A few issues for Springfield to address
As we observed in this space on Thursday, Gov. Pat Quinn’s contention that Illinois state government has made a dramatic turnaround is little short of fantasy when the state’s budget problems are still so frightfully beyond control.
Despite Quinn’s heady optimism, the state government faces huge problems all around, and we hope Quinn addresses them more realistically when he introduces his budget proposal in a few weeks.
There is much to be done, and if Quinn and the General Assembly need any direction on that, a good starting point might be most of the priorities laid out by The Civic Federation in November. The organization set a pretty good agenda.
One of the areas clearly crying out for attention is additional public employee pension reform.
In calling for it, the Civic Federation said the Legislature ought to enact benefit reforms such as prohibiting benefit enhancements unless they are fully funded and require real cost-benefit studies for any early-retirement initiatives. The federation also recommended that the idea of reducing benefits for some current employees ought to at least be on the table for consideration.
The organization said reforms also need to be made in the area of contributions, that employer and employee contributions must relate to funding levels and that borrowing for employer pension contributions should be prohibited.
We agree wholeheartedly that all of those ideas should be part of the discussion and that the discussion needs to take place this year.
Some other interesting Civic Federation ideas include creating a new governing board for the Cook County Forest Preserve District, mandating that large counties produce timely annual financial audits and requiring schools to enact financial management reforms.
These all are worthwhile ideas, and it would be good to see Quinn address them in his legislative proposals.
To that, we might add the continuing need to restrain the growth of gambling in Illinois. As we have said before, we’re open to moderate expansions of gambling. Arlington Park, for example, likely is in need of it. But we hope Quinn continues to push back against the forces that would promote widespread gambling on every corner.
Continued government reform also should be on this session’s agenda. Little creates as much public cynicism of state government in Illinois as the unrestrained power of the legislative leadership positions.
Opening the legislative process up would be good for the General Assembly and good for the citizens of Illinois.
These are among the hard issues Quinn and the General Assembly should tackle in trying to truly turn the state around.