(gentle music) (camera lens bleeping) (slide swooshing) (dramatic music) - Thank you for joining us on "Capitol View."

I'm very pleased to have with us this week Senator Jil Tracy from Illinois Senate District 50.

Senator, in the next fiscal year, there is a projected budget deficit in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

What do you think should be done about this in the next session?

- Well, we've talked about the healthcare foreign documents.

That should be addressed and stopped.

If it's still allowed to be going on, we need to put copays.

We projected this cliff when we got the federal dollars from covid and our revenues were good.

And we said, you know, we got this pension debt.

Some was put towards the pension debt.

We've the largest unfunded pension system in Illinois.

And we did address it.

There was a rainy day fund set up, but we still expanded and set up new programs when we got these federal dollars and so we kept saying, there's gonna be a cliff.

And unfortunately, the cliff is here.

And some of the programs that have begun need to be hauled back.

The governor just announced for the migrant crisis in Chicago, several hundred million dollars.

And again, I wanna focus on the developmentally disabled, mental health services, and the senior citizens first.

They should be our top priority.

They're the most vulnerable, they have the least voice, and we have a record of not funding their services properly.

That's what we should focus on.

We talk about it all the time and we say we're going to, but we don't.

And I am so happy that some of my other colleagues are focusing more on mental health issues.

We talk about shootings, gun violence, and the like.

It all starts with mental health.

And that, until we get to the root of the cause, we're not gonna solve issues like that and it's mental health.

- Okay, wanna move on to some other issues now and I wanna begin with something that Republicans have been calling for, for a number of years, state ethics reforms.

What would you like to see in that regard?

- Well, I served on the Ethics Commission for many years and I'm still there and I also was the chairman for a period of time when we sought a new ethics officer, or a Legislative Inspector General.

We have made strides.

I believe that when the Ethics Commission was set up, it was so fraught with bullet holes that it was never meant to be meaningful and it's very disturbing to see the number of public officials that have been convicted of public corruption or some crime in some shape or form over the years, but as far as the ethics go, revolving door for legislators to lobbyists, trying to cut that down.

I mean, you know, shouldn't you, if you are a legislator, should you be able to be a lobbyist the next day?

And there's still, we passed some form of legislation, but if you look at it intensely, it's not meaningful.

A person could still find a way to soon be a legislator to lobbyist.

And so many other things that, incongruities, inconsistencies between the Ethics Act and the Corruption Misconduct Act.

We keep, as the Commission, putting that to the leaders and saying, "Look, there's inconsistencies here.

Would you please take a look at it so it's more meaningful?"

And I will say, we have made great strides in training new legislators about the Ethics Commission, the Legislative Inspector General's responsibilities and duties and what's wrong, what's not, and giving them plenty of examples.

We just revamped all the training that everybody's required to do every year, and at the incoming programs for new legislators, for the first time ever, the ethics officers and the Legislative Inspector General is appearing to give them upfront examples of what's right and what's wrong.

Many times a person may commit an ethics violation and it's not intention at all.

It's just they didn't know.

Sometimes it's very apparent.

So that's one of the reasons, you know, Illinois has a black eye sometimes is the major corruption.

I mean, we have corruption trials going on in Chicago as we speak.

We've had people convicted in the last few months of corruption under the dome in Illinois.

It's gotta stop.

Now, many things are illegal and unethical and they are not the same.

It can be unethical, but not illegal.

And so we have laws in place, but it's disheartening to me that we often ask the Attorney General to get involved with ethics violations and they've turned their head.

Why is it the FBI has to be the one to clean our house when there's corruption in Illinois?

So, we'll see.

Much work to be done, but it should be done.

- Okay, wanna move on to higher education now.

As you know, higher ed received a major funding increase in 2023.

What are your thoughts about that and how the money is being spent?

- Well, you know, I'm a proud graduate of SIU and SIU Law and the fees and the tuition were much lower when I went to school in the late '70s and the '80s and I feel blessed that I got that education at SIU and SIU Law.

It's opened so many doors and allowed my husband and I, who also graduate from SIU Law, to be successful, and I want everybody that wants that type of education to be able to afford it.

We have not funded our public universities as well.

I applaud the MAP grants.

I think it's a good idea.

A lot of people need help because of the inflated tuition and fees that have happened because we've underfunded on the state level.

I want all of our universities to be good stewards.

Sometimes I shake my head and question what they spend it on, but I'm an ultra conservative fiscally.

I want our public universities to have Illinois students, out of state, international students, a good mix, and I really want them to stay in Illinois.

They're our brain trust.

- It sounds like, in general you're pretty happy with the increase in funding for higher ed.

What do you think is still needed, if anything, to help state universities and colleges increase enrollment?

Because this is, as you know, a major challenge, especially in the world of online education where there's competition growing all of the time.

- There is and I enjoy listening to our presidents and their staff of how they are thinking outside the box and trying to recruit.

I think we kind of had a lapse of that kind of intensity of focusing on Illinois students for a period of time.

Now I listen to them that they are really trying new, inventive ways to go out to the high schools and tell them what they offer and how much it's gonna cost and try to wrap their arms around those students and keep them here in Illinois.

It's vital for Illinois, it's vital for the university cities that we have in Illinois, and I hope it continues.

And AIM HIGH was a good program that we initiated.

We had a task force to study how are we going to improve keeping students in Illinois and improve our universities, so I want them to be fiscally responsible, but yet keep those students in Illinois and bring in more students.

- All right, wanna move along.

We just got a couple minutes left.

Last year there was some success in getting licensing reforms for certain professions.

What else, if anything, would you like to see?

- Well, our licensing has been really rough since covid.

I was very dismayed that they hadn't brought more people in back to the office.

And we work on getting nursing license, doctors license, roofing license, all kinds of license, and we just passed a bill during veto session that allows CMS with the professional regulation to get better software and upgrade their IT systems.

And it's kind of sad that when we have to do legislative initiatives to allow an agency to improve their software and computer systems.

It should be regular across the board through CMS, but the procurement system in Illinois is kind of broken and it needs fixed and it's a big undertaking, but I would rather see that happen first so that every agency works better.

We have problems with all of our agencies.

And if I could back up just a minute when you're talking about higher education, I wanted to say with the passage of the Capitol Bill that we did a couple years ago, our universities have needed major infrastructure improvements and that was not there and so I think that will help our universities when we get the money to them to do the infrastructure and deferred maintenance in our universities.

I think that's been huge across the state and that was a problem.

- Big issue for sure.

Economic development, you've already addressed this briefly.

I wanna give you a chance to talk a little more about this in our final minutes.

Always an important issue.

Tell me your thoughts on how the state is doing as far as economic development and what you wanna see to keep things moving along and doing even better.

- Well, if you talk to employers, what's your biggest issues in Illinois, and they will say workman's comp.

The workman's comp rates and the unemployment rates are higher than our neighboring states.

We have to be competitive with Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Iowa, Wisconsin, all on our borders, and we're not, in many ways.

We pass many laws that impact employers.

I always like to look at the small employer first because they're really the major backbone.

We say buy local, support local.

Well, those are the guys that keep our main streets looking nice and employing people locally and we've heaped so many regulations on them that really make it hard for them to meet payroll and stay open.

This Paid Workers Bill that just passed that allows a worker to get up to 10 days paid leave without any notice or reason given sounds great, but think about your shift work and what an employer has to meet, a farmer doing harvest.

It's gonna be a huge burden for our small employers, and when a manufacturing business looks at coming into Illinois, they're gonna look at our workman's comp rates, our unemployment insurance rates, and really give it some thought as to whether Illinois is the right place to base their business.

We've lost employers.

We need to have set policies in place that encourage their growth and development here and to help the ones that are here stay in business.

- Okay, Senator, I only have about one minute left.

Wanna ask you this final question.

As you know, Marian celebrated the STAR Bond to help redevelop a former mall in the city, as well as surrounding property.

Give me your thoughts on the STAR Bond program and whether or not you think it should be expanded.

- Well, you know, I think we have to stay ahead of how businesses and everything evolves, malls and the like, and so STAR Bonds, you know, I think it has merit, and anytime you give incentives for somebody to move in and pick up an existing building is good for Illinois.

I think TIF Districts have benefit.

I think all kinds of tax credits perhaps for businesses have to be balanced how much it hurts or takes away from other revenue, but we need to have every kind of tool in our toolbox to develop Illinois.

- All right, Senator Jil Tracy, representing Illinois Senate District 50.

Senator, thank you for being with us.

- Thank you, Fred.

- And we'd love to hear from you.

Send us your letters.

The email address is Contact@wsiu.org.

More news and analysis now.

I am so pleased to welcome Jeremy Gorner of the Chicago Tribune.

Jeremy, it is great to have you with us.

- Great to be here, Fred.

- All right, we're gonna start off with the new year, unfortunately, seeing a worsening problem.

The number of asylum seekers continues to grow.

The Chicago Sun Times reports more than 14,500 at nearly 30 shelters in Chicago as of Sunday morning.

And on Sunday morning we saw something else, over 350 new arrivals by plane in Rockford, who then boarded buses to Chicago, all funded by Texas.

Chicago's mayor joined the mayors of New York City and Denver last week in pleading for more federal help.

And we had another development this week.

More Chicago suburbs passing ordinances, for instance, Woodstock requiring an application before groups are dropped off there.

Jeremy, where do you see all of this going and what are the political ramifications here?

- Well, it looks like government leaders are running out of ideas.

This is a problem that, you know, if you're a mayor of a city, you know, inevitably it was going to, this problem was going to spill over into the suburbs, obviously since the summer of 2022, and now just when you thought that everything was coming to a head, you know, if you're a mayor of these towns, it's really come to a head.

We're seeing, you know, the suburbs try to mirror some of Chicago's steps by passing ordinances, cracking down on these transportation companies that arrive without notice to their towns.

Like that's kind of what we saw yesterday in Chicago suburbs like Woodstock, Buffalo Grove, you know, outlier cities like Wilmington and Joliet.

So it's very clear that this is a problem that's not just affecting the city of Chicago.

I know that in the news we've been really focusing heavily on Chicago, but of course now the suburbs are trying to figure out ways to do something about this, and at the same time, you know, it's been said cracking down on these buses that bring people without notice, clearly like what you were mentioning, Fred, about the flights to Rockford.

There was one from O'Hare, you know, there was a flight to O'Hare in the last two weeks as well.

Clearly Governor Abbott in Texas is aware that, you know, that Mayor Brandon Johnson and some of the suburban mayors have figured out ways to try to do something about these buses, so they're trying to kind of skirt those rules by figuring out other ways of bringing asylum seekers away from Texas into Chicago and other cities.

But yeah, I mean clearly, these cities like Chicago and even the suburbs, they're being, Chicago at least, so Chicago, the suburbs, I think it remains to be seen, but Chicago really is being stretched to the limit here.

- Yeah, absolutely, the mayor of Chicago was on "Face the Nation" Sunday and continually use the word chaos when describing what was being caused by Governor Abbott in Texas doing this and he, you know, in a press statement, said that he was using planes now that if Chicago was going to impede buses, he would use planes to get migrants to Chicago.

This is also happening in New York City and we've seen reports of asylum seekers being dropped off in New Jersey for fear that they may have problems being dropped off in New York City.

We even saw reports of one suburban area in New Jersey, a government official talking about the possibility of chartering buses in New Jersey to send the asylum seekers back to Texas, so that gets to another point here.

We're talking about a huge effect, not just on the areas where the asylum seekers are dropped off, but on entire states, New York and Illinois spending hundreds of millions of dollars to respond to the crisis, and then also using federal money, in some cases federal money that was supposed to be for other uses, we learned from the Chicago Sun Times story that Chicago is now using covid relief money for the asylum crisis, tens of millions of dollars.

Tell us about this.

And the reminder that really without federal action, this seems like an unsustainable pattern, really.

- Right, and that tab was, I believe $95 million, Fred, that the city of Chicago is using covid relief funds.

Look, I mean that money was supposed to, was earmarked for other community services under the Federal American Rescue Plan and it just shows you that, you know, it's just like anyone who's having problems with their own finances.

What's a common tactic to remedy that?

Well, you switch around funds from one account to another.

That's exactly what we're seeing the city of Chicago having to resort to and this is federal money that was essentially given to state and local governments as desperation money because they knew that the pandemic was going to be very costly and you know, and clearly, you know, we're still seeing remnants of that even almost four years later, and now where are we almost four years later since this money's been made available, it's being switched around to help with the migrant effort, and you know, and it's just like any kind of pattern we've seen with government finances is that this is good in the short term, Fred, but this is going to come to a head eventually and then Mayor Johnson is gonna have to look for other options as far as paying for this.

One of the big questions, and I'm sure that it's been discussed on your show is you have spring session coming up for the Illinois legislature.

Is there going to be a supplemental budget to allocate more funds from on the state level to this effort?

We don't know, I mean, you know, so far the Pritzker administration has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to the city of Chicago for this effort.

Clearly that's not enough, so is there gonna be a supplemental budget?

What is the fiscal year 2025 budget?

What does that look like for funding asylum seekers?

These are gonna be all questions I think we're gonna see in the coming weeks that perhaps they'll, that may or may not get answers to.

And then to your other point about moving, you know, sending migrants back like they're doing on the East Coast, like you said, that would be I would think a pretty dangerous tactic politically for Governor Pritzker and for Mayor Johnson considering, if they were to go that route, considering they've billed Chicago as such a welcoming city, that's not something, you know, that they want to fall back on, that they wanna turn their back on, so clearly they're walking a very fine line.

You have the finance issues here, but politically, you know, they could be walking a very fine line too, the longer this whole issue drags out.

- Well, and the Chicago Mayor's administration, obviously it seems concerned about the way that using Covid money might be perceived because there's a lot of additional money, federal money that has not been spent yet and when questions were asked, "Were you gonna use that too?"

"Not at this point," was the answer.

So, you know, it hasn't been committed for that, but we don't know at this point.

- Right, and it's not like the city of Chicago's finances.

I mean, the Johnson administration hasn't budget-wise, hasn't painted their budget as being in like bad shape or anything.

I mean, you know, but at the same time, it's just like anything, the fact that they have to switch funds around like this in any situation is not gonna be a good thing in the, is not gonna be sustainable in the long term.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, we have a few minutes left and I wanted to give some time, Jeremy, for a story that you wrote with your colleague Dan Petrella at the Chicago Tribune on new laws in Illinois for 2024.

I wanna start with two major changes, $14 minimum wage and paid leave being mandated in the state.

Some businesses, of course, not happy about this, but many workers undoubtedly very happy.

- Yeah, I mean, the minimum wage was, you know, the minimum wage basically was a result of legislation that Pritzker signed in 2019 when the minimum wage was $8.25 an hour.

You know, it's been going, you know, so basically what we saw for 2024 is that the minimum wage for workers 18 and older is going up by $1 up to $14 an hour.

That final increase, Fred, will be next year in 2025 when it reaches $15 an hour.

Obviously this is something that's very welcoming for those workers.

Of course, employers, there are some concerns.

I mean, with inflation the way it is across this country, it costs money to run a business and that includes paying workers, that includes for paying for services that your business is selling, so if you work in a restaurant, I mean food is gonna cost more.

You know, just these basic goods and services that are being sold by these, or produced by these businesses, that's all gonna cost more because of it, that's what some of the concerns are for these employers, and the same with paid leave, especially for small businesses.

- Sure, yeah, and the paid leave one is very interesting because while many states have increased minimum wage, including in the way that Illinois is doing this over several years, there are almost none that are looking at paid leave like this.

That's a very rare thing and a lot of concern about that among some businesses.

Two other laws affecting workers, and really all of us, Illinois is banning some impediments to picketing and indoor vaping is now illegal in public, just like indoor smoking.

- Right, so one law makes it a Class A misdemeanor with a minimum fine of $500 if you place an object in the public way that would obstruct or interfere with a labor demonstration or a protest.

This obviously comes at a time, Fred, where there's been historically actions nationally, including strikes by auto workers and Hollywood writers and actors.

And you know, a measure like this only solidifies just how union-friendly Illinois has become.

And then, you know, of course, you were talking about the other one was electronic cigarettes, correct?

- Yeah, indoor vaping now banned, and so I've seen that, Jeremy, in public, so now we shouldn't see it anymore.

It's banned just like us indoor smoking.

- Just like traditional, yeah.

- We're actually out of time, but I wanna thank you for joining us today from the Chicago Tribune.

- Thank you, Fred, appreciate it.

- Appreciate you as well.

Thank you so much for being with us at home as well.

For everyone at WSIU, I'm Fred Martino.

Have a great week.

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