after speak­ing at the annual Rainbow/PUSH con­fer­ence. “At the same time, there have to be some posi­tions in gov­ern­ment which are man­age­ment posi­tions and we’re try­ing to draw a fair line.”

Quinn’s office argues the move would save the state money and make gov­ern­ment more effi­cient, say­ing the bill would apply to high-level man­age­ment posi­tions such as attor­neys, leg­isla­tive liaisons and deputy chiefs of staffs for state agen­cies. The idea is to pre­vent sit­u­a­tions where there is no clear lead­er­ship at state facil­i­ties because all the work­ers are union mem­bers and man­agers can’t dis­ci­pline employ­ees under them.

But labor offi­cials say the bill would unfairly strip work­ers of their right to rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and argue it’s not just lim­ited to lead­er­ship posi­tions, but lower-level work­ers, too. They’ve drawn com­par­isons to Wis­con­sin Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to limit unions in that state, a liken­ing Quinn calls “com­pletely unfair.”

Of course it’s unfair to Quinn.  Scott Walker has a record of pay­ing off his bets. This frickin’ Illi­nois bas­tard will just stop reneg­ing on his NFC Cham­pi­onship bet from this Jan­u­ary and used the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing bill as his rea­sons for doing it.

When one of pro­fes­sional football’s most sto­ried rival­ries was headed for a major post­sea­son match-up, two gov­er­nors made a bet.

Illi­nois Demo­c­rat Pat Quinn agreed that if his Chicago Bears lost to the Green Bay Pack­ers, he’d head to Wis­con­sin to vol­un­teer at a food pantry in Pack­ers col­ors. Wis­con­sin Repub­li­can Scott Walker made the same deal if the Bears won.

It was a good-natured, well-intentioned wager at a moment when the two states were engaged in some nasty infight­ing. But now, with Wis­con­sin Sen­ate Democ­rats on the lam in Illi­nois and protests grip­ping the capi­tol in Madi­son, Gov­er­nor Quinn has decided to post­pone his trip to the Mil­wau­kee food pantry.

“In light of the very seri­ous issues that the state of Wis­con­sin is try­ing to work through right now, the gov­er­nor felt the tim­ing was not nec­es­sar­ily ideal and that it would be more appro­pri­ate to find a bet­ter date,” Quinn spokes­woman Annie Thomp­son told the Chicago Sun-Times.

She also took a moment to score some points at the Gov­er­nor Walker’s expense.

“When a state is expe­ri­enc­ing such mass tur­moil, busi­nesses are not going to be attracted to it,” Thomp­son said. Gov. Walker had argued that Illinois’s income tax increase would drive busi­nesses away, and was push­ing to attract Illi­nois busi­nesses to his state — despite Wisconsin’s markedly higher per­sonal income tax rate.

NBC Chicago reports that Quinn is plan­ning to resched­ule “in the next few months.”

Quinn has yet to resched­ule as of April accord­ing from this Jim Stingl col­umn.

Yeah, no pres­sure.

Not like it’s X% of your grade.  From the time-frame, this could have been the mid-term.

A UW-Oshkosh stu­dent claimed a dis­ci­plined uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sor pushed the recall of repub­li­can sen­a­tor Randy Hop­per by putting petition-signing instruc­tions on a white­board while proc­tor­ing a class test.

The stu­dent, 21, who spoke to WKOW27 News on the con­di­tion of anonymity because he feared aca­d­e­mic reprisal if his iden­tity was revealed, said the white­board mes­sage urged stu­dents to sign the peti­tion if they wished. The stu­dent, a senior, said the mes­sage was dis­played dur­ing test tak­ing Mar. 9.

UW-System spokesper­son David Giroux said crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sor Stephen Richards was given a let­ter of rep­ri­mand and a per­sonal improve­ment plan for sep­a­rate class actions Mar. 7. A record­ing of the class shows Richards instructed inter­ested stu­dents to leave the class room to sign a Hop­per recall peti­tion, and told the class he was part of the recall move­ment against Hopper.

The 21-year old stu­dent also said Richards reacted to this week’s rev­e­la­tion of the record­ing of his con­tro­ver­sial class lec­ture by warn­ing stu­dents of crim­i­nal and aca­d­e­mic sanc­tions if they recorded future lec­tures with­out seek­ing per­mis­sion. UW-System pol­icy guide­lines allow lec­ture record­ing under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, includ­ing for stu­dents with qual­i­fy­ing disabilities.

Giroux told WKOW27 News the stu­dent who made the record­ing appar­ently qual­i­fies to record under the dis­abil­ity terms.

Giroux said the student’s claim about Richards’ warn­ing to stu­dents is under investigation.

Richards has yet to respond to an email seek­ing comment.

This story just keeps get­ting stranger and stranger at UW-Zero.

By now, you’ve heard all about this.

A She­boy­gan gas sta­tion owner is baf­fled after a mys­tery caller tells a clerk it’s a bad idea to do busi­ness with a Sheboygan-area state senator.

It started Tues­day when a woman called Dick Hiers’s North­east Stan­dard gas sta­tion after she thought she saw Sen­a­tor Joe Leib­ham there. Her call was caught on the answer­ing machine.

“I think that this whole thing has to end. It has to stop,” said Hiers. “This type of stuff is totally uncalled for.”

Hiers never thought his lit­tle gas sta­tion in the heart of She­boy­gan would be the stage of polit­i­cal con­tro­versy. Then again, his week has been full of surprises.

“I was work­ing back here and the answer­ing machine went off, and I was a lit­tle sur­prised by that, and when I heard the mes­sage here, I was even a lit­tle more surprised.”

The answer­ing machine here in the back of the store was left on from the night before and was record­ing the entire conversation.

Caller: “Can you ver­ify that was Sen­a­tor Leib­ham at the gas sta­tion this morning?”

Gas sta­tion clerk: “Sen­a­tor Leibham?”

Caller: “Yes. Do you guys sup­port him?”

Clerk: “I have noth­ing to say about that, I am not polit­i­cally involved.”

Caller: “Alright, well you can tell Dick he’s not good for busi­ness, I’ll tell you that.”

Shocked over the 26-second con­ver­sa­tion, Hiers quickly traced the call — only to get sur­prise num­ber two.

“And it turned out to be com­ing from the She­boy­gan area dis­trict school office,” he said.

Now to the fun detec­tive work.

The gas sta­tion in ques­tion “Dick Hier’s North­east Stan­dard” is a British Petro­leum (BP) sta­tion located at the cor­ner of Erie Avenue and North 9th Street; right by Foun­tain Park.  (In fact, it’s often known for hav­ing signs proudly announc­ing it does not sell Ethanol-blended mix­tures, only “Real Gas”)   The She­boy­gan Area School Dis­trict offices are located at 830 Vir­ginia Avenue.

That’s about five or six blocks south; and it’s a direct shot down North 9th St. towards the She­boy­gan River.   I’ve taken this route myself not to get to the school dis­trict offices, but to get to the lake­front or Indi­ana Ave. or as a short­cut to avoid all the stop signs on North 8th St.

So, what you had likely here for this indi­vid­ual — and the She­boy­gan Press is now say­ing its a woman who the SASD won’t name, but are dis­ci­plin­ing — drive past the BP sta­tion, saw Mike Leibham’s car or van fill­ing up at the sta­tion (This makes me won­der if Mike’s mini-van still has the tra­di­tional cam­paign paint job, which helped ID the vehi­cle…), got angry, drove to work five or six blocks down, and then called the sta­tion from their work phone.

Not the smartest move in the world I’d say for this woman to do.

Now the other ques­tion after today’s news; why is SASD not pub­licly nam­ing this woman?

Hey boys and girls, remem­ber this?

The Depart­ment of Reg­u­la­tion and Licens­ing (DRL) and the Med­ical Exam­in­ing Board (MEB) have opened inves­ti­ga­tions involv­ing eight indi­vid­u­als who allegedly wrote med­ical excuses for indi­vid­u­als attend­ing ral­lies at the Capi­tol in February.

Based on infor­ma­tion pro­vided by var­i­ous com­plainants, DRL iden­ti­fied 11 peo­ple who were asked to pro­vide an expla­na­tion to the depart­ment about their activ­i­ties at the Capi­tol. Based on the com­plaints and the infor­ma­tion received by DRL, a screen­ing panel con­sist­ing of three mem­bers of the MEB has decided to open inves­ti­ga­tions on eight indi­vid­u­als. Inves­ti­ga­tions were not opened as to the other three indi­vid­u­als because the panel con­cluded no vio­la­tions had occurred.

A more exten­sive fact-finding process will now occur on the cases which have been opened to deter­mine if any vio­la­tions of law occurred. Rec­om­men­da­tions will be made at the end of each inves­ti­ga­tion as to whether dis­ci­pli­nary action should be pursued.

I remem­ber tweet­ing at the time this was first reported hap­pen­ing that what those Doc­tors were doing was a vio­la­tion of med­ical ethics and could cost some of them their med­ical licenses.

Now it just might.

Great web video from a series of Wis­con­sin Vet­er­ans who’ve taken offense to the sud­den rede­f­i­n­i­tion of the word “Hero” since the 14 Demo­c­ra­tic State Sen­a­tors ran for the bor­der and hid out in Illi­nois for three weeks.