Column: A call to service in Boone County(OHIO)

 

Forty boards in the county require 200 appointees to function effectively

Gary Moore, Judge-executive of Boone County (Photo: Provided)

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As the Boone County judge-executive, one of the important responsibilities I have is to appoint citizens to serve on boards and commissions that assist the county and the region in policy formation, oversight and administration.

As you may or may not know there are more than 40 boards in Boone County that require over 200 appointees to function effectively. These opportunities exist to engage the public, utilize the vast resources and talents of our citizens and to ensure oversight of public entities. From fire protection districts to historic preservation to the Arboretum to planning and zoning (to name just a few) there are countless opportunities for citizens to be directly involved in important issues that impact us all.

Serving on a board or commission can be a rewarding experience for community service minded residents. It is an excellent way to participate in the functioning of local government and to make a personal contribution to the improvement of Boone County.

I challenge our citizens to consider serving because it is more than an opportunity to be engaged; it is also a critical responsibility that we have in a democracy to be active in decision-making bodies that make our government work. Boards and commissions make important judgments each and every day that have an enormous impact on the people and the future of Boone County. Without the participation of our citizens, we fail to serve our community.

I urge you to consider whether your talents and experience might bring value to a board or commission. The first step is to visit the county's website and learn about the many groups that utilize board members. The website address is bit.ly/BooneBoards. If you believe that one of the groups would be a good fit for you, I welcome your application!

Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis. The appointment process stays active year-round with expiring terms turning over at various times throughout the year. Once candidates are identified as good matches for open positions and interviewed, I make my final recommendation to the Fiscal Court. This process is important to identify quality board members.

Service on a board is important for so many reasons. It helps familiarize you with your community, develops potential community leaders and it gives you the chance to have input about which community needs should be addressed and how they should be met.

I urge every Boone Countian to give serious consideration to serving as a board member. If you have questions or need more information, please contact our Government and Community Relations Coordinator, Matthew Webster, at mwebster@boonecountyky.org. I look forward to working with you to continue make Boone County a great place to live, work and raise a family.

Gary W. Moore is the judge-executive of Boone County.

Column: A call to service in Boone County

McHenry County questions jail-rental program - News - Journal Star - Peoria, IL

Note to readers:  Boone County earlier this year signed a $85 per day agreement with the Federal Marshall Program-- that contact was negotiated with the help of an expensive consultant.  See that story at:  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2013/12/boone-county-risks-20k-to-generate.htmlBy the Associated Press

Journal Star

By the Associated Press

Posted Dec. 28, 2014 @ 5:00 pm

By the Associated Press
Posted Dec. 28, 2014 @ 5:00 pm

WOODSTOCK, Ill. — A jail-rental program with the federal government that has produced more than $73 million in the past decade has some McHenry County officials nonetheless wondering if it is worth it.

The (Crystal Lake) Northwest Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1Aco4SX) that county taxpayers have subsidized the initiative to temporarily house detainees of the U.S. Marshals Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

They question whether the agreement should be renewed when it expires at the end of 2015.

At issue is the $85-a-day per-bed rate, which hasn't changed since 2008. A lobbyist hired by the county in 2013 found the county's cost is $131 daily. But that report has been criticized as oversimplified.

County Administrator Peter Austin claims the cost varies. He contends that while there are fixed costs to providing the jail, which the county must do by state law, the population varies, changing the daily inmate cost.

"We have to turn the oven on whether we're making 200 biscuits or 400 biscuits," Austin said.

The county has asked for an increase from its federal partners. The Marshals Service agreed to a $10-a-day increase — and then pulled its detainees the next day. Federal authorities note that other facilities in the Chicago area charge less — Dodge County, Wisconsin, has a $60-a-day rate.

ICE uses the McHenry County lockup to a greater degree than the Marshals Service did. In 2012, for example, the average daily ICE population was 241 compared to 45 in the Marshals' custody. But the county has felt additional financial pressure as the overall population has dropped from an average of 350 a day in 2011 to 180 daily this year, not counting December.

A consultant the county hired in the spring of 2013 plugged the county's costs into a federal reimbursement formula and determined the county was paying $131 per day to house the inmates.

That outraged some officeholders.

"We're talking between $40 and $50 million over a seven-year period," county board member Donna Kurtz said. "This never should have happened."

Information from: The Northwest Herald, http://www.nwherald.com

Above is from:  McHenry County questions jail-rental program - News - Journal Star - Peoria, IL

 

This problem has been a concern of some McHenry County board members for months.  SEE the First Electric Newspaper article of March 5, 2014 (http://www.firstelectricnewspaper.com/2014/03/county-board-members-ask-for-real-costs.html)

 

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

County Board Members Ask For Real Costs At McHenry County Jail

 

Controversy building behind the scenes for the past month about the cost of housing federal inmates at the McHenry County Jail finally broke out in public complaints at Tuesday's McHenry County Board meeting.  Administrator Peter Austin announced hopes the County will get more money per prisoner, at least for some prisoners, "within 30 days" but members complained bitterly that they're being kept in the dark about what it really costs to house one.
Finance Committee Vice Chairman Donna Kurtz charged that, using the only numbers available, McHenry County's lost $30 milllion keeping federal prisoners in McHenry County Jail since 2008.  "This isn't beanbag," she said.  "We're talking real money."
The problem, as Austin laid it out, is that the County houses a lot of federal prisoners for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshall's Service but the rate of payment hasn't gone up in six years.  The County's been trying to boost it since July of 2012 but without success, even after hiring a $60,000 expert who said he'd have a new contract in the bag by last July 31.  Austin, returned Monday from a trip to Washington,  said ICE still wasn't talking but that he'd secured an "oral agreement" with the Marshall's office, yet to be confirmed,  that he estimated would bring in another $1 million.
Former head of the Board's Justice Committee, Nick Provenzano, complained that was all very well but not much help if Members didn't know how much it cost the County to house prisoners in the first place.  Referring to an $85 per-day figure provided by consultant Joseph Summerill last year,  Provenzano asked, "Are they accurate or are they not accurate?"
"They're not accurate," replied Austin who hastened to say that the way federal officials figure prisoner costs isn't the same as the way the County figures them.  Austin said Summerill's Jail costs were more suggestive than definitive when he was trying to convince the Board to hire him..
"It was not presented to us as an illustration in a sales brochure," complained Member John Hammerand.  "It's infuriating to me."
Kurtz charged Summerill's numbers were sold to the Board as authoritative.  "Sheriff Nygren, Undersheriff Zinke and [Sheriff's Business Manager] Angela [Wood-Zuzevich] all nodded their heads," she said.  "I trust Sheriff Nygren when he said he was behind the numbers."
But if the Summerill numbers are no good, what are the real ones, inquired Member Paula Yensen?  "Many of us have been asking for that information," she complained.
FEN's been trying to find out, too., filing a Freedom of Information Act request last month for the federally-required Jail Operating Expense Information report McHenry County had to submit for the latest round of negotiations.  It lists 43 different kinds of Jail expenditures that the U.S. Department of Justice considers at least theoretically allowable in setting bed-rental rates.  In fact, FEN filed two requests since it wasn't clear who had the report and Summerill didn't reply to inquiries.  The one to McHenry County Administration was turned down on the premise the report was among "proposals and bids for any contract" and "preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations and memoranda",  both of which are exempt from disclosure.  The one to the Sheriff's Office was answered, eventually, with what appeared to be a standard printout of how close last year's Jail budget came to actual expenditures.  (Answer: pretty close.)
Austin told the County Board other newspapers have been inquiring about Jail costs, too, but said, "I'm not going to negotiate in public."

Obama warns GOP he plans to use veto pen in 2015 - Yahoo News

 

HONOLULU (AP) — Warning from President Barack Obama to congressional Republicans: I have a veto pen and, come January, I won't be afraid to use it.

Since taking office in 2009, Obama has only vetoed legislation twice, both in fairly minor circumstances. But with Republicans set to take full control of Congress next year, Obama is losing his last bulwark against a barrage of bills he doesn't like: the Senate.

"I haven't used the veto pen very often since I've been in office," Obama said in an NPR interview airing Monday. "Now, I suspect, there are going to be some times where I've got to pull that pen out."

He added: "I'm going to defend gains that we've made in health care. I'm going to defend gains that we've made on environment and clean air and clean water."

Obama's notice to the GOP came as he sought to set the tone for a year in which Congress and the president are on a near-certain collision course. Buoyed by decisive gains in last month's midterm elections, Republicans are itching to use their newfound Senate majority to derail Obama's plans on immigration, climate change and health care, to name a few.

To overturn Obama's veto, Republicans would need the votes of two-thirds of the House and Senate. Their majorities in both chambers are not that large, so they would still need to persuade some Democrats to defy the president.

But Obama said he was hopeful that at least on some issues, that won't be necessary, because there's overlap between his interests and those of congressional Republicans. On that point, at least, he's in agreement with incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

"Bipartisan jobs bills will see the light of day and will make it to the President's desk, and he'll have to make decisions about ideology versus creating jobs for the middle class," McConnell said in response to Obama's comments. "There's a lot we can get done together if the president puts his famous pen to use signing bills rather than vetoing legislation his liberal allies don't like."

Potential areas for cooperation include tax reform and global trade deals — both issues where Obama and Republicans see at least partially eye to eye. Conversely, the likeliest points of friction surround Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the Keystone XL pipeline and Obama's unilateral steps on immigration, which let millions of people in the U.S. illegally avoid deportation and get work permits.

In the interview, recorded before Obama left Washington earlier this month for his annual Hawaii vacation, Obama also offered his most specific diagnosis to date of why Democrats fared so poorly in the midterms. He said he was "obviously frustrated" with the results.

"I think we had a great record for members of Congress to run on and I don't think we — myself and the Democratic Party — made as good of a case as we should have," Obama said. "And you know, as a consequence, we had really low voter turnout, and the results were bad."

Obama warns GOP he plans to use veto pen in 2015 - Yahoo News

US farmers brace for labor shortage under new policy - Yahoo News

Once Obama's executive action starts going into effect next year, it will protect the parents of legal U.S. residents from deportation and expand a 2012 program that shields from deportation people brought into the U.S. illegally as children

This action  isn't going to bring new workers to agriculture," said Jason Resnick, vice president and general counsel of the powerful trade association Western Growers. "It's possible that because of this action, agriculture will lose workers without any mechanism to bring in new workers."

Although details of the president's immigration policy have yet to be worked out, Resnick said the agricultural workforce has been declining for a decade. Today, the association estimates there is a 15 to 20 percent shortage of farmworkers, which is driving the industry to call for substantial immigration reform from Congress, such as a sound guest worker program.

"Hopefully there will be the opportunity for comprehensive immigration reform," said Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. "That's the right thing to do for this country."

California's 330,000 farmworkers account for the largest share of the 2.1 million nationwide, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Texas comes in a distant second with less than half of California's farmworkers.

Read more by clicking on the following:  US farmers brace for labor shortage under new policy - Yahoo News

Illinois's Public Pension Crisis - Business Insider

 

But as soon as Mr Rauner was elected last month, the self-made millionaire toned down the rhetoric. The size and complexity of the public-pension mess suddenly hit him, and, aware that he had to bring together Democrats, unions and creditors, he began to backtrack.

He declares now that it is most important to "protect what is done — don't change history. Don't modify or reduce anybody's pension who has retired, or has paid into a system and they've accrued benefits."

Illinois is like Greece in one obvious way: It overpromised and underdelivered on pensions and has little appetite for dealing with the problem, says Hal Weitzman of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

This large Midwestern state, with a population of 13 million (Greece has 11 million, though a far smaller GDP than Illinois), has the most underfunded retirement system of any state and the largest pension burden relative to state revenue. It also has the highest number of public-pension funds close to insolvency, such as the one looking after Chicago's police and firemen.

The Economist

According to the Civic Federation, a budget watchdog, Illinois has piled up a whopping $111 billion in unfunded pension liabilities (see chart), in addition to $56 billion in debt for health benefits for pensioners.

The state devotes one in four of its tax dollars to pensions, which is more than it spends on primary and secondary education.

Mainly as a result of this gargantuan pension debt, Illinois's bond rating is the lowest of all the states, which means dramatically higher borrowing costs.

When the state government failed to address pension underfunding in its budget for 2014, two credit-rating agencies, Fitch and Moody's, cut the state's bond rating, which in Moody's case put Illinois on a par with Botswana. (An incensed editorial in the Chicago Tribune asked what Botswana had done to be so insulted.)

The main reason for the pension debacle is decades of underfunding. "Everything was always done with a short-term view," says Laurence Msall, head of the Civic Federation. "Unique to Illinois is the idea that you don't have to pay for pensions and you don't have to follow actuarial recommendations."

Whereas most other states follow the rules set by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), which, however imperfect, require some budget discipline, Illinois has mostly ignored them.

In 2013 the state paid $2.8 billion into its pension fund for teachers, one of its five pension funds, but GASB rules would have required a contribution of $3.6 billion, says Joshua Rauh, a professor of finance at Stanford University. According to Mr Rauh's calculations, Illinois's true unfunded pension liability is $250 billion.

All the other calculations, he says, are based on over-optimistic assumptions. For example, the state assumes an average annual return on its investments of 7.75% over 30 years. But according to Mr Rauh it has only a 25% chance of achieving gains of that order.

After the public-relations disaster of the credit downgrades, Pat Quinn, the outgoing governor belatedly pushed for pension reform. In December 2013 the legislature approved a bill that reduces annual increases in pension payments, increases the retirement age and caps pensionable salaries.

Some have welcomed it as Illinois's first actuarially sound pension-funding scheme, designed to get the five plans fully funded in 30 years. Mr Rauh, however, thinks that the reform "does not even come close to addressing the problem".

Mr Quinn's changes were supposed to become law in June, but were held up by legal challenges and ultimately rejected by Judge John Belz of the Sangamon County circuit court for violating the state constitution, which makes existing pension contracts virtually untouchable. (Only New York and Arizona have similar safeguards in their constitutions.) Lisa Madigan, the state attorney-general, has appealed against the ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court, which is looking at the case.

James Spiotto, a lawyer at Chapman Strategic Advisors, argues that if a state is unable rather than unwilling to pay its pensions, then the well-being of its citizens overrides any constitutional protections. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that states cannot abdicate their responsibility to provide essential services and infrastructure. And if Illinois cuts public services yet further the state will lose more taxpayers, resulting in "a death spiral," says Mr Spiotto.

Union representatives disagree with this scenario. Dan Montgomery, the president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, believes Mr Quinn's reform is illegal and that the state must find ways to pay up, for instance by extending the repayment schedule of its debt and increasing tax revenue by closing loopholes and expanding a sales tax on services.

Mr Rauner was elected on a promise that he would not make his predecessor's temporary increase of income and corporate tax permanent. But he has not explained how Illinois will cope with the loss of more than $7 billion in annual revenue. Nor has he laid out any broader plans for fixing the pensions mess.

For a start he might look to Washington and the budget deal hashed out in Congress. This allows some distressed private-sector pension plans to cut the benefits of retirees. In Illinois, though, more inventive measures may be needed.

In 2015 Illinois will either sink further into a Greek-style morass of debt or start its long-delayed rehabilitation. Mr Rauner has warned of a rough 24 months ahead. "I ain't going to be Mr Popularity for a while," he says. Voters may not mind, if he is able to sort this disaster out.

 

Illinois's Public Pension Crisis - Business Insider

Chemical company settles with Illinois neighbors - StamfordAdvocate

MCCULLOM LAKE, Ill. (AP) — A Philadelphia-based chemical manufacturer has settled lawsuits with more than 30 people who lived near a plant in northern Illinois, ending a legal battle over an alleged brain cancer cluster.

The (Crystal Lake) Northwest Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1Ab7keI ) the details of Rohm and Haas' settlement haven't been disclosed. Attorney Aaron Freiwald says his clients are satisfied with the terms of the settlement, which recently was approved by a Philadelphia judge.

The plaintiffs claimed the company released vinyl chloride into the air and water causing a cluster of brain cancer cases in McCullom Lake, Illinois. The company has denied the pollutant caused any illnesses, but has acknowledged a previous owner of the plant built a sludge pond that leaked into the groundwater.

Rohm and Haas is a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co.

Chemical company settles with Illinois neighbors - StamfordAdvocate