(lighthearted music) (intense music) (phone dings) - Welcome to WSIU Public Broadcasting's "Meet the Candidates" series ahead of the November 5th election.

I'm Jak Tichenor.

Our guest on this edition of the program is Democratic candidate LaToya Greenwood of East St. Louis, who is running for the Illinois House in the 114th district.

Welcome to "Meet the Candidates," Candidate Greenwood.

Good to see you.

- Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

- Well, tell us about yourself.

This isn't your first run for office in Springfield.

You previously served as state representative from 2017 to 2023.

Why should voters return you to office?

Talk about your record and why you think you should have another chance to go back to the state house.

- Thank you.

Well, as you just stated, I was the previous state rep.

I lost last election cycle, and my platform has always been to uplift the constituents within the 114th district.

I am very proud of my record, my legislative record, actually passing legislation that does exactly what my intent was to do, was to serve the people of the 114th district from healthcare, legislation, and access with the maternal mortality issues that I helped to champion and advocate for, as well as just various social justice issues and being able to invest in the underserved communities within the 114th district.

So, I feel like we need a strong advocate and voice and true representation for the entire 114th district.

- Well, let's talk about that district.

It's very diverse.

It goes out from East St. Louis and takes in Belleville, Brooklyn, Cahokia Heights, Fairview Heights, Mascoutah, Scott Air Force Base, Swansea, Washington Park.

What are some of the things there, issues that resonate with voters there, things that they need their state representative to address in Springfield?

- Well, one of the issues that is very prevalent throughout the 114th district is this issue of poverty.

And what we see is that it's a universal issue, it cuts across color lines, and it hits almost all of the municipalities within the 114th district.

St. Clair County has one of the highest poverty rates within our state, and so we need true representation to continue, like I said, to talk about education funding, to make sure that our students are educated properly, to talk about career and technical training, and make sure that we have a person that is actually voting for the budget and the implementation of all of these programs and funding that are much needed within the 114th district.

- Well, you touched upon a question I was going to ask.

As you look at the state of Illinois, the state of Illinois has a gross domestic product of over a trillion dollars now and has for several years.

We're one of the top revenue-generating states in the United States.

But as you pointed out, a lot of those benefits don't trickle down to a lot of folks.

There's unemployment, inflation, housing and food insecurity.

What is your prescription for trying to turn those things around in southwestern Illinois?

- Well, I always talk about investing, investment in people, investment in programming, investing, again, in education and training, workforce development.

I'm very proud of my record.

When we look at universities, community colleges like SWIC, the work I've done in terms of helping fund the manufacturing and career technical facility that they have, when we talk about expanding career and technical education right here in East St. Louis, I'm very proud of some of the funds that I've helped allocate toward that as well.

The only way that we can address poverty and to fill in those gaps is by investing in people, communities, and programming and services, providing the resources that they need, and the way that you do that is through the budget process.

- One of the things that, you know, has struck me in the last few months is you look at how the Pritzker administration has been addressing economic development across the state of Illinois.

There's been a lot of focus on a new area called quantum computing.

They're talking about developing a campus for that in the Chicago area with all the state universities.

There's a big investment being made in the electric vehicle industry in the state of Illinois, particularly around the Bloomington-Normal area.

Are those kinds of initiatives going to be the ones that will create the most jobs in the East St. Louis Metro area, or do we need to take another look, like building more out in terms of job development around Scott Air Force Base, for example?

- I believe we need all of the things you just stated, but the only way that we could be a part of that is to be part of those conversations and discussion and to have a true advocate at the table to understand that whatever is happening around the state around job creation, and having people go to work is what we need within the Metro East area.

If it's happening in Bloomington, we need a pilot program here in the Metro East.

If it's happening in Chicago, we need a pilot program here in the Metro East as well.

And of course there should be specific training and programming that is more specific to Scott Air Force Base, but we need all resources to be able to uplift the people here as well.

- Same kind of question for small business development.

You know, there's a big focus on the big employers that maybe generate 1,000 to 2,000 jobs, but a lot of the economy rests upon what small business contributes.

When you take it all into account, it's a huge part of the state's economy.

What should the state be doing to help create more jobs in businesses that maybe have 25 to 50 employees, maybe 100 employees?

- Well, I believe that the state of Illinois has done a excellent job in highlighting and supporting small business owners throughout the state.

In particular, I've been visiting a lot of small businesses in the Metro East area within the 114th district, specifically women-owned small businesses.

And so I've heard about some of the concerns and issues that they have faced, but also I've heard about the supports and the wonderful resources that our state offers small business entrepreneurs.

And so, again, here in the 114th district, it's about resources and information, being able to provide those things throughout the 114th district to help us move forward.

- I'm gonna move back to a topic that I know has been a key issue in Springfield for decades now and that's property taxes.

Illinois ranks only second to New Jersey when it comes to high property taxes.

Springfield's been talking about that for years, for property tax relief.

They've done lots of studies, but so far nothing's been actually done in terms of a statewide response.

Where do we start addressing that?

Because it's one that goes all the way through state school funding because we don't support at the state level local districts as much as other states do.

How do we attack that?

- I believe, I remember being a part of a property tax task force at one point while I was state representative.

And I believe another task force is needed to kind of review some of the issues that we're facing throughout our state.

Here is...

In the Metro East areas, I've been knocking on doors, and you see I have on my door-knocking gear for this interview, but that has been one of the issues that I have heard at some of the doors about the issue of property tax and how can we alleviate it.

I don't have a specific answer because it is connected to so many issues, to connect it to so many funds, and it looks differently in different communities.

But I do know that we do need to continue to work on it, provide, get stakeholder input, listen to our constituents on what we need to do to alleviate or relieve property tax burdens.

- And you touched upon the topic of education a while ago.

Let's talk about K through 12 education for a moment.

Lawmakers, of course, passed the education funding reform package several years ago that uses the evidence-based model that employs a lot of different data points to determine what constitutes adequate funding levels for individual school districts.

The state's been investing $350 million a year to level the playing field for poorer school districts.

How's that worked out for schools in the 114th district in southwest Illinois?

- The schools here are continuing to thrive.

As you know, East St. Louis is my home base, so, and Cahokia Heights is one of the neighboring school districts, and I believe in our area, they benefited a great deal due to that, (clears throat) excuse me, due to that funding formula.

And I was happy to be in office to have the opportunity at that time to vote in favor of that funding change because we know that no student should determine their success based on their zip code, and so that was one of the things that helped to change, to get us on the right track.

We're not fully there yet, Jak, but we're almost on the right track and making sure that every child has access to the equitable and quality education that they deserve.

- Education advocates say though that even with the $350 million a year that has been pumped in for several years now, a lot of school districts are still falling behind, they've got a lot of different issues to address, especially rural schools that are facing enrollment declines.

Is it a matter of more money at the state level?

And how would the state actually do that since we've been getting warning signs over the last year that the state budget is not growing as quickly, or excuse me, state revenues are not growing as quickly as they once were?

- I think that it's a issue that we have to look at what our priorities are as a state, and each representative for their representative district has to come to the table and fight for what is a priority for their constituents.

For us here, we have urban, we have rural, we have suburban school districts.

And, again, it points back to trying to alleviate this issue of poverty.

So for me, education funding is a priority because I know that it uplifts people out of poverty and it changes, it breaks cycles of poverty.

So that would be something that I would like to continue to fight for.

We can look at how that funding has impacted our district since the implementation of the funding and decide whether or not it is about more money or is it about, what is it, when you re-categorize the money that the districts have received, is it something at the district level or is it something that can be addressed at the state level?

- Another hot-button issue in Springfield over the past few years has been the continuation of the Invest in Kids Tax Credit Program that help low-income students attend private and religious schools.

It was not renewed by the legislature last year.

Supporters, mostly Republicans, said it was vital to school choice while opponents criticized it for taking money away from public schools.

Where do you stand on Invest in Kids?

- My stance has been that we do not wanna take money away from public schools.

So that has been my stance and I'll continue to support public schools.

Even though I went to Catholic schools for the entirety of my education, but I truly believe that for the school districts in my district, that it is a better choice for us to invest in public school funds.

- Economic development and quality of life is driven in large part by the quality of the state's higher education system, the senior universities, the 12 senior university campuses around the state of Illinois as well as the community colleges.

But a lot of higher education institutions are in trouble.

Western Illinois University has announced plans to lay off dozens of faculty and staff.

They're dealing with a $20 million deficit.

I believe Northern Illinois University's deficit's somewhere around the $31 million mark.

SIU Carbondale's also got problems in that area.

What is... What should the state of Illinois be doing to try to reverse those trends?

We have fewer students who are going to college in the state of Illinois, and the universities are, as a result, feeling that economic pinch because of the lack of tuition dollars.

- I feel like we need to do a rebranding of our Illinois colleges and universities and highlight how, you know, different alum, different programming that each of the colleges and universities have.

We have to talk up what we have right here in Illinois for our students to be able to stay and to be able to thrive at these universities.

As far as helping them with the deficits, well, that would be a issue, I believe, that, again, we would have to look at lawmakers to see what would be the best way moving forward to assist them.

- Legislation has been proposed by Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, Democrat of Maywood, that would create a program for higher education that looks a lot like the evidence-based model that we now use for K through 12 schools.

Is that a workable solution?

Have you had a chance to look at that?

- I have not had a chance to look at it, but I do believe that's a interesting idea in terms of, you know, moving us forward in the right direction.

And I know that some pieces of legislation are filed to create a conversation around a particular topic or issue, and I think that's a great starting point.

- One of the issues that Springfield's grappled with for all the time I've been going there since 1991 is the issue of pension debt.

There's a lot of approaches on that.

Last word, the state still owe somewhere around $142 billion in terms of back debt for its five public employee pension systems.

The Pritzker administration's been making additional payments to try to bring down that debt, but the pension obligations are still a huge part of the state budget pie when you break it out.

The Supreme Court in Illinois has ruled that employee pension benefits cannot be reduced from what was promised when they were hired.

So, what kind of options does the state have to try and reduce that pension debt?

Because it's something that Wall Street looks at all the time when it comes to the state's bond ratings.

- We cannot go back on our promise to our retirees regarding their pension, so we will have to work very diligently to make sure that we are able to continue to fund that as a state.

That is a right that we have promised retirees in our state, and so I will never support reneging on that promise, and we're just gonna have to continue to work forward in coming up with a resolution to ensure that they still receive their pension in full form.

- There's also a problem with Tier 2 employees.

That was a system that was put in place a number of years ago to try to bring down that pension debt obligation.

There's a concern that that system doesn't meet the federal standards, that basically you don't get the same benefits that you would if you were paying into social security instead of participating in Tier 2.

What should the state do about that?

- The state should look at the changing or reformatting and possible elimination of Tier 2.

I just recently went to a Tier 2 town hall that was hosted by the IFT here in Fairview Heights.

And to hear from our men and women who are working in various jobs throughout our state and to hear them talk about retirement and what that would look like for them, we know that we need to come up with a solution very quickly to ensure that, one, that they have hope about retirement, it's not something that is long term, it's not, and it should be equal as to the other Tier 1 system, so.

- Transportation infrastructure is a huge building block for economic development, especially in the Metro East.

You've got all the major interstates going through there, the railroads, you've got river commerce, you've got Scott Air Force Base.

What specific projects would you promote if you return to Springfield to improve the district's transportation system?

- Well, one of the things that I've been happy to talk about is that I was in office to vote for the Rebuild Illinois.

And so throughout the 114th district, we see a lot of infrastructure projects that are going on around us, and it's like those little seeds have been planted, they're starting to come to fruition now in the 114th district.

So I would like to continue to work with the municipalities and with the IDOT local unions to continue to move us forward on various projects.

We have a lot of, if you call it derelict housing that needs to be torn down.

We have a lot of infrastructure projects, street projects that need to be started and funded.

So I look forward to being able to communicate more with the municipalities to find out what their concerns are and to help them move forward.

- We've got about five minutes left, so we're gonna have to kind of move quickly through the rest of the topics.

The fiscal year budget now is around $53.1 billion, and this includes $182 million to provide sheltering care for recently arrived migrants and another $440 million for programs that provide healthcare like Medicaid for non-citizens.

Republicans say the Democrats in Springfield's priorities are misplaced because of that, that it's taking away money that should be spent on Illinois citizens, not non-residents.

How do you respond to the GOP's criticism in that?

- I will respond by saying that within this budget, there are billions of dollars that are invested in communities around Illinois, around our Illinois residents.

There is billions of dollars of investments for that.

So, they want to say that we're taking money away from, but we have invested billions within our communities and people here, right in the state of Illinois.

And I would think, I don't know the percentage, but I would think that that's a very small percentage of our overall billion dollar budget, billions.

- I wanna talk about crime and punishment for a moment.

What about increasing oversight over law enforcement hiring?

Criminal background checks are already required, but press reports are out there about the hiring record of the former Sangamon County deputy sheriff who was charged in the murder of Springfield resident Sonya Massey.

He worked for a lot of different law enforcement agencies around the area where his professional judgment was called into question.

What responsibility does the state have to make sure that police officers, law enforcement officers, meet the highest quality standards?

- I believe we have a great responsibility to protect the citizens of our communities, and we should have a oversight that is able to identify, I call 'em "bad actors" within police departments around our state.

So I totally agree that we should have some kind of oversight to be able to direct and guide us in the hiring process to, because we're supposed to be, the police is there to protect and serve the community, and we shouldn't have bad actors who've been moved all around the state or from another community being hired when they know that this person has done bad things.

- There's a final question I have for you.

It's been nearly two and a half decades since the Chicago Bears, (clears throat) excuse me, and even longer since the Chicago White Sox sought help from the state of Illinois to rebuild Comiskey Park and renovate Soldier Field.

Both teams are now back asking the state to help them build new stadiums.

Governor Pritzker and the Democratic leaders so far have rejected any state support for new facilities for the Bears and the White Sox.

Where do you stand on the issue, especially as someone who would be representing a downstate legislative district?

Should private money be the only source of rebuilding or building those projects, or is there any role for any kind of state funding for them or tax breaks?

- At this time, I don't think we should assist in funding them.

I am a true Bears fan, but I don't want to (laughs) fund their stadium and project.

I have too many other things that we need to fund right here down in the Metro East area, so that's not a priority for me.

- It's been very good talking to you.

You've got about 30 seconds left.

Anything else you would like to add before we go?

- Just wanna thank you again for having me, and I look forward to serving the constituents of the 114th district again.

- Thank you very much.

Democratic candidate for House of Representatives in the 114th House District in southwestern Illinois, LaToya Greenwood of East St. Louis.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

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