State Comptroller

Now this is interesting:

All state agencies, employees, state vendors and payees should be advised that the current delays affecting payments out of the state's General Revenue Fund (GRF) are expected to continue and likely lengthen throughout the remainder of calendar year 2007 and into calendar year 2008.

Under optimal revenue conditions, or for payments from non-GRF funds, the Office of the Comptroller (IOC) can issue a warrant within 2-4 days after a proper voucher is presented to our office. However currently, substantially more GRF bills or vouchers have been submitted to the IOC than incoming revenues or cash on hand permits to be processed on a timely basis We do not anticipate that there will be sufficient GRF revenues to significantly reduce current payment backlogs for the near future.

Please note that while agency payrolls should not be impacted by these conditions, the majority of other payments out of the General Revenue Fund will continue to be delayed due to the lack of sufficient and/or timely revenues. At this time, these delays are in excess of 30 business days and are expected to increase over the next several months.

Emphasis added.  (Hat tip: CapFax)

Kudos to Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes for this new site:

Comptroller Dan Hynes today unveiled a user-friendly website that allows citizens to track political contributions made by companies that have state contracts.

“Open Book” is a searchable database of state contracts and campaign contributions that combines information from the Comptroller’s accounting system with official semi-annual campaign disclosure reports filed by political committees with the State Board of Elections (SBE).

“The purpose of Open Book is to make it much easier for the public to ‘follow the money,’” said Hynes. “That should make public officials more accountable to the people they serve. In turn, it is my hope that some measure of the public confidence in state government that has been lost over the years can be restored.”

Blog authors and commenters will hopefully do some digging on there.

(Hat tip:  CapFax)

Tom Kacich is speculating that next year's GOP ticket could be too heavily weighted toward downstate:

Here's how that could play out:

For governor Bill Brady, Bloomington
For lieutenant governor, Raymond Poe, Springfield
For attorney general, Stewart Umholtz, Tazewell County
For secretary of state, Dan Rutherford, Chenoa
For treasurer, Christine Radogno, LaGrange
For comptroller, Carole Pankau, Roselle

I'm all for downstaters on the ticket, but if the GOP comes up with a team that is 67 percent downstaters -- where there is less than a third of the statewide vote -- they're in trouble.

I think that scenario is a little unlikey, as Brady is well behind Topinka and Poe might not even be in the race on Monday.  That said, I could very well envision a ticket that is half-downstate and half-Chicagoland - which is much, much better than the most likely Democratic ticket which will be entirely from The City.

All at the last minutes, but the slots are being filled with good candidates.

Lemont state Sen. Christine Radogno likely will seek the Republican nomination for Illinois treasurer, allowing the GOP to round out its statewide ticket.

For those of you keeping track at home, the GOP ticket is shaping up like this (credible candidates only): 

• Governor:  Brady, Gidwitz, Oberweis, Rauschenberger and Topinka.
• LG:   Poe and Wegman
• SOS:  Rutherford
• AG: Umholtz
• Comptroller: Pankau
• Treasurer:  Radogno and/or Weinberg

By my count, that's five sitting State Senators, one State Rep, a couple of County officials and some from the private sector.  Given the state of the Illinois GOP two years ago, I'd say that's about as strong a ticket as I reasonably expected, although having Edgar at the top would have been nice.  We're a little weaker in one spot than I'd like, but significantly stronger at SOS than I thought we'd be.  All in all, I'm looking forward to 2006 - if the GOP can pull together.

Last week, Governor Blagojevich tried to kick off his re-election campaign by announcing that he was taking a bunch of the money "saved" in the pension raid and spending it on pork. You see, even though pork was Public Enemy Number One during his 2002 campaign, it's now vitally important to Blagojevich because his re-election chairmen are the two Democratic leaders of the Illinois General Assembly, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil Jones.  To Blagojevich, Madigan and Jones are even more important because his 2002 statewide organization had been put together by his Father-In-Law and many of those friends aren't going to be helping out in 2006. 

So Blagojevich needs a ready-made, plug-n-play statewide organization with which he can work next year, and Madigan and Jones (Madigan especially) just happen to have the best Democratic organizations in the state.

So that's how we ended up with Governor "Rock the System" passing out pork to good, do-as-they're-told Democratic legislators last week.  But there's a hitch in the Governor's brilliant plan: a responsible Democrat has emerged!

The state shouldn't be paying for pork-barrel projects like skateboard parks and swimming pools when it owes money to pharmacies and day-care operators, state comptroller Dan Hynes said Monday.

A week after Gov. Rod Blagojevich released more than $194 million to pay for more than 560 projects across the state -- including new parks, water towers and firefighting equipment --Hynes said the state's priorities are mixed up.

"We have health-care providers facing potential bankruptcy and vulnerable seniors and children who rely on state health-care services. Given these choices, I believe we should fund health care," said Hynes, a Democrat.

In particular, Hynes said the Democratic governor should tap a $55 million pool of money left over from former Gov. George Ryan's administration. While that money was originally set aside for pork-barrel projects, Hynes said it also could be spent on the operational needs of the state.

Hynes' call to use the cash to pay off overdue bills comes just days after he proposed borrowing $1.1 billion to close the payment backlog, which is reaching the 90-day mark for some state vendors.

Such responsibility, of course, cannot be tolerated by the political mentor and largest donor to local wunderkind Senate candidate Michael Frerichs:

But Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) wasted little time providing a terse response, suggesting through an aide that the state could save money by cutting Hynes' budget instead.

After all, how dare anyone trifle with the spoils long overdue to the Joffrey Ballet and Chicago State University?