>> Hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight.

I'm Brandis Friedman.

Here's what we're looking at.

As federal workers worry about job cuts.

Republican lawmakers look to create an Illinois version of Elon Musk's Department of Government efficiency.

Governor Pritzker is set to unveil his next budget proposal.

Our Spotlight Politics team has a preview.

It's not that it's new that people going prices.

What how we respond to crisis is new.

And a look at how the city and local nonprofits are responding to mental health crises.

>> And now to some of today's top stories.

Some federal workers braved the bitter cold this afternoon to protest the Trump administration's cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency.

>> We clean up the toxic waste sites help stop the devastating effects of climate change.

When we lose EPA workers at this scale, we can no longer effectively protect the public in emergencies like Flint, Michigan, water crisis with a train derailment in east Palestine, Ohio.

>> A view the American Federation of Government Employees Union representing about 1000 region, 5 EPA employees slammed the firing of 100 probationary workers.

The group says the move will impact residents in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, in several other Midwestern states.

Workers say the agency is also pushing other employees to retire or resign.

But meanwhile, has detailed how its work will continue without those workers.

The 21st and final member of the Chicago Board of Education has finally been named South Side native Sydney.

Wallace will join the hybrid board as Mayor Brandon Johnson's appointee at its next monthly meeting on February.

27th.

The mother of 4 currently serves on the board of directors for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and worked with organization in campaigning to create the city's Commission for Public Safety and Accountability Wallace.

His appointment comes 34 days after the other 20 members of the hybrid board were sworn into office and nearly 10 months since Johnson named his other 10 appointees.

While the Cold Weather advisory may technically be over, the frigid temperatures have gone nowhere.

Take a look at the wind chills from this morning.

17 below in Joliet and cake.

A key all the way down to 29 degrees below 0 in DeKalb, the National Weather Service says the cold will continue this week with wind chills still 20 below tonight in a limited snow risk tomorrow, we'll get a reprieve this weekend with highs between 27 and 33 degrees by Saturday.

So basically sand the weather.

Up next, what will Department of Government efficiency look like in Illinois?

The bill sponsor joins us next.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part by the Alexander and John Nichols family.

The gym and Tay, maybe family.

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And the support of these donors.

>> The Department of Government Efficiency or Doge was created with the intention of cutting government spending and decreasing the federal deficit.

so far fired tens of thousands of federal workers and purge government agencies.

The Trump administration doesn't align with.

Now there's a new effort to create in Illinois version of Doe's inspired by the Elon Musk led department.

Joining us from Springfield is state Representative John Cabello who introduced the bill.

We should say we did invite multiple Democratic state lawmakers, but we haven't heard back yet.

Representative Casello, thank you for joining us.

So first, let's start please with what in Illinois Doe's would do.

>> Well, obviously, we want to take it after what's going on.

The federal government.

We've seen that they have a identify hundreds of millions of dollars in savings.

We have a large deficit that we're going overcome here in Illinois.

I think it's about 3.2 billion dollar deficit that we must overcome.

We need to find ways of saving the taxpayers money.

for too long in this state, the taxpayers have been forgotten about and it's time to make sure they're in the forefront of our mind.

>> How would this one be a local version in Illinois version be different from what we see on the federal level?

>> I'm not sure going to be very much different.

What we're looking at doing, though, is having committee of 5 numbers.

The auditor general would have the chairperson and the 4 legislative leaders will be able to appoint somebody to this committee.

We're looking at folks that want to do exactly what I've been talking about, saving the taxpayers money.

We've got to find people that want to look at that.

You good services that we're offering.

We want to get state properties back on that actual there's a lot of different things that we want to look at.

And we hope that they're going to look at to make sure again.

To save the taxpayers money.

That's what we need to start identifying in this state.

First, we too long.

We've been spending way too much.

It's time to give some breaks to the taxpayers.

>> Are there particular departments or agencies in which you state don't would would find some waste and inefficiencies.

>> I think every single one theirs, I don't believe that there's a director or a secretary that is in charge of the department that is going to openly say we don't need this much money way it works in state government in a way it works at a local government around budget they come around and they It's part of little visitor The what they do is they say.

Use it or lose it.

And we've got to find we have stopped doing that because each year if you don't use it, you lose it.

If you use it and they're going to give you more the next year.

So there's different ways that we can do this.

>> And Illinois, though, already auditing and oversight mechanisms in place.

Why would this additional agency?

Why would it be necessary and how it work?

>> Well, again, I mean, it's we're not reinventing the wheel here.

What we're seeing in less than a month of the federal government doing the identified hundreds of millions of dollars in savings.

I don't think it's going to be that big of deal to put a committee together quickly and to start looking at these different agencies.

It's it's it.

It's not rocket science.

We should be able to look at this stuff and here is where we're gonna be able to say These are the programs that we can cut there.

I think we've got some pretty smart people that would be able to identify those a very quick man.

>> Now, those savings, though, representative, they come in the form of many people's jobs.

The White House Department of Government efficiency has already made, as we've discussed, sweeping changes under the leadership of Elon Musk, their targets so far have included the Department of Education, U.S. a I D the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, FEMA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration among others.

Do you support those cuts that have been made so far?

And do you anticipate similar If such a doze were to form in the state of Illinois?

>> Yes.

And the reason why is because the government is not supposed to be a job creator, government is supposed to create an environment for private business to flourish.

The more government agencies that we have is going to be more burden the taxpayers.

So what we need to do is we need to create an environment for private businesses to flourish and read and get away from government jobs so that that way the of the taxpayers are burned as much when you have private industry doing the taxpayers are going to win.

>> So as we said, part of the new federal departments work issuing massive layoffs to federal employees, including employees who live in Illinois recently fired EPA worker Nyla McCranie was at that federal workers rally in the loop today.

And here's what she had to say.

>> If there's no one working on environmental health safety, if there's no plan at the RSA, there's no one at the EPA.

If there's no one at the FDA.

America be in say it's not federal workers who are your enemy.

people put profits over workers.

If you make profit over the American people, that is your enemy.

>> We will not let billionaires take over the workforce and we will keep fighting.

>> So representative, you say obviously get of the state and federal their job is not to create jobs for other people.

But is there not work at these agencies do that would still need to be done?

>> I think there are.

But let's there is a incident in my district where the EPA was.

Not able to solve a problem for 40 years.

It almost becomes a fact justifying their existence.

We need to find people that will come and solve problems and not take 40 years to do it.

It was a guest that to had been rectified, but they refused to allow somebody to build on it because it and they said it wasn't ready to be built on in.

This is 40 years later.

So it almost becomes a, you know, just find your own existence.

And I so the taxpayers needs that with the tax payers won.

We've got to find a way reducing the burden on the taxpayer.

>> Representative Cabello Governor JB Pritzker is presenting his state budget tomorrow.

We've got about 30 seconds left.

What would you like to see?

>> Well, if he was smart, he would talk about efficiency and government.

He was smart.

He would sit there and say we're going to do exactly what they've done on the federal government's side.

We're going to find ways of reducing the burden on our taxpayers because they've been burning for way too long.

>> All right, Representative John Cabello, a Republican in Springfield for us.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate.

>> Up next, our Spotlight POLITICS team with a preview of the state budget address.

Governor JB Pritzker is set to outline his latest budget proposal in Springfield tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Illinois Democrats deliver harsh criticism of federal funding cuts and a letter from the city's inspector general blast Chicago officials for interfering with their investigations here with all that and more is our spotlight politics team, Heather Sharon, Nick Blumberg and Amanda Vicki, who is joining us from Springfield tonight.

Amanda, let's start with you.

First.

As we said, Pritzker, tomorrow's presenting his next budget proposal where he faces a 3.2 billion dollar shortfall this year.

How is he planning to address that?

Will bring us a wish.

I could give you more details.

The governor, in fact, was just practicing giving his budget address in the House chambers where usually speak to you and go live from.

But we weren't allowed in because he was giving a run through of >> that address.

What we know from the governor's office says that he says he is going to present a balanced budget that is going to be difficult.

Of course, given that you talked about huge deficit that was protected.

We are hearing, however, that it's not going to be that large after all that new figures estimates that you could be actually a billion dollars even more revenue coming in.

That gives Governor Pritzker is he gives his 7th budget speech a bit more room to work with as he again promises.

>> Balance he'll have to present some sort of more austere budget and spending plan if the same time.

Of course he is the governor.

He wants to make waves, make a name for himself in, have put spending toward big name programs.

This also comes as we discuss as the federal government is federal funding faces some uncertainty.

How is his administration going to handle that and take that into account?

>> he has said that it's very difficult to gauge because you don't know what actually is going to happen, that the Trump administration all over the place.

And further, of course, there's a lot of court action and there is not a lot of finality in terms of really what Illinois is going to be receiving from the federal government.

What will be caught off?

It is something that could present a huge gaping hole outside of that budget that we had talked about it, the deficit that is especially if you look at something like Medicaid cuts coming, that even means Illinois has to find a whole lot of money.

We're talking millions, millions of dollars or people who have had government assisted health care coverage.

We're going to have to go without.

I do want to add the governor, of course, has been very out in front about slamming President Trump, the executive orders that funding cuts.

expect we're going to get a lot of that tomorrow.

He's had some zingers in previous budget addresses and that was not when things ramped up to this degree.

So I'm guessing head the on the Trump singers during time.

what's at stake for Chicago here.

A lot is at stake for Chicago.

You've heard the Johnson administration often talk about there were desire to get more money coming in to prop up the PSA didn't, of course, we also have spent a lot of time talking about the program, funding cliff at that Chicago and the Northern Illinois is public transit agencies are really careening toward.

And so those are things that people are going to be looking for.

The governor to get answers on.

I expect that he is going to say yes, more money is going to go to education.

The billion dollars that CPS wants immediately.

Illinois does not have the money for that.

Governor has shown no appetite for it.

He's also said that he's not keen to look to raising taxes.

So that is what is at stake for Chicago, whether they're going to be happy with what they hear.

We'll see on Wednesday.

Nick, we know federal Illinois, they've been speaking out against the budget cuts under the Trump administration.

What are they saying?

That's right.

I mean, as Amanda they've been really raising the alarm about how fast and furious some of these cuts and changes have been.

>> You know, trying to sound the alarm for things like proper staffing at the FAA.

Obviously top of mind for a lot of folks right now for medical funding for things like HIV, AIDS prevention and treatment.

But they also were raising the specter of some things that are really near and dear to folks and perhaps less abstract and say, you know, a National Institutes of health funding, this or that study at this or that university.

But things like Social Security, Medicare, as Amanda mentioned, Medicaid aid to schools.

You know, in knee-deep, particularly needy students really trying to to raise the alarm here.

We saw Senator Durbin making the rounds yesterday, along with other members of the Illinois congressional delegation.

also heard not just about the cuts, but as well as their concerns about the potential for, you know, essentially Illinois style corruption.

We heard Congressman Mike Quigley say that firing all these inspectors general or Elon Musk acting largely unchecked, reminds him of some of the problems that Illinois has dealt with with graft and mismanagement in recent years.

Obviously, you're a receptive you know, to to But we will see whether they can get people's hackles up about something like Social Security check.

I'm so Heather City Council, though, scheduled to vote on a previously stalled effort to lower Chicago's default speed limit to 25 miles an hour.

This is coming up again.

Remind us how we got here.

Well, Alderman Daniel was spotted tried last month to sort of push this through the city council, which would lower the city's, as you said, default speed limit 5 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour.

>> But he didn't have the votes.

And when you don't have the votes, the smart thing most of the time is not to vote.

He's indicated that he's going to try again tomorrow.

It's not clear to me that anything has changed in the past month.

>> This was an effort months in the making and there are real concerns that this speed limit gets lowered, it will lead to more tickets and fines for black and Latino Chicagoans, which was of concern to the City Council's black caucus and they're Latino caucus.

So maybe folks have talked about this behind the scenes and everybody is sort of are going to sing come by on tomorrow's the city council meeting will have to wait and Nick Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill, Burke announcing that nonviolent gun cases would no longer be diverted to restorative justice community courts.

Remind us what these courts do.

That's right.

This is a story from our colleague where Paddack reported that, you know, these are places where folks come, they take responsibility.

They they've gentle, you know, enter into a piece circle and they come up with a way to repair the harm or repair of harm agreement.

We actually heard about.

>> The chief judge of the North Lawndale restorative Justice Court on Chicago tonight yesterday and they say these have a big success.

It's a 6 month up to a year and a half process.

And if they successfully completed, these folks had their charges dismissed their record, gets expunged.

They cite a 13% recidivism rate for folks to go through one of these courts versus people who go through the traditional sort of criminal justice system at 65%.

Now, Eileen O'Neill, Burke and her office, they say they want state lawmakers instead to send folks to a gun diversion program.

They've got some bills that they're pushing.

But, you know, the folks who who advocate for these sorts of restorative justice courts say, listen, that may be well and good that, you know, you may be well-intentioned here, but Los take time to pass.

And in the meantime, they're no longer sending any of these sorts of gun possession cases to the restorative justice courts.

Amanda, briefly, as we heard Illinois legislators are proposing a department of government officiate efficiency dedicated to the state and Illinois goes vertically.

Basically, what's the outlook for this?

>> I'm going to savor and is that the outlook is not good.

Despite Representative Cabello talking about it, his desire for efficiency.

And for that to be something that Governor Pritzker focuses on Republicans, they are in the super minority in Springfield bus far.

Granted, it is still very early in the legislative session.

That piece of bill has not been assigned to any substantive committee, which is sort of her first signal that Democrats are not inclined to it bans it.

Good luck to them with that.

Heather.

>> Inspector General Denver, what's Berg once the city council to tighten city's ethics rules?

Why?

But I think we all know why U.S. if the cliche raising the alarm that the mayor's handpicked corporation counsel, the city's top lawyer, >> has intervened in a number of cases that she says could cause political appointees, embarrassment.

And she says that the corporation counsel should no longer be allowed to request to sit an investigative interviews conducted by the inspector general, nor should they sort of have the ability to squash subpoenas that the inspector general wants to issue.

Now, this was a broadside from the city's watch tied to this to the city's debt to the Johnson Administration.

Of course, it's not the first time they've clashed.

They clashed over the which owns Ruby is literally the gift that keeps on going to leave it there that spotlight everybody.

Amanda Lundberg and have a shrimp.

Thanks.

>> Up next, unique ways the city and local nonprofits are responding to mental health crises.

Stay with >> We're sure of the residents struggling with mental health issues, access to traditional care, such as therapist or medication can be an obstacle.

For example, there are no psychiatric hospitals located on the south and West sides in partnership with Wt Tw News students from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism Explore alternative programs.

Here's Victoria Ryan.

>> On weekday mornings.

38 year-old Chris Wray can be found smiling and dancing with their peers at above and beyond Family Recovery Center.

Ray has been attending classes here since August.

She has struggled with depression and alcohol addiction since age 16 and is the single mother of a 20 year-old daughter.

>> I feel like in.

Recovery you really need to have compassion.

New people and people that honestly know what you've been through to actually do the job.

>> Above and beyond is a behavioral treatment center aimed a providing mental health support in addiction recovery in non-traditional ways.

What got me into this line of work is my addiction.

So I am an alcoholic and recovery.

>> And I've got 39 years drinking.

both CEO Dan Hostetler says the center relies on research and lived experience to customize programs.

>> We have art.

>> have music therapy.

We have yoga we have acupuncture.

These are all ways for people to reach inside themselves to celebrate themselves to realize how good they can feel how good they're allowed to feel about themselves.

>> Above and beyond aims to provide a positive treatment experience for everyone.

>> They're very polite.

Like if they feel like you need a higher level of care, they help you and they put you in there.

>> With grant funding and donations, the service is free allowing people to focus on recovery instead of finances.

>> So if we can help them, get them out of yourself, navigating their own lives based on their purpose and meaning that's perpetual that goes their whole life.

>> This is Ray's 3rd time in recovery, which had been stunted due to being incarcerated 3 times on battery charges.

>> My mental health definitely was Mandy and I went being engine.

>> Jess spy spiraled out of control and ultimately I end up going back to prison according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

2 out of 5 people who go to prison have a history of mental illness in 2021, the city of Chicago launched the Crisis Assistance Response and Prevention program for care.

It initially provided a team of both police and mental health responders.

When 9-1-1 was called.

However, the police presence caused some concern.

I think this kind of dangerous.

>> Because you have police offices need it like they're not like I say, educated mental health.

So they don't know how to handle that.

>> The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority says up to 10% of police citizen interactions involve mental health crises.

Additional research estimates that police are up to 5 times more likely to use force if a citizen has a mental health condition.

Police interaction during a mental health crisis in the summer of 2024. led to the shooting death of Sonya Massey in Springfield.

The Chicago program care remove police involvement in September 2024. and rolled out mobile support its not that its new that people go into crisis.

But how we respond to crisis is new.

>> an interaction with a trained professional during a crisis made a big difference.

One of offices, detectives, he was actually.

Specialize in mental health.

So he kind of talk to me to calm me down.

No.

>> Cares.

Plans to expand in 2025.

Have been put on hold due to the city's budget crisis.

However, programs like care and above and beyond are still trying to help Chicagoans the most rewarding part of my job.

I would say.

>> Ensuring that the people who need the help get the help that they need.

>> want to make the all of this available.

So all of this becomes standard.

>> Ray says her recovery goes beyond herself.

It's a chance for a future with her daughter as she graduates college.

>> We've been able to any of her graduations cause I was out.

always locked So to be at the college graduation.

>> This is a big deal for me.

going to be real happy about >> Or W T Tw and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism and Victoria Ryan.

>> And you can read more about this story on our website.

And that's our show for this Tuesday night.

Stay connected with our reporters and what they're working on by following us on Instagram at W T Tw Chicago.

And you can also follow us on Blue Sky at W T Tw and join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10 Governor Pritzker is set to deliver his budget address.

We're live in Springfield with the latest and a look at how body cameras can affect officer's response to a deadly police involved shooting.

Now for all of us here at Chicago tonight, I'm Brandis Friedman, thank you for watching.

Stay healthy and safe.

Have a good night.

>> Closed captioning is made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford law offices Chicago, personal injury and wrongful death.

It supports educational