Press release from the office of Governor Bruce Rauner

SPRINGFIELD, IL – Gov. Bruce Rauner today signed a series of agriculture bills, including House Bill 470, which designates corn as the official state grain of Illinois and is supported by the Illinois Farm Bureau.

Primary bill sponsor state Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer (R-Jacksonville) said HB 470 is inspired by the Pittsfield High School agriculture development class, which did extensive research on the impact corn has on the state.

“Today, we designated corn as the official state grain to show the great impact it and all of agriculture has on Illinois’ economy,” Rep. Davidsmeyer said. “More importantly, we helped Pittsfield ag students work to see their bill become law, from start to finish. What a great way to learn how the process is supposed to work!”

Gov. Rauner also signed several other bills that were initiatives of the Department of Agriculture. These bills, many of which seek to cut red tape, will reduce regulations and agency costs within the department.

“Agriculture is the backbone of Illinois’ economy, and it’s critical to future prosperity in the state,” Gov. Rauner said. “We need to continue to support our state’s farmers and the Department of Agriculture in every way we can.”

One of the bills is specifically designed to advance agriculture in Illinois. Senate Bill 1991, which passed unanimously out of the General Assembly, creates an Agriculture Education Shortage Task Force to examine the status of agriculture education in the state. The task force also will make recommendations for how to expand recruitment and retention of agriculture educators. The task force will disband once the final report is completed.

A full list of the bills signed by the governor is below.

Bill No.: HB 470
An Act Concerning Government
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2018
Bill No.: HB 2995
An Act Concerning State Government
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: HB 2998
An Act Concerning Animals
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: HB 3058
An Act Concerning Agriculture
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: HB 3081
An Act Concerning Regulation
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: HB 3090
An Act Concerning Animals
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: HB 3130
An Act Concerning Safety
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: HB 3188
An Act Concerning State Government
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: HB 3189
An Act Concerning Regulation
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately
Bill No.: SB 1991
An Act Concerning Education
Action: Signed
Effective: Immediately

Two bills will help reduce the number of local units of government, but more resident empowerment needed

Press Release from Governor Bruce Rauner

OAK BROOK, IL – Yesterday, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed Senate Bill 3 and House Bill 607, two bills that enable local officials to consolidate units of local government.
The bills, which reflect five of the 27 recommendations made by Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti’s Task Force on Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates, were sponsored by Democrats and had bipartisan support. They empower local officials to begin reducing the nearly 7,000 local units of government in Illinois – 1,800 more than any other state. The exorbitantly high number of local governmental agencies puts an enormous burden on taxpayers, who primarily pay for these local governments via property taxes.

“People are fleeing our state in droves. Our property taxes are crushing the people of Illinois, and we’ve got to start making reforms so people can afford to stay here,” Gov. Rauner said. “Part of reforming and turning around Illinois includes empowering local communities. By signing these bills, local governments will be able to control their futures and tax dollars more efficiently. However, a key component to empowering local communities is missing from these bills. Neither one includes real taxpayer empowerment. While today is a step in the right direction, we must continue to fight to give every resident the right to choose how their local government operates.”

Since 2015, Lt. Gov. Sanguinetti has spearheaded a task force charged with identifying opportunities to streamline government in Illinois and, ultimately, reduce costs to taxpayers. In the report detailing the task force’s findings, Lt. Gov. Sanguinetti recommended giving local officials and residents the power to consolidate local government agencies.

“These bills provide a starting point for minimizing the massive amount of unnecessary government in the local communities of our state, but these bills don’t do enough to bring real change to the people of Illinois,” Lt. Gov. Sanguinetti said. “Where I live in Wheaton, I am represented by 16 units of local government. That’s a lot of hands in the pockets of our taxpayers. In Illinois, we are forced to pay the highest property taxes in the nation. We need to put the power to consolidate back at the local level and in the hands of the people.”

Specifically, SB 3 expands DuPage County’s consolidation pilot program to all 102 counties of Illinois, giving each the authority to dissolve or consolidate some government units whose boards are appointed by the county. It also will allow townships in the state to consolidate with coterminous municipalities via referendum.

HB 607 amends the Illinois Highway Code and allows the board of trustees of any township located in a county with less than 3 million inhabitants to submit a proposition during a general or consolidated election to abolish the road district in their county, a power already extended to townships in Cook County.

Bill No.: SB 3, An Act Concerning Local Government
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2018
Bill No.: HB 607, An Act Concerning Transportation
Action: Signed
Effective: Jan. 1, 2018

 

https://www.ilnews.org/news/state_politics/isbe-nearly-all-illinois-school-districts-would-receive-more-state/article_340a4446-7f74-11e7-b944-afdb58d640ad.html

SPRINGFIELD, IL  – (Dan McCaleb – Illinois News Network.  Please click on the link above for the full story.  Here is an excerpt below.)

More than 97.5 percent of Illinois schools receive more state dollars under Gov. Bruce Rauner’s amended funding reform plan than they would under Democrats’ plan in Senate Bill 1, according to an analysis by the independent State Board of Education.

Forty-four school districts receive more than $1 million more under Rauner’s plan, and the 3 percent of school districts that receive less money under Rauner’s plan still receive more than they did last year, ISBE’s review found.

Released Saturday to the governor’s office and majority Democrats in the General Assembly, the ISBE analysis was conducted after Rauner vetoed SB1 to remove more than $120 million in additional annual funding for Chicago Public Schools to bail out its failing pension system and to more accurately reflect how the funding reform formula calculates district wealth.

National Labor Relations Board Rules Against Administration, Sets
October Election Date

Press Release from the American Federation of Teachers

CHICAGO, IL —Graduate employees at the University of Chicago will vote in a historic union election in October to win union representation, after the National Labor Relations Board rejected university attempts to deny them a say at the ballot box.

The union election will be held on campus October 17 and 18 and will include all graduate students, including master’s degree students, who received compensation for work performed in a unit position across six divisions or schools in autumn 2016, winter 2017, spring 2017, summer 2017 or autumn 2017.

The NLRB ruling represents a win for graduate employees in their push for union recognition. Instead of acknowledging the workers’ right to hold a union election under federal labor law, the University of Chicago administration decided to expend resources re-litigating the issue of whether graduate students are also employees, stretching hearings on the matter over 10 full business days.

The NLRB regional director refuted the university’s position, finding instead that graduate students serving in teaching positions and research assistant positions “perform services for the benefit of the Employer, under its direction and control, for which they are compensated,” and therefore are employees under Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act.

Graduate Students United member Daniela Palmer, a sixth-year grad student working and studying in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, said: “We are thrilled that the NLRB has recognized the essential work that we do as graduate student employees at the University of Chicago. We will continue to rally together and build momentum toward our election this fall, when we will exercise our right to a vote for a voice in our working conditions.” GSU is affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said: “I am immensely proud of the University of Chicago graduate employees, who have fought for the freedom to have a union. That right was affirmed by the NLRB, and the graduate workers who are the backbone of the academic work of the university will now vote for a real say over the work they do. The board confirmed what we already know—that graduate students are also workers who teach the classes and undertake the research central to the university’s mission. The Chicago administration decided to cynically re-litigate established precedent to delay democracy, but in the fall, the graduate employees will have their say loud and clear.”

###