Springfield News
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Approximately 40,000 home care personal assistants and child care workers who belong to SEIU Healthcare Illinois will see raises in their checks beginning April 1 — raises granted to them in the two most recent state budgets, but never paid out by former Gov. Bruce Rauner.
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Five years after Illinois began accepting applicants for its medical marijuana program, the state is on the cusp of legalizing recreational marijuana.
Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs unveiled legislation that would protect state-chartered banks that do business with cannabis companies. [Illinois Treasurer]
But the drug is still classified as a “Schedule 1” substance under federal law, which makes many banks nervous to work with companies that technically traffic in an “illegal” product.
As a result, most of the medical cannabis industry is “unbanked,” and are mostly cash-only enterprises. Illinois Treasurer Mike Frerichs warns that business model is extremely risky.
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Gov. JB Pritzker’s progressive tax proposal is dependent on approximately 175,000 taxpayers in the top 3 percent to make his proposed graduated income tax work, according to numbers released by the governor’s office Friday. Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings Inc. said Illinois’ general obligation bonds remain two notches above junk status ahead of a bond sale later this month, but was not as hopeful as another ratings agency had been last week about Illinois’ finances.
[Gov. JB Pritzker’s office]
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Construction crews hoisted the final massive concrete panel into place Friday on the veterans facility under construction on Chicago’s Northwest Side designed to house veterans suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia.
Gov. JB Pritzker celebrates progress being made on the construction of a new veterans home in Chicago. [Heather Cherone/The Daily Line]
Gov. JB Pritzker said the 200-bed facility, the first of its kind in Chicago, would open in December — nearly four and a half years behind schedule after being stalled by the budget impasse under former Gov. Bruce Rauner that lasted for more than two years.
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Credit rating agency Standard & Poors on Thursday said there is no longer an imminent threat of of Illinois’ credit rating falling below investment grade — and offered a glimmer of hope for a credit upgrade — if Illinois makes “sustainable progress” in improving its fiscal situation. Meanwhile, Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday visited the Quincy Veterans Home for the first time while in office, and indicated construction on a new facility will begin this year.
The Quincy Veterans Home. [State of Illinois]
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On the last day of the Fall Veto Session in 2016, lawmakers approved a controversial mashup of policies all thrown together in a bill dubbed the Future Energy Jobs Act.
The twin cooling towers of the Byron Generating Station. [Exelon]
While much of the attention at the time was focused on what some called a “bailout” of two nuclear power plants that energy giant Exelon had threatened to close, the law also required Illinois to buy increasing amounts of wind and solar power, while investing in energy efficient technologies.
In setting these benchmarks and promising more clean-energy jobs, dozens of groups jumped on board to support the bill, including utilities, labor, business and environmental groups.
But last summer, a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told Illinois — and the dozens of other states that have moved to set benchmarks to buy more clean energy — that imposing those goals interferes with the “proper operation of wholesale electricity markets.”
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Eleven years after the state banned smoking in all public places, a bill to outlaw the sale of tobacco to those younger than 21 is set to pass the Illinois Senate Thursday and make its way to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk.
While smoking rates had been on a downward trend for years, youth tobacco use is on the rise. [Flickr/Julie]
Pritzker has said he will sign the bill.
It’s the fourth try for a bill that has sputtered after getting halfway through the General Assembly, and last year died when former Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed the bill and lawmakers couldn’t find enough votes in the House to override.
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In a version of Illinois government where progressive ideas are no longer a pipe dream, and the state’s own billionaire governor is the one leading the charge on measures like a $15 minimum wage and a graduated income tax, bills to lift Illinois’ ban on rent control may have a chance of getting all the way to a floor for a vote this spring.
Chicago is short nearly 120,000 affordable homes. [BRIAN KELLY / FLICKR]
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The Illinois Railsplitter Tobacco Settlement Authority, the entity created in 2010 in order to borrow against the payments made to Illinois from a historic 1998 settlement with tobacco companies, has seen major revenue growth in the last year, according to an audit sent to the General Assembly. While smoking rates had been on a downward trend for years, youth tobacco use is on the rise. [Flickr/Julie]
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State Rep. Barbara Hernandez (D-Aurora) is Illinois’ newest lawmaker was sworn in last week after mentor State Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia (D-Aurora) was appointed to head the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Meanwhile, Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday used a bill signing to promote his plan for a progressive tax.
