Auditing company to act as interim Poplar Grove treasurer

 

By Shelby R. Farrell

Reporter

POPLAR GROVE – The Village of Poplar Grove’s Board of Trustees was quick to appoint its auditing firm as interim village treasurer after being without one for almost two weeks.

Maria Forrest submitted a letter of resignation to the Board of Trustees saying she would resign as of Sept. 15, and at a Special Village Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 28, the trustees approved for Sikich, LLP to act as interim village treasurer, completing those duties as assigned.The board also accepted the letter of resignation at that meeting.

Forrest was the interim treasurer for the village from 2009 to 2011 when she was appointed, and there was no reason for her resignation in the letter, which was dated Sept. 15 and said, “Please accept my resignation effective today Sept. 15, 2015.”

At the special meeting, Village President John Neitzel thanked her for her time in the position where her duties and responsibilities included cash management and investing, debt management, payroll and pension administration, preparing financial statements, budgeting, financial planning and forecasting.

“Maria has been the appointed treasurer since 2009, and we’ve made such monumental progress through her work since then, and we thank her for her support and the contribution that she has made to the village,” he said.

Neitzelwas also elected in 2009, and the village was $450,000 in debt. Since then, the village implemented taxes and other ways of fixing the financial deficiencies, and in 2015, the village was able to fund more than $950,000 worth of capital improvements, according to a letter-to-the-editor that Neitzel wrote to the Rockford Register Star in August.

In the same article, he said the problems stemmed from the village growing from “a few hundred to our current population of more than 5,000 residents” in the last two decades and the village government not growing with the village itself.

To help further fix the gap, Village Administrator Diana Dykstra requested an audit from Lauterbach and Amen this year, which revealed problems with money handling and financial policies. The company gave the village 28 recommendations for their financial woes, which the board plans to implement at least a quarter of it by the end of the year.

Dykstra said that when she got Forrest’s letter to resign, she decided to ask the auditing for recommendations on where to find an interim treasurer.

“Sikich came highly recommended as one of the top three auditing firms in the state,” she said. “Lauterbach is one of the others as well, and so we wanted a different firm to perform those treasurer functions.”

She said there shouldn’t be much of a difference between using a firm versus appointing an individual to perform the duties, and the village will be assigned one person from the firm. She also said they won’t have to go through a learning curve because the people who work at Sikich, LLP are familiar with the software that the village treasurer would use.

“Our plan would be to have them do bank reconciliations, forecasting and reporting to the board, any journal entries that may be required and payroll,” Dykstra said. “I think the benefit is the skills and abilities of this audit firm to come in and possibly make recommendations to better practices based on government standards.”

Dykstra said the village should need the firm to fulfill these functions with a staff accountant in eight hours a week at $100 an hour, working under hourly wages. She also later said the village “won’t need the senior partner to come and do bank reconciliations,” which would cost $120 an hour.

“I think there will be a time frame where this cost will exceed our monthly allotment,” she said.

“However, it will clear up some inefficiencies. I feel confident this will balance out by the year-end to provide the additional guidance we needed and streamline those duties. The goal would be to make ourselves more efficient and when we are prepared to make a decision about the position, we will have a better understanding of what positions are needed.”

Above is from FACEBOOK:  Auditing company to act as interim Poplar Grove treasurer

Thompson Center for sale, Rauner says | WGN-TV

 

CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner wants to sell the James R. Thompson Center, which houses state government offices in downtown Chicago.

Earlier this year, Rauner's administration asked for an appraisal of the 16-story glass paneled building. Rauner spokesman Lance Trover confirmed Rauner's plans to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Rauner was expected to offer more details Tuesday at a news conference.

The Thompson Center opened in 1985 and was designed by architect Helmut Jahn. The building is notable for its sleek design among more stately downtown buildings, including neighboring Chicago City Hall. The Thompson Center has a round shape and a large atrium.

However, parts of the building have fallen into disrepair and require work.

Thompson Center for sale, Rauner says | WGN-TV

Want a discount on a house? Drive way out of town - Yahoo Finance

 

Ever since the Greeks built temples on high and the Egyptians erected pyramids in the sand, real estate has always been all about location. Never has that been more true than today, specifically when it comes to price. As millennials and active baby boomers flock to urban cores, embracing shared cars and bicycles, the discount for living farther away from town is growing.

"In my 26 years in the business, the price discount available to someone who is willing to commute has never been greater," John Burns of John Burns Real Estate Consulting wrote in a new report.

Take the Chicago area: Home prices in closer-in Deerfield are about 15 percent below their peak in 2006, but keep going out the interstate, and home prices are still as much as 30 percent below peak, according to the report. The same is true in Los Angeles, where home prices in the close-in suburb of Glendale are now 2 percent above peak, but further out in Palmdale they are a striking 37 percent below peak.

"We're still a little bit under prerecession pricing, whereas the inner jurisdictions are now above prerecession pricing," said Brian Cullen, head of development at Willowsford, a 4,000 acre residential community in Ashburn, Virginia, about an hour's drive from Washington. "People will make a value decision that they want to live in Willowsford, that they want a community that offers a lot of things they want, and that the driving isn't that challenging for them."

On a fall weekend in Willowsford, Ian Walsh throws a baseball with his three young sons on the front lawn of their spacious new colonial. It's days like this that make the commute during the week to downtown D.C. all worthwhile.

"It's easy to look at the math, the amount of square footage you can get inside your house, including the land, just the size of house you can get for the dollar, just drops dramatically as you get a little bit outside of the city," said Walsh.

Home prices in Ashburn are still over 15 percent below their recent peak, and that, according to Walsh at least, is an easy trade-off for the drive.

"When I get out here and into the neighborhood, I kind of feel the stress of the city roll off my shoulders a little bit and relax almost instantly, and any sort of stress from work or the commute is kind of wiped away when I pull in," he added.

For families with children, the suburbs have until now been the preferred option, but changes in demographics and social behavior are fighting that "norm." The Burns report looked at driving habits and found that for those ages 20-24 today just 78 percent have a driver's license, compared with 93 percent back in the late 1970s. Even though more workers today telecommute, they still show strong demand for urban neighborhoods.

"Prices are so ridiculous," said Jane Fairweather, a real estate agent in Bethesda, Maryland, one of the closest suburbs to Washington that now boasts a growing and pricey urban core of its own. "For those who have money, they will pay the premium, whatever that is, to live in a walkable community. I'm sure there's a price that people would say 'no,' but I don't know what that is to tell you the truth!"

Realtors used to say you get $1,000 in savings per mile as you drive outside of the city. The farther you go, the more you get for your money. That is no longer the case, as the nation's urban housing markets have recovered from the recession far faster than the so-called exurbs, or, the areas beyond the close-in suburbs.

"This 'drive until you qualify' discount far exceeds the industry rule of thumb today," Burns said.

That, in turn, may mean that there is a lot more room for prices to grow in the far-out suburbs. Buyers could be looking at a better investment in the long run, but only if they're willing to take the long drive.

Want a discount on a house? Drive way out of town - Yahoo Finance

Charles Koch comes out against special interest groups. LOL! | Grist

By Katie Herzog

He looks a little bit like your favorite grad school philosophy professor. He’s got a full head of gray hair, a strong, guileless smile, and socks that don’t quite match. He’s been married for 40 years and seems like a family man, deeply devoted to the ideals instilled in him by his father. He talks about hard work and good jobs and fighting against the powers that be. No, I’m not talking about the produce buyer at the Park Slope Co-Op. I’m talking about Charles Koch.

During a rare interview on CBS Sunday Morning, Charles Koch, the sixth richest man in America, tried extremely hard to win your sympathy. Speaking with reporter Anthony Mason, the billionaire industrialist emphasized his dedication to democracy and the political process. “To get rid of these special interests,” Koch said, “that’s the whole thing that drives me.”

Mason, showing immense willpower, didn’t even roll his eyes. “Do you think it’s good for the political system that so much what’s called ‘dark money’ is flowing into the process now?,” he asked Koch.

“First of all, what I give isn’t dark,” said Koch. “What I give politically, that’s all reported. It’s either to PACs or to candidates. And what I give to my foundations is all public information.”

HA! The reason PACs exist in the first place is to funnel money to political campaigns without disclosing where it comes from, and Koch, according to CBS, will spend some $300 million on the 2016 campaign. THREE HUNDRED MILLION!!! The Koch brothers’ spending rivals that of the Republican National Committee, and much of it will be funneled through tax exempt PACs and advocacy groups.

“But do you think it’s healthy for the system that so much money is coming out of a relatively small group of people?,” Mason asked the very rich man.

“Listen, if I didn’t think it was healthy or fair, I wouldn’t do it,” Koch replied. “Because what we’re after is to fight against special interests.”

Hmmm. That seems curious considering the Kochs are special interests. And unless you too are a billionaire industrialist, their interests probably go against yours. They have attacked clean energy, climate action, and environmental regulations, and paid bribes to win contracts. On a Keystone alone, they stand to make $100 billion if the pipeline is approved. Yes, billion. And that, folks, is what you call a “special interest.”

But Charles Koch doesn’t want you to see him as just another billionaire oligarch shopping for a president to call his own. He wants you to see him as human — as a victim, even. “I get a lot of death threats,” Koch told Mason. “I’m now on al-Qaeda’s hit list, too. So that’s really getting into the big time. Gets pretty scary.”

Much like the prospect of a Koch-backed president winning the election. Alas Koch is undeterred by death threats. “I decided long ago, I’d rather die for something than live for nothing,” he said on CBS Sunday Morning. Well, at least there’s one thing we can agree on — we’d rather you die for something too, Mr. Koch. Anything, really, at all.

Charles Koch comes out against special interest groups. LOL! | Grist

Koch Political Network Expanding 'Grassroots' Organizing | netnebraska.org

 

The political network led by billionaires David and Charles Koch is building what's meant to be a seamless system of grassroots groups, designed to advance the network's conservative and libertarian goals year-in and year-out, while also helping like-minded politicians.

This strategy could have come straight out of a labor union's handbook, or an Obama campaign memo: community organizing.

"This isn't just about an election cycle," Pete Hegseth, CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, told a group of activists at an August conference. "What makes this network different... is that we've been in these communities for three or four years and we're going to be in them in 2017, 2018, 2019."

Concerned Veterans is one of the Koch grassroots groups, and Hegseth was speaking at a session titled, "Community Organizing — Life Past November."

It's a stark contrast to media campaigns that have absorbed millions of dollars from the Koch network. In 2012, the network spent nearly $400 million overall, including extensive TV attack ads. Other big-budget outside groups, including Crossroads GPS and American Action Network, have also favored TV. They are aiming to spend more than double that for the 2016 election.

Joining Hegseth at the community organizing session were representatives of the broad-based Americans for Prosperity; Generation Opportunity, targeting millennials; and the Libre Initiative, which is working to build ties in Latino communities.

Libre executive director Daniel Garza said his organization is putting down roots in neighborhoods where progressive groups have been active for years. "They're embedded," he said. "I mean they run the institutions in the community. They've gained the trust of the Latino community."

The session was part of the 2015 Defending the American Dream Summit, sponsored by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in Columbus, Ohio. NPR obtained audio of the session from a liberal activist who bought a ticket to the conference. The activist said the recorder was in plain view as the participants spoke.

"The strategy has not changed since Day One," Garza told NPR in a phone interview of his group, which was founded in 2011 and which Garza says now has 15,000 supporters in nine states. "Control the message in media, both in Spanish and English language. Second, was working with the communities, at the community level. And third, was to mobilize an army of advocates and activists and volunteers who could drive our message at the community level."

At the community-organizing session, Garza went through some of Libre's activities. In Nevada, where undocumented immigrants can get driver's licenses, it helps Latinos prepare for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

In Florida, a new program covers the costs and helps people study for GED exams — which it also pays for.

As Libre volunteers work in a community, they tell people about low taxes, small government and libertarianism, Garza told the session.

"And, of course, now they've now become part of our database," he said. "Over 100,000 people that we've touched one-on-one at these community events."

He said Libre supporters in Florida played a role last year when a Latino Republican unseated a Latino Democratic congressman — an apparent reference to Rep. Carlos Curbelo's victory over one-term Rep. Joe Garcia in South Florida.

"What we're doing with the Latino outreach, well, nobody had done it before at the scale we're doing it," Garza told NPR. "So, there's no playbook."

At the community-organizing session, Hegseth said he put the basic message — less government and regulation, more unfettered free enterprise — and framed it in military terms.

"It's fighting for the freedom and prosperity here at home that we fought for overseas or in uniform," he said. "It's when you raise your right hand to defend the Constitution. There's no reason why when you come home that service should stop."

Concerned Veterans is currently promoting legislation to simplify the firing of employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As Concerned Vets volunteers talk about the legislation with veterans and military families, Hegseth said, "then they also pick up an iPad and knock on some doors and make some phone calls and remind veterans to vote."

The iPads may be new, but community organizing is old-fashioned American politics. In the 1800s and early 1900s political parties were often involved in local communities.

More recently, however, those connections have withered, Harvard professor Theda Skocpol told NPR, and "parties have mainly been about raising money and running election campaigns."

Skocpol is a sociologist and political scientist, who leads the Scholars Strategy Network, a group of progressive academics. She's been studying the Koch network for several years, and said it is emulating what political parties and labor unions used to do.

In fact, the Koch network perhaps can do it better. The network can persuade donors to keep giving in non-election years, while progressive efforts struggle to maintain a presence. In other words, progressive groups and unions cannot keep pace with the Koch network.

"No. Not even close," Skocpol said.

Besides cash-flow problems, the progressive infrastructure is fragmented, with hundreds of groups targeting their own specific issues.

"That's not what you see on the right," Skocpol said. "You see much more of an effort to create an overall strategy."

It's a strategy meant to last for many elections to come.

Koch Political Network Expanding 'Grassroots' Organizing | netnebraska.org

Simon Poll: Southern Illinoisans are ticked off – Illinois News Network

 

SPRINGFIELD — Southern Illinois voters are far from pleased about the direction of the state and nation, according to a poll released Monday by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

About 80 of respondents thought the nation (78.8 percent) and the state (79.8) are headed in the wrong direction.

However, about half (50.9 percent) think their city or area is headed in the right direction.

“These results probably reflect some of Illinois’ current conflicts. Most polls show that more
people feel their state is doing better than the nation. Not here,” said John Jackson, a visiting
professor at the institute.

Political leaders also got lukewarm reviews, according to the Simon Institute.

Slightly more than 37 percent (37.4) of respondents somewhat approved or strongly approved of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s performance, while 50.7 percent somewhat disapproved or strongly disapproved. Roughly 12 percent said they did not know.

“Though Democrats and Republicans are evenly distributed in our southern Illinois sample, this is still a conservative area, and one might have thought of it as fertile ground for Gov. Rauner,”
said Charlie Leonard, one of the Institute’s visiting professors supervising the poll.

For Rauner’s “approval ratings to be ‘upside down’ in southern Illinois this early in his administration may not bode well for the pro-business agenda he’s been trying to push,” Leonard said.

The Rauner administration had its own viewpoint.

“The status quo continues to hurt Illinois, and in the past decade of one-party rule the state has led to more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs lost and a $5 billion structural deficit, which is why the state needs the reforms outlined in the Turnaround Agenda,” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said in an e-mail.

“The governor will judge his performance by his ability to reform state government to grow the economy and create jobs while helping the most vulnerable,” she said.

The Simon Institute said U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk’s job-approval rating was 30.4 percent, with 22.9 percent disapproving.

Nearly half of the respondents (46.6 percent) said they didn’t know how they feel about Kirk, a native of Champaign who now lives in Highland Park.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Springfield, scored approval ratings that exceeded his disapprovals, but not by much.

Half of the respondents (50.6 percent) approved of Durbin’s performance and a third (33.5 percent) disapproved. Sixteen percent said they did not know.

“Voters here have been in a bad mood and they continue to be,” said David Yepsen, director of Simon Institute.

“The only surprise is how many people don’t have an opinion about Sen. Kirk. For a
statewide Republican incumbent to have such ambivalent ratings down here isn’t a good sign for him as he heads into a tough re-election campaign,” Yepsen said.

Kirk “needs to be running well in this area to offset Democratic strengths elsewhere in the state,” Yepsen said.

The Kirk campaign says the senator is doing fine in Southern Illinois.

“Southern Illinois voters clearly approve of Senator Kirk’s efforts to create and retain jobs in Illinois as well as his fight to lower taxes and reduce spending,” said Kirk spokesman Kevin Artl.

The Simon Institute’s Southern Illinois Poll interviewed 401 registered voters across the 18
southernmost counties in Illinois.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. This means that if we were to conduct the survey 100 times, in 95 of those instances the results would vary by no more than plus or minus 4.9 percentage points from the results obtained.

Live telephone interviews were conducted by Customer Research International of San Marcos,
Texas. No auto-dial or “robo-polling” polling was included. The survey was paid for
with non-tax dollars from the Institute’s endowment fund.

Simon Poll: Southern Illinoisans are ticked off – Illinois News Network

Letter: Bernie Sanders explains democratic socialism - Opinion - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

Leave it to the 74-year-old, self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” to capture the support of millennials across the nation. So what’s a democratic socialist, and how could this happen with the word “socialism” being so taboo in America? Well, people often fear what they don’t understand, and with mainstream media controlling a large portion of our information, things get misrepresented for obvious reasons.

In 2006, Bernie explained in an interview with Democracy Now!: “I think [democratic socialism] means the government has got to play a very important role in making sure that as a right of citizenship, all of our people have health care; that as a right, all of our kids, regardless of income, have quality child care, are able to go to college without going deeply into debt; that it means we do not allow large corporations and moneyed interests to destroy our environment; that we create a government in which it is not dominated by big money interest. I mean, to me, it means democracy, frankly. That’s all it means.”

What Bernie Sanders is proposing isn't at all “fringe” or “radical” by any means, but rather true progressive ideals, or at least what used to be defined as progressive — it’s basic human decency.

— Courtney Baldwin, South Beloit, Northern Illinois for Bernie Sanders

Letter: Bernie Sanders explains democratic socialism - Opinion - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

Relocation of state Public Aid office to east Rockford irks Ald. Ann Thompson-Kelly and Mayor Larry Morrissey - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

By Isaac Guerrero

Posted Oct. 12, 2015 at 11:35 AM
Updated at 12:12 AM

ROCKFORD — A $6.6 million state lease awarded to Rockford's largest developer has upset the mayor and a west-side alderman because it would move Public Aid services from west Rockford to the northeast side — miles from where many recipients live.

The Illinois Procurement Policy Board took no action last week on a complaint filed by Mayor Larry Morrissey and a building owner regarding the pending relocation of the Department of Human Services Family Community Resource Center and related offices from West Avon and Auburn streets to the old K's Merchandise shopping center, 175 Executive Parkway.

READ THE FULL TEXT OF PETRO'S COMPLAINTS HERE AND HERE. READ MORRISSEY'S LETTER HERE.

The turn of events effectively means that a five-year state lease with a five-year renewal option recently awarded to First Midwest Group will stand. Illinois DHS clients will have to travel to the new location after the lease on 1111 N. Avon St. expires July 28. More than 120 people who work in those offices will move to the new site, which will serve as a larger, more modern regional resource center for poor individuals and families who live in Winnebago and Boone counties and parts of DeKalb and McHenry counties.

DHS serves more than 10,000 people at Avon Street. State offices are closed today, and officials could not be reached to say how many clients served in Rockford live on the west side.

First Midwest Group did not submit the lowest bid for the state lease, but the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, which manages real estate services for state government offices, determined that northeast Rockford was preferable based on other factors, including location and building amenities.

The only other bidder was Nerino Petro, a Rockford lawyer whose family is the landlord for DHS and related state offices at Auburn and Avon streets. Petro's bid was $2.8 million lower than First Midwest's. Even when utility, janitorial and other costs are considered, Petro's bid is still significantly less.

'How upset I am'

Moving Public Aid services miles from where many west Rockford clients live will create a hardship, said Ald. Ann Thompson-Kelly, who represents the 7th Ward. Additionally, the exodus of more than 100 workers will hurt restaurants, gas stations and other businesses those employees patronize along the Auburn Street corridor.

“I can't tell you how upset I am,” she said. “We have been working so hard to improve that Auburn corridor. We've installed new sidewalks, we're working with the businessmen, we're working on a new development proposal for Central (Avenue) and Auburn. And now this happens? This will kill the corridor. ... Why would you move these offices miles from the west side where most of these clients live?"

Read the rest by clicking on the following:  Relocation of state Public Aid office to east Rockford irks Ald. Ann Thompson-Kelly and Mayor Larry Morrissey - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL