Saturday, January 16, 2016

The Destruction of Progressive Wisconsin

image

SHORTLY after his exit from an abbreviated presidential run last fall, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin returned to a more successful undertaking: dismantling what remains of his state’s century-old progressive legacy.

Last month, Mr. Walker signed a bill that allowed corporations to donate directly to political parties. On the same day, he signed a law that replaced the state’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Board, a body that is responsible for election oversight and enforcing ethics codes, with two commissions made up of partisan appointees. Now a new bill supported by Mr. Walker, which is expected to clear the Republican-dominated Legislature with a Senate vote soon, threatens to corrupt Wisconsin’s Civil Service.

In 1905, Wisconsin became the third state to enact Civil Service reform, helping establish it as a national model for clean government. The reforms were one of the many achievements of Gov. Robert M. La Follette Sr., who later founded the Progressive Party and ran for president on its ticket. But Mr. Walker’s new Civil Service bill replaces anonymous exams with résumés, opening the door to political or racial bias that would prove almost impossible to detect because personnel files are not part of the public record.

The bill lengthens the probationary period for new employees, during which they can be fired for any reason (or no reason). And it centralizes hiring within the Department of Administration, the most politicized agency in the state’s government. Incoming résumés would be judged by one of the governor’s appointees.

Besides rewriting the hiring process for new employees and the work rules that govern some 30,000 current state workers, the bill highlights Wisconsin’s role as a laboratory for a national conservative strategy to destroy the labor movement. That experiment began in 2011 with the passage of Act 10, which all but ended collective bargaining for the state’s public employees and helped inspire more than a hundred bills across the country attacking public-sector unions.

Last year, Mr. Walker signed a “right-to-work” law that weakened private-sector unions and also marked a significant national turning point: Half of the 50 states are now right-to-work. A national right-to-work bill, which already has 18 co-sponsors in the Senate, including Senator Ted Cruz, appears increasingly possible under a Republican president.

By adding the Civil Service bill, Mr. Walker brings Wisconsin closer to the achievement of a long-sought goal of the libertarian right: universal “at-will employment.” Unlike union workers or state employees, whose collective bargaining agreements or Civil Service rules generally require employers to demonstrate “just cause” for them to be fired, at-will employees can be terminated at any time for any reason. At-will employment is promoted by the Heritage Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council, which disseminates model bills to state legislators benefiting its corporate members and conservative private backers.

When Scott Walker was an assemblyman and ALEC member in the 1990s, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, a Madison-based watchdog group focused on corporate influence in government, ALEC adopted a bill called the At-Will Employment Act for state legislators to use as a template. In the past 20 years, many states, including Tennessee, Indiana, Florida, Georgia, Texas and Kansas have eroded job-security protections for Civil Service workers, mirroring key aspects of ALEC’s model.

ALEC’s role was more explicit in 2011, when Jan Brewer, the former governor of Arizona, gave a keynote address at an ALEC conference indicating she would “reform” her state’s Civil Service. Several months later, she signed a bill (introduced in the Legislature by an ALEC member) that closely tracked with ALEC’s model and stripped Arizona’s state workers of virtually all Civil Service protections.

The Civil Service bill Mr. Walker supports also undermines protections against unfair termination. Under its rules, supervisors could fire workers for “personal conduct” they find “inadequate, unsuitable or inferior.” Like many of the bill’s opponents, Jim Thiel, a retired chief attorney for the state’s Department of Transportation, fears such vague language invites partisan retaliation and favoritism. “These words — ‘inadequate,’ ‘inferior’ — are empty vessels into which you can pour many things,” Mr. Thiel told me. “ ‘Personal conduct’ sounds like something outside the work environment.”

The Walker administration’s record of retribution gives credence to Mr. Thiel’s fears. In 2013, Mr. Walker abruptly withdrew the nomination of a student representative to the University of Wisconsin System’s Board of Regents after discovering that the nominee had signed a petition calling for the governor’s recall. (Two local Tea Party groups have created a searchable database of the one million recall signatures.) In July, Mr. Walker eliminated a third of the Department of Natural Resources’ staff scientists, whose research on climate change, wildlife management and pollution from a proposed iron ore mine offered a compelling rebuke to his industry-driven environmental agenda.

Many public policy experts believe that Wisconsin’s Civil Service system would benefit from modernizing reforms, as it did in the 1990s under Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson. Mr. Thompson enacted changes recommended by a bipartisan commission of legislators that held public hearings across the state and also included representatives of employee unions. But like Act 10 and the right-to-work law, the new Civil Service bill was drawn up in secret, announced with little warning, and contained no meaningful input from affected parties. The Senate and Assembly granted a single day each of perfunctory hearings.

During the protests over Act 10, as Mr. Walker demonized public employee unions, he praised private sector ones, only to betray them later by enacting right-to-work. The Civil Service bill uses a similar tactic. In 2011, Mr. Walker assured state workers that they did not need their unions because of Wisconsin’s Civil Service rules. “In Wisconsin, the rights that most workers have have been set through the Civil Service system, which predates collective bargaining by several generations,” he said. “That doesn’t change. All the Civil Service protections — the strongest Civil Service system in the country — still strongly remains intact.”

Mr. Walker’s reversal, coupled with other divisive new measures like undermining tenure in the University of Wisconsin System, have contributed to his 38 percent approval rating in the state. They also suggest that his ambition may still be to win national office. In an October interview with a conservative Milwaukee talk radio host, he did not rule out another run. “I’m hopeful we have a Republican president for the next eight years after this election, but after that we’ll have to see what the future holds,” Mr. Walker said. In December, Senator Cruz encouraged his supporters to relieve Mr. Walker of his campaign debt, generating speculation that he might become the vice-presidential choice for the like-minded Mr. Cruz.

The people least surprised by Mr. Walker’s reversal were the state’s beleaguered workers. A longtime Wisconsin civil servant told me that she worries about the security of her job if the bill becomes law. “If you’re an at-will employer, you can just tell someone goodbye,” she said, noting that 72 state employees in Arizona had recently been fired indiscriminately.

Despite the long odds of stopping the measure after the failure of large protests against Act 10 and the right-to-work law, the woman quietly helped organize a teach-in last week to raise awareness about the bill. As she talked about her efforts, however, it became clear that a culture of fear had taken root in the Wisconsin workplace. Though she describes herself as a “labor activist,” when I asked if I could use her name she declined. She was too afraid.

Dan Kaufman is a writer and musician.

Above is from:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/campaign-stops/the-destruction-of-progressive-wisconsin.html?_r=0

Quinn Slams Rauner Over Ongoing Budget Impasse

Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn went on the attack against Gov. Bruce Rauner Thursday night, slamming him over the six-month-old budget impasse and his "anti-worker" turnaround agenda. 

Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn came out swinging Thursday night against Gov. Bruce Rauner, saying in an interview with Progress Illinois that the Republican is "failing" at governing the state, which has been without a budget for more than six months. 

Quinn called the ongoing budget impasse "very disappointing."  

"I think it all begins and ends with arithmetic," he said following an Equality Illinois PAC event in Chicago celebrating the group's mission of electing pro-LGBT equality candidates to state and local offices. "You've got to have enough revenue to equal your expenditures. And I think that's the first job of the governor is to propose a budget that has adequate revenue to pay for the important expenditures of, not only education, but health care and housing and public safety and social services. So that's, you know, a real failing of Bruce Rauner."

Quinn, a Democrat, said it has been "hard to watch" what has "happened to the state budget" since Rauner took office exactly one year ago this past Tuesday. The former governor expressed concern over the budget impasse's impact on services, including the Monetary Award Program (MAP), which helps low-income Illinois students pay for tuition at state colleges and universities.

"Millionaires in Illinois in this past year got three-quarters of a billion dollars in tax cuts," Quinn said. "Meanwhile, 130,000 students got cuts in their ... scholarship for tuition, so it seems very unjust to me that the state is not acting on behalf of people who are trying to get a good education. ... The biggest cost right now in America is not credit card debt. It's college loan debt. So if we can help somebody with a scholarship, it seems to me that we ought to do that, and for the governor to stand in the way is shameful."

Rauner and Democratic lawmakers remain at odds over a budget for the 2016 fiscal year, which began July 1. Rauner is trying to use the budgeting process to win items on his pro-business "turnaround agenda," which, among other things, seeks to curb the power of unions.

Quinn said Rauner's turnaround agenda is "anti-worker."

"People should have the right to have collective bargaining and to have a union. It's been the key to having a middle class in America and in Illinois," Quinn said. "To try to take a sledgehammer to the right to organize and have a union, it causes great harm to everyday people. And I think that it's not a turnaround agenda. It's an agenda to harm the middle class in our state."

The Democrat also accused Rauner of being dishonest with voters about his budget plans when he was a gubernatorial candidate.

"From the day he announced [his run] for governor, he wasn't honest about the budget and because of that ... people have been put in a bad situation by a governor who won't lead," Quinn said.

Asked whether he has any plans to run in the next Illinois gubernatorial election, Quinn said he's currently interested in grassroots organizing.

"I'm not too interested in candidacy campaigns and [all] that. I'm interested in petitions and referendums. That's what I got started on when I started in Illinois politics 40 years ago. We did the petition drive that set up the Citizens Utility Board. So I'd like to do a referendum in Illinois this year, at least in the Chicago area. That gives people a chance to open up the government to more citizen participation."

"There's a lot of work to be done. This is the year to get it done," he added. "We can't let someone who stands in the way of progress, Bruce Rauner, stop the people of Illinois from getting progressive, fair government. And I want to say to the 130,000 students who are looking for their scholarship that they were promised, but it's being denied by the governor, that we're not gonna take that sitting down. We've gotta organize."

Quinn also weighed in on the growing controversy over police misconduct in Chicago that has Mayor Rahm Emanuel facing calls for his resignation. 

"I think there needs to be a comprehensive overhaul of the whole Chicago government so that everyone in Chicago is treated with dignity and justice, and there's a ways to go before that's done," Quinn said.

Asked whether he thinks that overhaul should include the mayor's office, Quinn stopped short of saying Emanuel should resign. The former governor said he supports giving voters the ability to recall elected officials across Illinois, including Chicago's mayor. Illinois currently has a mechanism for recalling governors, which is a measure that was approved during the Quinn administration.

"I believe more in the power of having a recall," Quinn said. "I think that's the democratic way to do it, at the ballot box. That's what I got done for governor. I think we ought to do it for every office."

Above is from:  http://www.progressillinois.com/posts/content/2016/01/14/quinn-slams-rauner-over-ongoing-budget-impasse

Gov. Rauner seeks labor board ruling on impasse in talks with AFSCME

 

 

  • By Doug Finke
    State Capitol Bureau

    Posted Jan. 15, 2016 at 10:49 AM
    Updated Jan 15, 2016 at 5:37 PM

    A week after denying it had declared negotiations at an impasse, the Rauner administration Friday asked the state labor relations board to determine if contract talks with the largest state employee union have stalled.
    If the Illinois Labor Relations Board rules in favor of the administration, it could open the door to the administration imposing its contract terms on the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 that represents about 38,000 state employees.
    The union would then have to decide whether to accept the terms, go on strike or challenge the labor board’s ruling in court.
    AFSCME executive director Roberta Lynch said Friday, "It’s regrettable and damaging to the public interest that the governor has chosen a confrontational path.”
    In a letter to state employees Friday, though, Gov. Bruce Rauner said AFSCME is demanding a contract the state cannot afford and is not bargaining in good faith.
    “AFSCME has no intention of ever reaching a deal at the table,” Rauner wrote. “Our efforts at responding to AFSCME’s concerns and producing thoughtful proposals were rejected. We are no closer today than we were 12 months ago. Taxpayers will not be served by further discussions.”
    Friday’s action by the Rauner administration is the latest escalation in the increasingly contentious talks with AFSCME. A week ago, the union said administration negotiators had declared talks were at an impasse and rejected AFSCME’s offer for additional negotiating sessions. The administration denied it had declared an impasse and said it was AFSCME that had canceled previously scheduled negotiating sessions, something denied by the union.
    'Extreme demands'
    In documents released Friday, the administration said AFSCME wants raises, improvements to health insurance and other proposals that would cost the state more than $3 billion over the four-year term of the contract.
    “While everyone would like to be paid more, our average state worker salaries have gone up twice as fast as inflation over the last 10 years,” Rauner wrote. “Nor could any employer, public or private, afford to continue our current practice of providing the platinum health plans at the price of silver plans. I reached the conclusion early on that leaner contracts for four years were far better than the massive layoffs our state government faces on its current trajectory.”
    Lynch said Rauner is demanding that workers pay double to keep their health insurance plan, forego pay raises for four years and create a bonus plan based on “unknown criteria open to political favoritism.”
  • …..
    There is no firm timetable for the ILRB to issue its ruling. The Rauner administration said the process could take several months if the board decides evidentiary hearings should be held.
    The decision would come from the five-member state panel of the ILRB. Rauner has appointed two members and reappointed two who were previously chosen by former Gov. Pat Quinn.
    If the board rules in Rauner’s favor, it would allow the administration to impose its contract terms on the union. The ILRB ruling could also be challenged in court. AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said the union is exploring all of its options.
    If the board rules against the administration, negotiations would continue.
    In 40 years that AFSCME has negotiated labor contracts with the state, this is believed to be the first time one side has attempted to declare an impasse. There has also never been a strike by AFSCME members during that time.
  • ….
  • Read more by clicking on the following:  http://www.sj-r.com/news/20160115/gov-rauner-seeks-labor-board-ruling-on-impasse-in-talks-with-afscme?rssfeed=true

Cory Lind recommended to county board after Paul Larson resigns

By Adam Poulisse
Staff writer

Posted Jan. 15, 2016 at 10:24 PM

BELVIDERE — The Boone County Republican Central Committee has unanimously recommended lifelong-resident Cory Lind to fill the vacant District 2 seat on the county board.
Paul Larson resigned at the start of the year. An official announcement by Chairman Bob Walberg is expected at the Jan. 20 board meeting.
Lind works as a safety manager in Boone County and is a graduate of Belvidere High School and Northern Illinois University. He served in the Army National Guard and was deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq, according to a news release.
He will appear on the ballot in the March 15 primary and, if elected, will serve a four-year term.
Larson's resignation comes on the heels of an announcement by Walberg in November that he will not seek re-election.

Adam Poulisse: 815-987-1344; apoulisse@rrstar.com; @adampoulisse

ABOVE IS FROM:  http://www.rrstar.com/article/20160115/NEWS/160119583/0/SEARCH

North Boone’s old superintendent now at Muncie, Indiana

 

MCS hires new superintendent

Emma Kate Fittes, efittes@muncie.gannett.com 2:24 p.m. EDT April 29, 2015

MUNCIE – Steven Baule was welcomed to Muncie Community Schools with a standing ovation and a stack of documents Tuesday night.

"They gave me homework," he said.

The folder of documents included a packed schedule for his remaining 24 hours in Muncie and information on the nearly $15 million deficit the board needs to address in the next five years. His homework is to help the board figure out the future of the schools.

The school board unanimously voted for Baule during the meeting Tuesday evening, officially hiring him as the 19th superintendent of MCS. He had been introduced as the leading candidate 10 days prior out of 14 applicants.

The next step is to meet with the public Wednesday at 3 p.m. and, hopefully, find a house in Muncie. Then, Baule said he is going to start meeting with every administrator and community leaders and tour the facilities.

To Baule, his vision isn't important. It's about looking at the data and seeing what programs are successful and trying to find a way to help each child.

He is planning to make two long-range plans, something he feels the district is currently missing. One for finances and one for facilities.

The nice thing about facilities, he said, is that you know what is going to need to be replaced down the road. And he wants to have money ready in the rainy day fund, which is currently being used to help pay for busing.

Previously, Baule was the superintendent of North Boone CUSD 200 school district in Northern Illinois, which has about 1,800 students. There, he was able to put the district "back on the right path." During his time as superintendent, North Boone had almost a $12 million turn, going from about $1 million deficit to having $9.7 million in the operating funds.

Baule's wife, Kathy, and two kids, Sydney and Sam, will be moving with him. Sydney and Sam will go to Central High School in the fall. He said he isn't worried about them having a difficult time because for one they are the superintendent's kids, and Sam has a black belt in taekwondo. For Sydney, her main concern is that soccer and cross country run during the same semester in Indiana

Kathy will begin looking for a job. She is a nurse and has worked in many areas including trauma surgery. Baule mentioned having IU Health Ball Memorial nearby helped make the move more enticing. And Baule had his heart set on Muncie.

"You want to work somewhere where first you're needed and second you can have an impact on a large amount of kids," he said.

Contact inside families & education reporter Emma Kate Fittes at 765-213-5845 and follow @EmmaKate_TSP

If you want to go...

What

Meet and greet with Steven Baule, the new superintendent of Muncie schools

When

3-5 p.m. Wednesday

Where

Anthony Administration, 2501 N Oakwood Ave

Above is from:  http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/education/2015/04/28/mcs-hires-new-superintendent/26550703/

Chicago Schools' Wrecked Finances on Display Before Deal

 

Elizabeth Campbell

January 15, 2016 — 10:27 AM CST Updated on January 15, 2016 — 3:55 PM CST

Chicago schools are borrowing to pay mounting debt bills and fund capital projects as the district’s liquidity deteriorates and its credit rating tumbles.

The Chicago Board of Education will sell $875 million of bonds on Jan. 27, according to Bloomberg data from J.P. Morgan, an underwriter on the deal. The deal is made up of $796 million of tax-exempt securities and $79 million of taxable debt, according to bond documents. The proceeds will cover capital projects, convert variable rate debt to fixed, fund swap termination payments and pay debt-service bills, bond documents show.

The most-actively traded school bonds, which mature in 2039, traded for an average of 88 cents the dollar on Friday to yield 6.5 percent. That’s down from 110 cents to yield 3.9 percent a year earlier, according to data complied by Bloomberg.

“Based in part on its limited ability to increase revenues and its increased expenses for pension and debt service, recurring operating budget deficits are projected to occur and could result in the reduction or elimination of essential educational services,” according to the bond documents.

The school district, the nation’s third-largest, has said it needs $480 million from the state of Illinois to close this year’s budget gap. Without the aid, the system faces deep spending cuts and more borrowing. Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has said he won’t bail out the schools and will only help if officials like Mayor Rahm Emanuel support the structural changes that Rauner wants in the state. Rauner, the first Republican to lead Illinois in 12 years, is deadlocked with Democrats in the legislature over the state budget.

Rating Downgrade

“Chicago Public Schools is focused on resolving the district’s significant financial challenges, especially with upcoming streamlining to the bureaucracy and a teachers’ contract proposal that would prevent midyear layoffs,” Ron DeNard, the board’s senior vice president of finance, said in an e-mailed statement. “Long-term success is contingent on fair funding from the state of Illinois.”

Without action from the board or the state, the district’s operating deficit may reach $1 billion annually through fiscal year 2020, bond documents show. The board is considered junk by all three major rating companies. On Friday, Standard & Poor’s slashed its rating by two steps to B+, four levels below investment grade, and kept the district on CreditWatch with negative implications. That signals S&P may lower the rating in the next six months. The schools’ pension system is only 51.9 percent funded.

This “reflects our view of the board’s low liquidity and significant reliance on market access to continue supporting operating and debt-service expenses,” Jennifer Boyd, an S&P analyst, said a statement. “Adverse business, financial, or economic conditions will likely impair the board’s capacity or willingness to meet its financial commitments.”

Above is from:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-15/chicago-schools-wrecked-finances-on-display-before-borrowing