Illinois universities asked to explore budget cuts - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

Executive Director James Applegate sent an email to the presidents, obtained by the Springfield bureau of Lee Enterprises newspapers (http://bit.ly/1xMfv03 ), saying the schools should be prepared for possible funding cuts of up to 30 percent over the next 18 months. He described it as “bad budget news.”

“They have asked us to prepare a budget recommendation for (fiscal year 2016) involving a 20 percent reduction. We may also be asked to create spending reserves of 5 percent or 10 percent out of our existing budget for the remainder of (fiscal year 2015),” Applegate wrote.

Rauner spokesman Mike Schrimpf told The Associated Press on Monday that the Republican’s transition team was not ordering budget cuts but seeking information on how a rollback of the state’s temporary income tax would affect state agencies.

Schrimpf said the team met with officials from many agencies — not just the universities — as part of Rauner’s own budget preparing process. He said the agencies were asked to “be prepared to talk about” budgets without the extra spending “as a starting point.”….

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WASHINGTON: Other Ferguson probes continue in Washington | National | NewsObserver.com

 

“There, I think the federal government is going to act,” Peter A. Joy, a professor at Washington University School of Law, predicted several weeks ago at a school panel discussion.

Attorney General Eric Holder initiated the broader Ferguson investigation in early September. Undertaken by the Civil Rights Division’s Special Litigation Section, the investigation is focusing on the Ferguson Police Department’s use of force; stops, searches and arrests; discriminatory policing; and treatment of detainees inside the Ferguson city jail.

The federal investigators, for instance, are digging into data concerning Ferguson traffic stops.

Last year, African-Americans drove 86 percent of the 5,384 cars stopped by Ferguson police officers, according to the state’s annual racial profiling report. African-American drivers were twice as likely to be searched and twice as likely to be arrested as white drivers, according to the report.

Similar investigations have targeted the Albuquerque Police Department in New Mexico, the Miami Police Department in Florida and the Newark Police Department in New Jersey, among others.

The investigations can take a long time.

In May 2011, for instance, federal officials opened the Newark investigation. The final report was issued in July 2014. The Albuquerque investigation that opened in November 2012 also lasted until this year.

The Ferguson inquiry is one of about 20 similar investigations begun during Holder’s tenure

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