[MUSIC] >> Welcome to Capital View on WSIU.

I'm Jeff Williams sitting in this week as we take a look at what's making news around the state in Illinois politics.

To help lead the discussion this week is Charlie Wheeler, director emeritus of the public affairs reporting program at the University of Illinois, Springfield and a longtime state House reporter.

Mawa Iqbal, statehouse reporter for WBEZ and for Illinois public radio stations, was scheduled to be with us today, but she's feeling a little bit under the weather, and so we wish her a speedy recovery.

So, Charlie, we're just going to soldier on and jump.

Jump right in.

>> Not prepared.

I hope you noticed my tie for the spring training.

>> Yes, it's spring training time.

>> Yeah.

>> So governor JB Pritzker will be delivering his annual budget address next week on Wednesday before a joint session of the General Assembly.

The government hasn't really come right out and said what his priorities may be for the FY 2017 budget, but his budget office has has warned that because of the federal policy changes, the state could be paying some $100 million more over the next couple of fiscal years to kind of provide for Snap and Medicaid programs as as those costs would be be shifted to the state.

And then also kind of interestingly, what was it?

A week ago, the governor also dusted off his 2024 pension funding plan that so far hasn't really gone anywhere in the legislature.

But that plan would potentially fund all the state's retirement system by at at 100% by 2048, as well as, uh, make sure we're compliant with Social Security guidelines for what's what's known as the state's tier two retirement, um, systems.

Um.

He's also suggested of possibly tapping into a revenue stream that has not typically been used for funding anything.

I don't think, except for making sure the state has money to issue checks for tax refunds to folks in the state.

I think even referring to the term as maybe even surplus funding, which I don't know, seems like kind of waving a red flag under the Capitol dome.

Um, meanwhile, the governor is still holding back, I think, what, 25 to $30 million or so in higher education funding for this fiscal year?

And he's mentioned about kind of the austere budget conditions and times that the state is facing.

So given all of that, you've you've watched you've watched the budget process for a number of years.

Any insights or thoughts on what might hear from the governor next week when he when he gives his budget address?

>> Well, I think one of the things that struck me and just kind of as a coincidence, this budget is going to be delivered in the state of the state.

It's going to be Ash Wednesday, uh, which in Christian theology is a time to begin repentance.

And maybe that's what the state needs to do.

But in any event, there's it's sort of contradictory in the sense that the governor comes out and says, well, we actually have all this money sitting around.

So I think we should start putting more into the pensions so that we can, uh, reduce our unfunded liability.

I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 144,000,000,145 billion.

The difference between the benefits that have been earned by people like me, who's a state state university retiree.

And, Jeff, I assume you're on the state university system.

>> Also, I am and I'm a tier.

>> One retiree or will be a tier one retiree.

>> I'm already retired.

So, uh.

But at the same time, he's his Office of Government management and budget.

The like the fiscal gurus almost well.

He came out with a pension thing last week, and on Friday the uh budget Office warned that the state is facing really troubling times going forward with all the changes that are coming about because of the federal legislation that was approved last year at President Trump's behest.

And they point out a number of areas where we are going to be suffering in coming years.

And there's a list, and I'll read them off 100 million over two years for implementing administrative changes related to the new, uh, programs for Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, which is what we used to call food stamps, 80 million annually, because the feds are shifting a greater share of administrative costs for food stamps to us from what the feds used to pick up 705 million and new benefit spending on food stamps.

If Illinois exceeds certain guidelines that the feds have newly created 6 billion in cumulative lost revenue for Medicaid because of the changes in the way the feds calculate, uh, what the provider taxes can be used for $1 billion in child care related funding.

Uh, although that freeze was, uh, put on hold by a federal judge at the end of last week.

But anyway, this adds up to a whole lot of money that we're going to be having to come up with just to maintain where we are.

And I think the governor asking for fully funding the pensions, uh, that's probably not realistic.

As a matter of fact, it got met with a lot of cold shoulders from the legislature when he announced it.

It was like, well, yeah, that's nice, but there's more pressing needs.

And as a practical matter, yeah, we all retirees and soon to be retirees or people in the pension system, it's the five pension systems for teachers, state workers, university workers, judges and lawmakers.

We maybe, oh, $145 billion.

But the fact of the matter is, if that money suddenly had to be paid immediately, then it would mean there's stuff going on that's going to give us much bigger problems than coming up with those dollars.

So I think that pension thing is going to be out of sight.

But in my mind, it may have been sort of an error for the governor to raise this issue at the same time that Gambia says, we have to really be careful with our spending.

We have to tighten it.

So now legislators are saying, well, if you have all this money to put aside for, you know, ten, 20, 30 years in the future, well, let's use some now for these pressing needs we have right at this moment.

So I think it's going to be interesting to see how the governor kind of finesses it, uh, in his budget address and state of the state.

>> Mhm.

Yeah.

I think, I think there might be an article in Capital Facts.

It might have been today or yesterday that talking about the governor typically kind of undersells or understates going into the or has going into the budget process.

And this seems like he's doing kind of the kind of the opposite.

Is this some you know, we all know that he may be looking at a presidential run.

Is this Charlie?

Is this some sort of maybe campaign electioneering on on his part, or was this a calculated.

>> Yeah.

I'm not I as I kind of suggested, I don't think it's a good idea to come out and start talking about pensions now.

Maybe if you're looking to the credit rating agencies and one of the what would you say one of the the black marks against Illinois is that I think we have the largest, unfunded or next largest unfunded pension liabilities of any state in the Union.

And so if the governor is looking beyond Illinois and he's looking to the credit rating agencies, he maybe wants to do this and say, oh, I'm going to get brownie points from the credit rating agencies, and that will help me, uh, when I choose to run for president, if that happens.

But on the other hand, I think and again, this is my opinion, obviously, but I think it's it's undercutting his ability to be able to really hold the line on spending.

And I think there are real problems coming, as Gabby suggests, with what the feds are trying to do and whether or not the The Attorney General and the other attorneys general and other blue states will be able to fend off some of these cuts.

Remains to be seen.

So yeah, probably this is well, last year was pretty uncertain because we didn't know what was going to happen with the presidential election and going into the fiscal year with, with once we knew that Donald Trump was the president, there was all this uncertainty about what might happen.

And the kind of the worry was that the president might decide to go after blue states and punish them for not supporting him, for not being loyal to him.

And in my judgment, that's pretty much what has happened.

And so we still face this uncertainty.

So it's probably a time that we should be, uh, more prudent rather than trying to be expansive.

>> I know one of the, one of the components that will be part of this budget discussion is going to be the higher education budget.

It is already out.

I think there they've got a $2.7 billion budget request.

I think it's about a 5% increase in funding for FY 27, as well as looking at potentially moving to a more equity based funding system, similar to what's in place for our state's K through 12 schools is I mean, education funding has been underfunded.

I think by all estimates, the last at least the last last decade is asking for 5% more this year.

Is that going to be a heavy lift or is or is higher education funding one of those priorities that lawmakers are going to take a look at when they're doling out the the budget money?

>> I think that's going to be kind of a heavy lift.

And as you said, uh, back in the days when I was a reporter in the 70s and 80s early 90s.

Higher education, in a sense, was a sacred cow.

What the universities asked for, the legislature appropriated.

But beginning with Blagojevich, uh, universities kind of got shoved to the side and they still not recovered.

As a matter of fact, there's I forget the exact amount, but there's tens of millions of dollars that are being held back in this fiscal year that university faculty unions are arguing should be freed up in this current fiscal year.

And then to ask for additional money in the coming year, that's that's going to be a heavy lift, as I say.

And it's not that it's not needed.

It's not that this is wasteful spending.

Uh, but because of the tight economic situation and the uncertainty coming out of Washington, I'm guessing it's going to be a difficult to imagine that they're going to get everything that they're asking for.

>> And I think I saw a story I don't know if it was it was today or yesterday, where there's where the some lawmakers are already circling that that that revenue source that the governor talked about, about potentially tapping into some of that to help shore up higher education.

Seems like it's going to be an interesting budget discussion.

Once the governor does outline whatever his priorities are going to be on that.

Um, this spring session, you've watched and observed a number of sessions.

Um, they're not meeting this week.

Uh, they did meet.

I think the Senate met last week.

They're they're both houses are not going to meet for the together for the first time until next week leading up to the to the governor's, uh, budget message.

State of the state message is, is this a typical election year session, or does it seem like they're not in a big hurry to do much yet?

>> Yeah, I would say it's pretty typical for an election year.

Uh, I don't have the schedule in front of me, but my guess is after they meet, uh, next Wednesday to hear the budget in the state of the state.

They probably won't be doing anything for another month until after the, uh, the primary on the 17th of March.

Then they'll come in and they'll start slogging through.

And as we've found out in recent years, uh, the bulk of the stuff that finally gets settled and gets done is right in the last couple of days.

Now, of course, this stuff has been moving along all the way in the first House and hearings and votes on the floor, second House amendments.

So it's it's a stretched out process, and it's always been that way.

And it usually gets resolved in the last couple of days.

And I assume that's going to happen again this year.

>> Yeah.

Well, you mentioned election.

The primary is uh, a little over a month away.

Um, the US Senate race is on the Democratic side, seems to be solidifying around the top three candidates in Congressman Roger Krishnamoorthy.

I think he's been on the air just about everywhere.

Um, Congresswoman Robin Kelly in the race, obviously, and Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton in the race at this point is the primary.

Do you think Charlie, one of theirs to lose or there are seven other candidates in there?

Is one of those candidates might act as a spoiler this close to the actual primary election day.

>> I think my take on it is, and I confess, I don't follow this stuff as closely as I do some of the state policy issues.

My sense is that there's still a lot of people who are undecided now.

Krishnamoorthy has been on the air virtually everywhere since last fall, and for him to be leading, that's to be expected.

But the fact that there are so many people who haven't made up their minds yet who say they're undecided, that suggests to me that his support might be pretty thin.

Uh, Lieutenant, Governor Sullivan is going to get a Tremendous impact from Pritzker behind her, and with all his money he'll put into putting her message out.

And I'm not sure how Robin Kelly is going to compete in that arena.

Uh, if I had a bet, I would guess that Krishnamoorthi would probably be the nominee.

Um, interestingly enough.

The the Radtke campaign talks about how he has roots in downstate Illinois, which is true.

But on the other hand, Robin Kelly's current district, her current congressional district goes all the way down to Danville.

So she's probably got a more legitimate downstate presence than he does.

But as I say, I would say, yeah, it's kind of his to lose.

And it depends on how effective the lieutenant governor's messaging is.

>> Sure.

On on the Republican side of the ticket, obviously former Republican state party Republican chair, Don Tracy.

I think probably is considered the front runner.

There are five other candidates in that in that race is kind of the same thing apply in that race, do you think, Charlie, if you're just looking at it and handicapping it?

>> And again, I have to confess, I've and maybe this is just what would you say my built in prejudice or whatever, but I've not paid much attention to that.

Tracy.

Tracy is going to be the nominee and he's going to get blown out in November.

I just don't see.

Him being able to compete either financially or politically with whoever the Democratic nominee might be.

>> Mhm.

You know, a lot of the.

>> Couldn't even name who any of the other candidates are.

So I'm willing to confess my ignorance in that respect.

>> Yeah.

>> No.

Well just, just for, for edification.

The other candidates uh, that are along with Don Tracy are Kerry Capparelli.

Uh, Casey Chlebek, uh, Jenny Evans, Pamela Denise Long, and Jimmy Lee Tillman the second.

A lot of those are Chicago centric, um, candidates or we've not seen a lot of them presents downstate.

Is this one of those primary elections or one of those elections where it's the Chicagoland area vote?

That's that's really going to determine the outcome.

>> I would guess, for the primary.

No, in the sense that the Republican presence in in Illinois is concentrated more strongly in the exurbs, I guess, is how you call it in downstate.

As a matter of fact, in the in the Republican gubernatorial primary, Darren Bailey, who's the leader, makes a point of saying I'm the only candidate from outside the Chicago area, which is true.

And I think for Republicans statewide.

Uh, you're not going to in a primary.

You're not going to get your strongest support out of Chicago or the close in suburbs or the collar counties.

You're going to rely on downstate rural areas.

What has become the basically the Republican stronghold in the state of Illinois?

>> Yeah.

>> And you mentioned the Bailey.

Um, Ted Dombrowski is one of the other candidates in that in the primary race we've here, at least in far southern Illinois, he's made the campaign rounds.

We're I think people are seeing regular campaign literature from him.

The other two in the race, um, James Mendrick, the DuPage County Sheriff, and Rick Weidner, there's been a little bit maybe from from Rick Weidner, the businessman with Gold Rush Gaming in Chicago.

Um, downstate, but not not a not a lot.

These all seem like they're running more, if not Chicago area races.

Northern.

Northern part of the of the of the state race.

Is that a matter of of just available money to get the message out?

>> Yeah, that might be part of it.

Or maybe the and again, this is my own personal opinion obviously, but it could be that they're thinking, well, you know, Chicago and the suburbs, that's where all the people are.

And, and the suburbs are Republican strongholds.

Well, that was true maybe 20 years ago, but there is no longer true today.

As a matter of fact, that's one of the big, uh, selling points that Darren Bailey is using.

I'm the only guy who's not from the Chicago area.

I'm the only guy who can relate to all you folks who live outside northeastern Illinois.

And I think, again, he's leading in the polls and I suspect he's going to be the nominee.

>> Sure.

Another issue that I that I wanted to touch on, and it probably more related than anything else, and that is that's the Chicago Bears there have been a lot of instances over the over the years where they've they've looked for and received money in various degrees from the, from the legislature.

Now, there seems to be there's a very seems to be a very credible, uh, play on the part of, of Indiana to potentially bring them lure of a new stadium and whatnot either.

And maybe Gary or Hammond just anyway, move them southeast and over the over the, over the state line there.

Um, you know, the governor has talked about, uh, providing potentially providing some infrastructure incentives that will help them to stay in the Arlington Heights, um, location that where they already own own own property.

Um, you know, this was touched on in the last legislative session.

It's still here now.

How how important do you think it is to the legislature or to certain aspects of the legislature to keep the Chicago Bears in Illinois and in the Chicago land area.

Is this something that will actually will probably might be in the the budget considerations?

>> My sense is based on on what both the House speaker, Chris Welch, and Senate President Dan Harmon have said almost from the beginning of the year that we've got more pressing issues that we need to deal with in terms of affordability, in terms of people being able to just pay for their groceries and things like that.

Then whether or not we should provide some kind of a handout to a multibillion dollar, privately owned business, which is what the bears are.

And I think the governor has said, and I believe legislative leaders support it, that if the bears go to Arlington Heights, obviously there's going to have to be traffic updates.

There's going to have to be roadway improvements.

Mass transit is going to have to improve, and that's the state's.

What would you say?

The state's responsibility.

And then the state would do that for any major business that moves in and causes, uh, an increase in traffic?

I think the sticking point is that the bears want to guarantee that they won't have to pay property taxes at any increased level.

They'd like a freeze on their property taxes.

And of course, the local school districts are saying, well, we're not sure that's a good idea because part of the plan that the bears have is to sort of create, like a village, a bear village around the former Arlington Heights racetrack, and that would bring in people, families with kids going to school, more costs for the local school districts.

And if they're in a position where they've guaranteed to the bears, well, we're not going to raise your property taxes or giving you some kind of break, a 50 year cap or whatever.

If I'm a local school board leader, I'm not sure I want to do that.

Tie my hands when I'm not sure what kind of an impact it's going to be on my school district going forward.

And one of the things that Indiana is offering is they'll build the stadium for the bears, and they'll throw all kinds of money at the bears.

And the key thing in my mind is if they build and own the stadium and rent it to the bears, then the bears will pay no property taxes.

I mean, the bears play at Soldier Field now.

It's owned by the Park District, I believe, or the Sports Authority.

And so they pay no property taxes there.

If it's their own stadium and they own the property, they will have to pay property taxes.

So that's something to take into account.

And looking at it and thinking it over.

Yeah.

If the bears move to Indiana, that'll be sort of a blow.

But on the other hand, you look at there's two NFL teams from New York, the Giants and the Jets?

Where are they?

They play new Jersey.

>> Play new Jersey.

>> And where does the Washington team play?

I believe they play in Maryland, don't they?

>> Yeah.

>> So that's it's not unheard of.

And the the Texans don't play in Dallas.

They play in some suburb.

So it's not unheard of.

So they could be in Arlington Heights but they'd still be the Chicago Bears.

Somebody suggested that this was pretty funny.

Somebody suggested well, maybe they should go back to Decatur and be the Staleys again.

>> There's always that oh.

>> Gosh, in the couple of minutes or so that we have have left.

Charlie, um, is there anything in particular you're keeping an eye on or watching or will be looking at in the in the coming, coming weeks ahead as things continue to unfold this session?

>> Well, one of the things that I think is interesting, we sort of alluded to that the the governor talking about, well, we have all this money for pensions has sort of been red meat for the education lobby and legislation has been proposed that would basically require something like 5 billion more dollars for schools this year because we're on a well, a decade or so ago, we adopted something called evidence based funding for K-12 education, where we look at a whole bunch of different indicators that indicate what kind of money a school district needs to deal with the kids serving with what is it, local resources?

What's the difference between what they can afford and what they need?

And then the state backfills that, and we've not been able to do it 100%.

And the goal was to reach it within the next couple of years.

And we're going to miss it by like ten years.

So now they come in and they the unions are saying, well, if this money is there for the pensions, let's do it for our school kids.

So I'm going to be watching that to see where that goes.

>> All right.

Well, Charlie, we're we're out of time.

>> It is a pleasure, as always.

Thank you for joining us this week.

>> My pleasure.

Also I've enjoyed this I always do.

>> Okay.

For Charlie Wheeler.

>> Excuse me for Charlie Wheeler, I'm Jeff Williams.

Thank you for tuning in this week for Capitol View.

Have a good week.

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