At a time when Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has frozen state spending and cut the budget, a $35 million state grant got paid in full last month that helps build a 1,500-student school in the district of House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The grant went through thanks to a longsighted legislative maneuver by Madigan and his fellow Democrats, who tucked the money away more than a year ago so that no governor could touch it: They sent it to the office of Secretary of State Jesse White, a party loyalist.
Unlike other grants Rauner halted in the budget he inherited from Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, the $35 million sought by the cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools was never in jeopardy because it sat safely in the account of another statewide officeholder.
Budget maneuver delivers grant money to Chicago schools (map)
Tribune Graphics
Gov. Bruce Rauner has frozen many state grants, but Chicago Public Schools still received $35 million that will help pay for a school in House Speaker Michael Madigan’s district. The grant, protected by a legislative maneuver last year, also is funding school projects in two districts represented...
Gov. Bruce Rauner has frozen many state grants, but Chicago Public Schools still received $35 million that will help pay for a school in House Speaker Michael Madigan’s district. The grant, protected by a legislative maneuver last year, also is funding school projects in two districts represented... ( Tribune Graphics )
White's office signed a contract this spring with the Chicago Public Schools to turn over the funds, saying he had little choice except to make sure the money got spent properly. By contrast, $40 million sent to the State Board of Education for Downstate and suburban school maintenance initiatives got swept up by Rauner to help ends meet before the new budget year began.
The money trail provides a case study into how Madigan deftly works the system to get what he wants — enabling the money to reach schools in his district and those of his allies even as others saw funds from the state disappear. The results underscore Madigan's ability to stay not just a step ahead in the political game but to see several steps down the road.
The state sent the funds to the Chicago Board of Education on June 16, amid a still-unresolved showdown with Madigan over the new budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.
See all relatedThe biggest slice of the $35 million grant — $13 million — will help fund a $48 million middle school under construction in Madigan's district to relieve overcrowding as the Hispanic population grows in his Southwest Side power base. The school will feature computer labs, music rooms, gymnasium space and athletic fields with synthetic turf, according to plans with the Chicago Public Building Commission, the project's overseer.
An elementary school in the neighboring district of Rep. Dan Burke will get $6.5 million for roofing, masonry and other work, and $5.5 million will go to two schools in House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie's South Side district. The remaining $10 million is slated for air conditioning — an expansion of which Mayor Rahm Emanuel is pushing — in 35 schools elsewhere in Chicago.
Madigan and other Democrats directed the money to White's office while writing the budget in May 2014, a time when it was far from clear that Rauner would defeat Quinn in the November election. And Quinn, though also a Democrat, often butted heads with the speaker.
At the time, Republicans criticized the budget move as an end run around the governor's office.
Tribune coverage: The Madigan Rules
Since 2010, the Tribune has documented Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s political power base and the intersection of his public and personal interests. The series of stories has examined how he wields clout to help friends and allies, benefit his legal clients and maintain his decades-long...
Since 2010, the Tribune has documented Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s political power base and the intersection of his public and personal interests. The series of stories has examined how he wields clout to help friends and allies, benefit his legal clients and maintain his decades-long...
Read more storiesMadigan's spokesman, Steve Brown, acknowledged as much. "Yeah, that was the point," Brown said in an interview this month. "You see hijinks from the governors' offices all the time — regardless of party, regardless of time."
Inserting the money into White's budget was "just a way of safeguarding that spending decision — made by the legislature, signed into law," Brown said.
Both Democrats and Republicans have seen governors break promises on funding, throwing up roadblocks or sometimes rechanneling or freezing appropriations. Madigan had so little trust in former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is now in prison, that the speaker negotiated written memorandums of understanding to hold the administration to its word.
@Rico Muscatel I'd rather be stood up than put $Billions$ in debt.
CRN1967
at 6:59 PM July 17, 2015
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Republicans call the $35 million school construction earmark an abuse of political clout and say it siphoned money from the same pot of general funds that pays myriad bills — from state worker salaries to far-reaching social services that are getting squeezed.
"We saw people take real cuts so that pork like this could be spent in (Madigan's) district," said Palatine Sen. Matt Murphy, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, who derided the move as "business as usual" for the veteran speaker.
A Rauner spokesman declined comment.
Along with passing out licenses to drive and plates to mount on bumpers, the secretary of state holds the job of state librarian. White has often distributed grants to libraries, including occasional projects that the legislature adds to the office's budget without him making a request, an aide said.
CaptionMadigan at Capitol 2015
Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune
House Speaker Michael Madigan holds a news conference at the State Capitol in Springfield on Tuesday, June 30, 2015.
House Speaker Michael Madigan holds a news conference at the State Capitol in Springfield on Tuesday, June 30, 2015.
(Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
CaptionMadigan news conference 2015
Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune
Michael Madigan speaking to the media on June 30, 2015.
Michael Madigan speaking to the media on June 30, 2015.
(Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
White spokesman Henry Haupt said the secretary had not sought the $35 million grant and that it was unusual in size and scope. He compared the office's role to that of a pass-through agency for the funds, adding that officials worked with CPS to ensure the money would be used as designated.
"The General Assembly directed our office to administer the grants, and we had no statutory basis to refuse it," Haupt said. "We had no authority to block it. We had no options but to administer."
When the rookie Republican governor took over in January, it was the middle of a fiscal year, and the state's finances were wildly out of whack. Following weeks of wrangling, he and lawmakers worked out a deal that used $300 million in cuts and $1.3 billion swept from special funds to cover shortfalls in the budget year that ended June 30.
Going into the Easter weekend, Rauner trimmed $26 million more, including funds to bury the poor, aid people with autism and help smokers who want to quit. He backed off that decision amid growing outrage from Democrats, using the time-honored move of citing rosier revenue projections.
Along the way, many grants were halted or frozen as Rauner tried to rein in costs. Where he could exercise control, Rauner sliced, borrowed or suspended funds in the budget he took over, including for park districts and job training, public universities and elsewhere.
As the Rauner administration scrutinized other grants, the $35 million for Chicago school construction slowly rolled through the arcane contracting and payment process.
Once White signed the $35 million contract with Chicago school officials in April, the payment request moved through a line that includes the state's $5 billion backlog of bills.
The Chicago Public Schools said the money went where school officials had identified a need — not because of the heavyweight politicians representing those areas.
"Absolutely not," added Currie, Madigan's second in command. "This was a top priority for CPS."
CPS spokeswoman Emily Bittner said the state grant money allowed the schools "to fix some of the worst overcrowding in our classrooms. ... These funds are allowing us to develop classroom space that will allow our children to have the learning environment they deserve."
CPS said additional state money for the school in Madigan's district came from a larger, separate pot of school construction dollars allocated in a prior year.
The new middle school in Madigan's district will be for grades five through eight when it opens in 2017 at 6018 S. Karlov Ave., according to CPS. The new school will give relief to Peck and Pasteur elementary schools, long identified as two of the district's most severely overcrowded, where students sometimes learn in a cafeteria and meet with counselors in a projection room, the school district said.
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At Edwards Elementary in Burke's district, money will go toward a new roof and masonry stabilization to go with a new annex to ease crowding. The school district said the school has held 1,452 students in a space designed for 900 — 161 percent of capacity.
In Currie's district, Kenwood Academy High School has grown significantly. The changes would shift an academic center for seventh- and eighth-graders to the nearby, previously closed Canter Middle School and open more seats at Kenwood for freshmen through seniors.
The state budget drawn up in 2014 also set aside $40 million for maintenance at suburban and Downstate schools. But, in contrast to the Chicago grant, that money didn't make it to the school districts.
The funds were allocated to the Illinois State Board of Education, a more routine route for school dollars, but the Quinn administration asked state education officials not to spend the money without giving a reason, a board spokesman said.
See all relatedRauner froze the funds shortly after he took office. Then, to make ends meet and pay old bills during the current budget standoff, he largely drained the fund — along with others — near the end of June and shifted the money into the pot of general funds, officials said.
Word that Rauner had taken the $40 million angered Democratic Rep. Frank Mautino, a budget expert from Spring Valley.
"I consider that Downstate money," Mautino said.
Although state law calls for the Downstate and suburban school money to be repaid within 18 months, that could change if the issue gets caught up in future budget negotiations.
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"Maybe I wish I'd put the grants in Jesse's office," Mautino said. "Then 900 Downstate school districts would have had access to maintenance grants."
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