Category Archives: State Legislation

AmerenCILCO, State Legislation, State of Illinois

Ameren touts benefits of rate relief

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Ameren is pleased with the new rate relief package that was unveiled yesterday. A press release from Ameren today explains why:

Gary L. Rainwater, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Ameren Corporation, noted: “This comprehensive rate relief package provides significant benefits to our Illinois electric customers, while benefiting our shareholders by providing legislative stability. It also avoids a costly, lengthy and undesirable court battle to overturn a rate freeze and power generation tax.”

That “legislative stability” is a provision of the relief package that states, “The General Assembly leadership agrees not to pass legislation that would freeze or reduce electric rates, or impose a tax, special assessment or fee on electricity generators through
Aug. 1, 2011.” So the charges of collusion are dropped and the threat of an imminent rate freeze is dropped. Ameren’s happy, and Ameren’s shareholders are happy.

How about Ameren’s customers? I think they’re going to be happy, too. Here are a couple of pie charts that Ameren released today to show the effect this rate relief will have on customers’ electric bills:

Ameren Chart Before Rate Relief

Ameren Chart After Rate Relief

Of course these graphs only depict 2007 rate increases, since they’re phasing in the rate increases over three years (January 2007 through December 2009). To make up for the higher rates we’ve been paying since January, Ameren will be mailing us all rebate checks. Ameren has provided this graphic to explain how much we may be getting:

Typical Residential Credits

All this will be funded by the electricity-generating companies — the ones who made out like bandits in the reverse auction deal:

The $1-billion statewide rate relief package will be funded by contributions of $150 million from Ameren-affiliated companies and $800 million from Exelon-affiliated companies, with the remainder coming from other electric generating companies in the state. Ameren Corporation expects earnings per share will be reduced by approximately 26, 11, 7 and 1 cents per share in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively, as a result of the rate relief package.

You can read the full press release from Ameren here. The Citizens Utility Board is cautiously optimistic about this deal, and as far as I know they’re not receiving any money from the power companies this time around. So far, this appears to be a good deal for everyone. Only time will tell if it really is or not.

State Legislation, State of Illinois

No smoking

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No Smoking by lawGov. Blagojevich signed the Smoke-Free Illinois Act yesterday. This legislation protects health-conscious non-smokers who lack the common sense to avoid smoking establishments. You gotta love the logic: non-smokers choose of their own free will to patronize a restaurant that allows smoking, then complain about the smoke. Then these victims by choice get a law passed forcing restaurant owners to disallow smoking in their own private business.

Or, they could have just gone to a non-smoking restaurant and the problem would have been solved, leaving property rights intact. Being a non-smoker myself, I very rarely had to put up with cigarette smoke because most of the time I would just go to restaurants that didn’t allow smoking. Silly me.

AmerenCILCO, State Legislation, State of Illinois

Rate relief likely to pass

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Ameren LogoThe Springfield State Journal-Register reports that although no votes have been taken yet, the rate relief package unveiled yesterday is likely to pass. Indeed, everyone seems to be happy with the plan, even Ameren. So it appears to be a win-win-win.

As I understand it, there’s a short-term and long-term component. In the short-term, rate increases will be phased in. That means we’ll be getting a refund for electric rate increases over the first seven months of this year and then lower, but gradually increasing bills from now until 2010, when we’ll be back up to paying market rates again.

As for the long-term:

The main component of the long-term reform involves creation of the Illinois Power Authority, which will oversee state-regulated utilities’ purchase of electricity in the future. Once the IPA is launched, the reverse auction that was used last year to set the present electric rates will be discontinued.

The reverse auction improperly led to “windfall profits” for power generators, including those sharing a parent company with ComEd and Ameren, said Michael Madigan, who touted the benefits of the IPA at every stop on the fly-around.

You may recall that Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit against the energy companies involved in the reverse auction accusing them of collusion to inflate energy prices. She’s planning to drop that suit if this plan passes.

I’ll have more analysis of this later after I have a chance to look at some information I received from Ameren today.

City of Peoria, Insight Communications, State Legislation, Television

Almost a year later, and still no cable franchise agreement

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Cable TVOn April 15, 2006, Peoria’s 20-year cable franchise agreement with Insight Communications expired. As of today, we still have no cable franchise agreement, but City Attorney Randy Ray is hopeful that we will soon. In an e-mail I received in response to my question on how negotiations were going, he said this:

Our attorney is working on what I hope is a final version [of the proposed new franchise agreement]. We are subject to being affected by pending legislation in Springfield.

That is one, long, drawn-out negotiation. No doubt the legislation to which Ray obliquely refers is H.B. 1500, the so-called “Cable and Video Competition Law of 2007.” It’s backed by telcom behemoth AT&T which wants to get into the cable TV business without having to negotiate franchise agreements with each municipality the way cable companies have done for the past 40 years.

Under H.B. 1500, a cable provider such as AT&T would apply not to the City of Peoria or the Village of Morton or any other local municipality for a cable franchise agreement to serve those communities, but rather to the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) to get franchise authorization. Furthermore, it would preempt home rule, meaning that it would strip municipalities of any authority to regulate use of their rights-of-way by cable operators (e.g., use of utility poles, underground easements, etc.), as they do through local franchise agreements now.

Opponents of the bill, such as the not-for-profit organization SaveAccess.org, say that it does a number of harmful things, including:

  • Shuts down Public, Educational and Government (PEG) stations around the state
  • Drops requirements that companies serve everyone
  • Weakens customer service protections
  • Harms fair competitions

Granted, those are all sound-bite sized talking points, but I think they’re true. Consider:

The first point is a reference to a provision in the bill that states, “Any public, education, or government channel provided under this Section that is not used by the franchising authority or local unit of government for at least 8 hours per day of non-repeat programming for 3 consecutive months may no longer be made available to the local franchising authority….” That’s a lot of public access programming to sustain. Insight provides channel 17 (Illinois Central College) and channel 22 (public/government access), and I don’t believe the two of them combined provide 8 hours/day of non-repeat programming. So I believe it’s fair to say the effect of the bill would indeed shut down PEG stations.

As far as it dropping requirements to serve everyone, local franchise agreements were always concerned with equity — with the same service being available throughout the city (see, for example, §5.1 of Peoria’s 1986 Cable Franchise Agreement). The bill as written would not require total coverage, and in fact would only require that by five years after rollout, 30% of households accessible to the cable operator’s service be low-income.

Since complaints about service would no longer be made locally, but to the state, I think there’s no question that it weakens customer service. Who do you think is going to be more responsive to your cable TV complaint: your city staffer/council rep or a state bureaucrat?

But the last point is the kicker. As a recent article in Multichannel News points out, “As currently written, the bill [H.B. 1500] would hold only incumbent cable operators to current franchises until their statutory end dates.” Indeed, §21-301(2) of the bill states, “Upon expiration of its current agreement, an incumbent cable operator […] shall obtain State authorization from the Commission pursuant to this Article and shall be subject to the provisions of this Article.”

And this may be one reason it’s taking so long to get a new franchise agreement between Insight and Peoria. Insight will want to protect themselves against signing a 10- or 20-year franchise agreement that is going to put them at a competitive disadvantage to AT&T, which will be deploying cable services under a state-granted franchise if this legislation is passed.

The bill has been assigned to the Telecommunications Committee, and there was a hearing on it today (3/22) in Springfield. There is a website set up specifically to oppose this bill called KeepUsConnected.org.

Peoria Public Schools, State Legislation

District 150 testing of disabled children, Part II

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Peoria Public Schools logoIn my last blog entry on testing of special education students, I asked at the end, “is it fair to say that children being tested at their grade level are not being tested at their ‘learning level’ when the IAA [Illinois Alternative Assessment] takes into account the students’ Individualized Education Program (IEP)? Wouldn’t the IEP be tied to the child’s ‘learning level’?”

Well, I posed this question to Bryan Chumbley, the director of research, testing, and assessment for District 150, and here’s how he responded:

It is true that federal legislation does not allow students with disabilities to be tested off grade level except in the case of IAA students (specific to Illinois). If we keep in mind that the IAA is intended for those students with significant cognitive delays, then it is more clear how these students are assessed. The portfolio that is created for IAA students identifies specific learning standards that classroom teachers are working on with these students. Given the severity of the disability for these students, the types of activities provided these students look much different than any regular classroom assignment or test. Thus, the evidence of student progress for the IAA is, in most cases, not in alignment with the work we would see of regular education students of the same age. This assessment is an “alternate” to other state testing because this 1% of the population cannot be assessed by more traditional assessment methods. In essence, the IAA does provide an assessment opportunity that does not measure this small segment of our school population at the grade level at which their chronological age would indicate.

The issue of “fairness” is of great concern to educators. For those students for whom the IAA is not determined to be appropriate, these students must participate in the regular state testing program. However, during the IEP process teachers, coordinators, and parents can identify specific accommodations that can be provided to account for needs of students. Some of the accommodations that can be provided include:

  • extended time
  • small group setting
  • test read to student (does not include the reading test)
  • scribe (for students for whom the physical act of writing presents difficulties).

However, there is certainly widespread concern that for those students who do not currently function at grade level in reading or math, asking those students to participate in testing at their chronological grade just does not seem fair. The concern is centered around the fact that, even with accommodations, some students are at a disadvantage when it comes to testing. There has been legislative action taken (I believe Aaron Schock coauthored the legislation) in Illinois to allow students to be tested at their “functional level”, but these changes have not been approved by the US Dept. of Education. Until the federal legislation changes we have no choice but to comply. The District would be interested in reviewing any future legislation and provide support if the legislation would result in a benefit for our students.

I found this to be a very thorough and thoughtful response, and it makes me wish more administrators and school board members were as helpful and communicative as Mr. Chumbley. The News-Gazette (Champaign) explains the same issue this way:

Districts are allowed to test up to 1 percent of the IEP students – most of whom have more severe levels of mental retardation – using an alternative assessment. The other 99 percent, which includes students with IQs of 55 to 70, must take the general test for their grade level – not ability level – the same test that’s given to students without disabilities.

Here’s where I was confused: I thought the 1% rule was 1% of the total student body, but it turns out it’s only 1% of the special needs children (those with Inidividualized education programs, or IEPs). That leaves a lot of special needs children in the position of having to perform as well their non-disabled peers on the same states tests, which does seem to be unfair.

Mr. Chumbley mentioned legislation. The only legislation on this issue I could find sponsored by Rep. Schock was HB3678 , which was signed into law August 23, 2005. It “[p]rovides that the indicators to determine adequate yearly progress for children with disabilities shall be based on their individualized education plans” and sundry other provisions, but is “contingent upon the federal government not formally disapproving through the submission and review process for the Illinois Accountability Workbook.” I got the impression from Mr. Chumbley’s e-mail that even though this legislation was approved by the state, it was still in limbo pending federal approval, but perhaps he was referring to different legislation. If anyone has any further info, let me know.

State Legislation

Note to Park Board: New OMA law takes effect

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OMA EyeEffective in 2007, there’s a new wrinkle in the Open Meetings Act (OMA). Senate Bill 585 was signed into law on July 31 last year, and it took effect yesterday. Here’s what it does:

Redefines a “meeting” to include gatherings, whether in person or by telephone call, video or audio conference, electronic means (such as e-mail, chat, and instant messaging), or other means of contemporaneous interactive communication, of a majority of a quorum of the members of a public body held for the purpose of discussing public business.

So, for instance, if a quorum of Park Board members were to all be chatting on IM or via e-mail about public business, that would be a violation of the OMA. Why? Because that would constitute a “meeting,” and another revision to the OMA outlaws this type of meeting:

[SB 585] requires that the number of public body members necessary to constitute a quorum must be physically present at an open meeting and permits participation and voting by other members by audio and video conference.

In other words, you can’t have a meeting over e-mail or IM. And audio or video conferencing is acceptable only under strict conditions:

If a quorum of the members of the public body is physically present as required by Section 2.01, a majority of the public body may allow a member of that body to attend the meeting by other means if the member is prevented from physically attending because of: (i) personal illness or disability; (ii) employment purposes or the business of the public body; or (iii) a family or other emergency. “Other means” is by video or audio conference.

These revisions will help to keep public business performed in public (assuming public bodies don’t go into closed session illegally and then destroy the evidence when caught). There’s no reasonable way for the public to monitor IM or e-mail deliberations, so requiring public bodies to be physically present in one place at one time so the public can attend and hear their discussions is responsible governance.

Kudos to the state legislature for ensuring this level of transparency.

Public Building Commission, State Legislation

Our legislators get their facts wrong again

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Last time Rep. Schock spoke on SB2477 on the House floor, he said the City Council supported the legislation, which was not true. Yesterday, Sen. Shadid took to the Senate floor to argue for overturning the Governor’s veto (which is surprisingly easy in Illinois, needing only a 3/5 majority instead of the 2/3 required at the federal level). He pointed out that the District 150 board passed a levy cap of .60% at a recent board meeting, which is true. But then he went on to state that the current levy is .62%, so the levy would go down for Peorians. That’s false. As I reported in a previous post:

First, the school district capped the tax rate at .60%. And, as you can see from Part 1 of this post, the current rate is .5578%. So, even by their own definition it will be a tax increase — an increase of .0422%. And, of course, since this supposed “cap” is only set by the school board and not state law, it could easily be repealed at any time.

Where did I get my information? From the Peoria County Clerk’s office — the ones who actually figure our tax bills. The levy figure came from the 2005 Tax Computation Report (there is no 2006 report yet). So, once again, lawmakers are making decisions based on faulty information provided by those who are supposed to be representing our interests.

But instead of representing the people, Shadid has chosen instead of represent the school board. Let’s hope Koehler doesn’t follow in his footsteps.

Peoria Public Schools, Public Building Commission, State Legislation, State of Illinois

BREAKING NEWS: Illinois Senate overrides Governor’s veto on SB2477

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The Illinois Senate today voted 45-11 to override Gov. Blagojevich’s amendatory veto of SB2477, and Sen. Shadid got a round of applause as this was his last public act before leaving office.

SB2477 would give Public School District 150 the ability to use the Public Building Commission to raise funds for school construction. Blagojevich’s veto amended the bill to require a referendum to access PBC funds. If the House follows suit and overrides the Governor’s veto, the bill will become law as is, and the PBC could sell bonds on behalf of the school board for renovation or construction of school buildings without taxpayer approval via referendum.

UPDATE: Today, I’m unveiling a new feature on my blog: audio! Click the play button below to hear the Senate action today on SB2477:

[audio:http://www.peoriachronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/Audio/SB2477.mp3]

I’m still working out the kinks a bit — for instance, you’ll notice there’s a buzz in the audio; that’s because my current setup for recording is analog and I have a bit of 60-cycle interference. I’ll try to fix that for the future.

My thanks to 1 Pixel Out for the WordPress embedded audio plug-in.

Ray LaHood, State Legislation, State of Illinois

LaHood remark ignores gerrymandering

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Rep. Ray LaHood was on 1470 WMBD-AM this morning explaining and defending his position in support of House Speaker Dennis Hastert and in favor of reforming the page system. Most of that conversation was nothing new, but one passing remark LaHood made really irritated me. I don’t have an exact quote, but it was pretty close to this: “If my constituents feel I’m doing a bad job, there’s a referendum coming up in 32 days [Nov. 7] and they can vote me out of office.”

To a certain extent, that’s true. If he really ticked off enough people, they probably would kick him out of office. But the problem is that our congressional districts are drawn in such a way that instead of the voters choosing the representatives, the representatives choose their voters. It’s called gerrymandering, and it looks like this:

IL Congressional Districts

Notice especially the 17th district (in purple) along the western border of the state. Have you ever seen anything so ridiculous? It’s so egregious, The Economist recognized it as “the champion gerrymandering” of the whole country. It essentially takes Democratic voters out of the 18th district and puts them in the 17th district, helping the 17th district stay Democratic and the 18th district stay Republican. Lane Evans represents the 17th district; LaHood represents the 18th district.

In fairness, Evans and LaHood aren’t personally responsible for this inequity; they’re only the beneficiaries. The congressional districts are drawn (or, more accurately, manipulated) at the state level. But there is state legislation proposed that would change the way districts are drawn.

House Bill 3699, “The Legislative and Congressional Redistricting Act,” was proposed on March 10, 2005, by Republican Lee Daniels and would set up a redistricting plan similar to Iowa’s redistricting process, “where the non-partisan Legislative Research Unit draws the maps and writes the legislation with the advice of a 5-member appointed commission” (FairVote.org, the source of this explanation of the bill, has a wealth of information on gerrymandering in general, and Illinois’ pending legislation in particular).

I called Schock’s office to find out his views on this legislation, but was unable to get an immediate answer. Since the legislation was referred to the Rules Committee immediately after it was introduced, there hasn’t been any floor debate on it yet. It’s likely that he’s in favor of a fairer redistricting process, although he probably won’t be able to comment on HB3699 specifically.

If we want to see real accountability to the voters in this state, the gerrymandering has to stop. We should be writing to our representatives and demanding redistricting reform.

UPDATE: I received a call back from Rep. Schock’s office and he has expressed support for HB3699 or a similar bill that would reform the state’s redistricting process. HB3699 was referred to the Rules Committee by Speaker of the House Mike Madigan, and according to Schock’s office, Madigan is the one who has the power to bring it out of committee. It’s been in the Rules Committee since March 2005.

Well, then I called Rep. Daniels’ office (Elmhurst, IL) to find out some more information about the status of the bill. His office confirmed that Speaker Madigan had referred it to the Rules Committee and that the bill is dead. Since Daniels is retiring this year, he won’t be back next legislative session to reintroduce the bill. So, it needs a new sponsor.

I called Rep. Schock’s office to request that he (should he be reelected) sponsor this or similar legislation. (I say “similar legislation” because I’m not tied to Daniels’ particular plan; there’s more than one way to reform the process. The important thing is to ensure the redistricting process is indeed reformed so that regions, not political loyalties, are represented.) His staff will confer with him on it and let me know. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Aaron Schock, City of Peoria, Peoria Public Schools, Public Building Commission, State Legislation

District 150 & the Public Building Commission, Part 2

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In my last post, I looked at quotes by Senator George Shadid and District 150 Treasurer Guy Cahill regarding Senate Bill 2477, a bill that would allow the school district to borrow money to build new schools through the Public Building Commission (PBC) without having to get approval from voters through a referendum. In other words, a bill that will allow the school district to pick your pocket for their building program, a program that is questionable at best.

The Governor vetoed the bill, but Shadid has announced his intention to try to override it. Does he have enough votes? It looks very possible: A three-fifths vote is needed to override a veto; that means 36 senators and 71 representatives. Senate Bill 2477 passed overwhelmingly with 43 ayes (9 nays) in the Senate and 89 ayes (25 nays) in the House. So, if all those people felt strongly enough about the original form of this bill, they could easily override the Governor’s veto.

But why are so many senators and representatives in favor of this bill? Maybe it has something to do with the way it was presented. I’ve been reading transcripts of the floor debate in the Senate and House (did you know these are available on-line?), and it’s been a real eye-opener.

Let’s start with Senator Shadid in the Senate. He had this to say:

[T]hey [the school board] are really in dire — dire straits because they can’t get a referendum passed. They have a sixty-percent minority student population and this would be very, very beneficial and really well — well needed. I mean, we need this in our city.

They’re in dire straits? We need this in Peoria? They can’t get a referendum passed?

He was challenged on that last statement by Senator Burzynski (R-35th Dist.) who asked, “when was the last time they offered a referendum to the people?” Senator Shadid:

I have to tell you, they — they’ve not had a referendum on the — for the last ten years that I’m aware of. I can only tell you that when I tried to build a county jail, we had three referendums that failed and we finally had to go to the public building commission in 1985 to get a jail built that was to replace the jail that was a hundred and twenty-five years old.

Burzynski rejoined, “what I recall in the discussion in committee is the fact that it’s been close to thirty years since they tried to pass a referendum.”

So, Shadid’s argument is, as I understand it, thus: Since it was so difficult twenty-one years ago to pass a referendum to build a jail, obviously it will be impossible now to get a referendum passed to build new schools. It’s not even worth trying to get the money that way — we need to circumvent the voters just like we did to get the jail built.

Yet, only six years ago, the Journal Star reported that “Illinois voters approve[d] most school bond issues” (3/23/2000): “Seven of the 10 area schools that asked for more money, got it. Now they’ll be able to construct new buildings, renovate old ones or just pay bills.” None of these bond issues were in the City of Peoria, but they were close — as close as Dunlap, to give just one example. It just goes to show that when a school board makes a good case for increased funding, it is possible to get a referendum passed, without picking voters’ pockets.

Okay, onto our newest representative in Springfield, Mr. Aaron Schock, who took to the floor of the House to speak in favor of this bill:

I rise in support of Senate Bill 2477 not only as the Representative from Peoria, but also the past president of the Peoria School System. This is a piece of legislation that is not only supported by our school board, but also our entire city council.

Wait, it is? Did I miss that meeting? Does anyone remember the “entire city council” expressing their support for this bill? Can Schock provide any evidence to support this statement? Of course, in Springfield there’s no one to dispute his assertions, so as far as the Illinois House is concerned, Peoria’s entire city council supports this bill. Schock continues:

And I certainly hope that we can have overwhelming, if not unanimous, support from this General Assembly. This really gives local control to our school board and to the Public Building Commission in Peoria. Right now, our Public Building Commission already has the authority to build libraries, to build prisons and jails, and we’re simply asking for that same authority be given back to our school system, which it has had for many years. All of the schools in our district in the recent history that have been built have been done so using the Public Building Commission.

And I believe that’s the very reason they took the power to bond for school construction away from the PBC, isn’t it? And what does he mean by “this really gives local control to our school board…”? Since when is getting approval from taxpayers in your own school district not considered a local decision? I’m guessing by “local control,” he means simply “control.” It takes control away from the voters and gives it to the school board. Back to Schock:

We have more inadequately housed students, according to state standards, more inadequately housed students in Peoria than any other school district in the state. I think it’s a shame right now that our Public Building Commission has the authority to house prisoners and jail inmates and give them adequate standards but we’re not giving that same authority to school children in our state. So, this only seems like common sense. I wanna thank Majority Leader Currie for her work on this Bill. It’s a commonsense piece of legislation, something that’s gonna really help Peoria. And I wanna say thank you to her for her willingness to take this cause on for the betterment of school children in Peoria. I urge a “yes” vote.

The common theme between Shadid and Schock is that our students in Peoria are “inadequately housed” according to state standards. You know what that standard is? Any students who are going to school in a building that is more than 67 years old are considered “inadequately housed.” That’s it. So, Schock is inadvertently right when he says, “this only seems like common sense.” Indeed. It’s isn’t really commonsense legislation, it only seems that way because of the way it has been presented.

There is more in the transcript that I would love to cover, and maybe I will in the future, but for now I want to point out one more thing. The main sponsor of this bill in the Illinois House was not Schock, but Barbara Flynn Currie (D-25th District). When she introduced the bill, she said, “This measure has the strong support of Peoria School District #150. I know of no opposition.”

No kidding. Who in Peoria would think to call Barbara Flynn Currie to express their opposition to this bill? But it does bring up a good point. Perhaps we should start writing to the entire Illinois General Assembly to express our opposition to this bill. And perhaps someone on the council (Mr. Spears?) could let the legislature know that the city council has never expressed their support for this bill. I’m sure the School Board won’t mind the city setting the record straight since they have made it perfectly clear they don’t value the city’s cooperation anyway.

Here’s where you can find a list of all the Representatives (http://www.ilga.gov/house/) and Senators (http://www.ilga.gov/senate/). Just tell them you want no taxation without representation, so please uphold the Governor’s veto of Senate Bill 2477.