The university said that increased financial pressure, including $25 million in lost revenue, requires measures to adjust to the pandemic and its impact.
Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman and longtime professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says the city routinely shifts funds within its budget multiple times per year—as revenue and cost projections butt up against reality.
“We move money every year from some departments to other departments—and a fairly significant sum of money,” Simpson says. “And the City Council does approve those. So that’s the standard procedure.” But during the pandemic emergency, “a major shortfall or a major expenditure” might mean that the mayor can’t wait for council approval.
However, several board members said they did not think the General Assembly should change state law to require all ballots to be cast by mail in Illinois—or to require elections officials to mail a ballot to all 8 million registered voters in Illinois, at a cost of between $38 million and $40 million. Board Chairman Charles Scholz said that would be a “security nightmare” and could lead to fraud.
It’s the second time in less than a week that coronavirus containment measures have halted public access to proceedings involving Aguilar. No video feed was provided as has been done with many other governmental proceedings. And public input was pretty much limited to the roughly 20 protesters outside, who pleaded with the Democratic committeepersons to pick anyone but Aguilar, a longtime Cicero town official who represented the western suburb in the Legislature.
Some of the hardest-hit communities on the South and West sides have struggled with unemployment and health care access for generations. As a result, residents have higher baseline rates of diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and high blood pressure — chronic conditions that make the coronavirus even more deadly.
Of the 4,599 Illinois patients hospitalized for coronavirus, 757 are on ventilators — accounting for 23 percent of the state’s total ventilator inventory of 3,200 ventilators, Pritzker said. That’s down from 25 percent on April 14, 27 percent on April 10 and 29 percent on April 6.
According to published reports, Pritzker had been keeping details of the shipments secret, out of fear the Trump administration might seize the supplies for the federal stockpile. The PPE arriving from China will go to healthcare workers and first responders across Illinois.
“We don’t even know everyone that they’re releasing,” Springfield Republican Sen. Steve McClure said. “So we are not even getting the information. It is not just something that we need so that we know whether or not this is the right thing to do, but also for the safety of the public, particularly … victims, people who testified against these people.”
On Monday, the Pritzker said he was on board with the White House regarding the initial step in reopening. “The discussion about when does ‘Phase 1,’ as they refer to it, begin, and that is past the peak which is 14 days of numbers going down. I think that is a pretty good metric.”
A national republication of our Wirepoints article.
As of April 6, COVID-19 patients took up 43% of the state’s available 2,300 ICU beds and 29% of the state’s ventilators; as of Sunday, they accounted for 40% of the state’s 3,300 available ICU beds, and 23% of the state’s ventilators, according to Pritzker.
Lightfoot is planning to introduce an ordinance directly to the Budget Committee on Tuesday, granting her administration the ability to move money within the city budget to pay for coronavirus-related expenses without first needing aldermanic approval. Many of the powers already are part of an executive order the mayor signed in March.
Lightfoot confirmed she that she spoke with Wilson weeks ago and referred his request to her top procurement official. But the city’s stockpile already contained the items Wilson was pitching and that the lead time for Wilson to deliver was weeks longer than other companies’. One other problem, according to the mayor: Wilson was demanding money up front and in cash.
Walgreens Pharmacist Heather Fitzgerald said the company has opened new drive-thru testing sites in Springfield, Bolingbrook and Chicago. U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Peoria, said such testing sites will be crucial to putting the state on a path to reopen.
Getting a handle on processing the claims has taken weeks, even in states such as Illinois and Connecticut with some of the first stay-at-home orders. Illinois Republicans called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to reassign staff and outsource more claims processing, saying in a statement their constituents are “desperate and distraught,” unable to log on to the state’s website and get through phone lines.
Due to the triennial assessment schedule, only properties with permits or other special applications are normally reassessed more than once every three years.
Ald. Matt Martin (47th) on Monday introduced legislation that would give renters who lost income during the coronavirus outbreak a 12-month grace period to pay rent. The proposed ordinance also asks Gov. JB Pritzker to enact similar payment deferments for mortgage holders, among other housing payment relief efforts.
Unionized Peoria city employees were notified Wednesday of potential layoffs as the city seeks to plug a $31 million hole in this year’s budget created by COVID-19’s economic fallout. Peoria City Manager Patrick Urich said a 20 percent workforce reduction would be the equivalent of laying off every city employee not with the police or fire departments.
During the past two weeks, crews have, re-configured seating inside the ER to meet social distancing guidelines and created a designated seating area for patients suspected of having the coronavirus, a spokeswoman for Cook County Health said in a statement.
The new checkpoints are categorically different from the previous ones on the West Side, as they will not be closing streets or checking identification, police said. CPD spokesperson Police. Lt. Cindy Guerra likened the checkpoints to the seatbelt checks that officers conduct regularly.
Hopes were shattered Thursday when the program officially ran out of money just two weeks after it launched. One Chicago business owner said the news was made worse by the fact large companies like Ruth’s Chris steakhouse are getting a loan over him and other small business owners he knows. “It feels like a herd culling,” he said. “Let the weak die out so that the strong can remain stronger.”
The clinics get no state or federal funding for the care and medications and supplies that they provide. “They rely solely on fundraisers and on donations from credible pharmaceutical companies,” Maguire said.
“Even though some of Illinois neighboring states have more claims, Illinois will exhaust its trust more quickly than most,” said Jared Walczak, director of State Tax Policywith the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation. “Illinois has enough to pay out about 11 weeks of benefits before borrowing.”
“Pritzker should pause the state’s $261 million in scheduled automatic pay raises for state workers. By joining the growing list of Democratic governors who are freezing state worker pay to manage state budgets amid the COVID-19 crisis, Pritzker would give the state more room to address urgent budget priorities while also helping to forestall state worker layoffs down the line.”
In addition to the Small Business Advocacy Center, the letter was signed by the Lakeview, Lakeview East, Lincoln Park, Roscoe Village, Logan Square, Skokie, LGBT, Chicago Southland, Orland Park area, Andersonville, Elk Grove and Itasca chambers of commerce. The Institute for Justic Clinic on Entrepreneurship and GOA Regional Business Association also signed.
As of April 15, the map had 200 hotspots aimed at allowing students and parents or guardians to continue social distancing by remaining in their cars while using the internet.
Wirepoints published a version of this article last year. We’ve updated it to reflect the new reality of the COVID-19 crisis.
Demands for help from Springfield won’t abate with the virus. “The state has to do something to help the retail sector stand up again,” said Rob Karr, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association. With retail sales the second biggest source of state revenue, lawmakers have a direct interest in the assistance, he said.
Long before the coronavirus crisis shut down Illinois schools, state education officials had encouraged districts to prepare for circumstances when they would have to teach remotely. But most of the state’s 852 school districts didn’t have e-learning plans in place when schools closed in mid-March, a ProPublica Illinois-Chicago Tribune analysis has found.
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