Just saying What if IDNR WSRC Closes?

All know the possibilties considering the past? The guys in the royal towers must be wondering what will happen if the WSRC closes? So where then or.....?

 

Nobody but the chosen few know the (real) numbers, and who paid what to whom but there does not seem to be any real concerns at the present time ... The ATA had a multitude of sponsors, Co-Sponsors to absorb some of the cost ... The ATA having the camping had to help defray a lot of the cost , but again the members do not know anything for sure ... The attendance was Pathetic as usual so that should not of been a surprise to any one ... The State of Illinois has always had a strange was of doing business so in reality its anybody's guess when it come to the WSRC being or not being in existence in the future ... (Google Meigs Field, for an insight on the way they do business ) ... Here today, gone tomorrow is the States slogan ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

SOMEONE put a sizable payment on the delinquent power bill just before the GRAND !!!

Merlo, have you been on Vacation and miss this ???

 

Was this money paid by State of Illinois from their general fund?

GB..............................................DLS

 

Gary,
That would come under the heading of "the Chosen Ones" , when payouts over a certain amount are involved ... The payment probably kept the power from being cut off at just the wrong time, if you know what I mean ... ? EECA obviously has the upper hand based on the amount due and owing so someone wisely didn't want to take any chances ... Once the numbers get published the truths will all come out and the members will find out what it cost them to host the party ... The sponsors, Co Sponsors, and donations from the Delegates, CHC, and EC all probably added up to a nice tidy sum and probably off set any and all cost factors involved ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

You know that "For the love of the game thing " ..?

 

I heard rumors while at the Grand that if the state dumps the WSC. they will give it to the ATA. Roger C.

 

GIVE IT to the ata!

Right in the shorts

 

The ATA cannot afford to own it, pay taxes on it, maintain it, and keep it operational even if it was given to them at no cost ... The biggest problem would be location, location, and probably location ... Based on the latest gala, extravaganza they had, no body showed up ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

Sure.....the State of Illinois will give a state park to a private organization. What are you smoking?

 

buttertly,
I did not suggest it I only posted the rumor I heard. Bill has it right about being able to afford the place. Look at the problems it has attracting shooters, that could possible be over come if the organization had some competent leadership. Roger C.

 

It was incompetent leadership that chose a place that could not attract flies. Location...

Most don't care anymore. Let the ATA die. I can shoot meat shoots.

 

In most states, the ground and facilities would have to go up for auction and sold at a state approved percentage of the appraised value. Unless no one shows up at the auction. Who else may be interested in the facility?

 

No state gives it's parks away. lol All lands would be auctioned off.

 

The State of Illinois as well as the City of Sparta have money invested in the facility ... The City of Sparta had to get bonds to afford a percentage of the roads, sewers, and water before the State would get involved ... The facility is a loser no matter who owns, manages, or operates it so the ATA or an investment company getting involved will not change, alter, or modify that ... The worlds biggest little trap shoot got less than 30,000 entries total so that has to speak volumes even to a deaf person ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

BUDGET + TAX / Article
September 1, 2016
Illinois’ unpaid bills could reach new highs by summer 2017.

Illinois’ unpaid bills are expected to reach $14 billion by summer 2017, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service.

Gov. Bruce Rauner reached an agreement in June with Democrats in the General Assembly on a stopgap budget to fund state operations through the November elections. But the stopgap budget was a temporary measure to keep the state running; it was not a full budget and did not include structural or spending reforms. Consequently, Moody’s has speculated the state will manage its mounting bills in its usual way: by borrowing money.

“Moody’s does not anticipate Illinois would suspend its statutory debt service requirements to continue funding operations,” spokesman David Jacobson said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “But if the bill payment backlog becomes sufficiently large, the state could resort to borrowing from debt service funds for operating needs. That or similar actions would signal a deterioration in Illinois’ credit position.”

As the state’s budget backlog grows, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan has pushed reinstating and making permanent the 2011-2014 state income-tax hike. In 2011, the Illinois General Assembly passed, and former Gov. Pat Quinn signed, a law temporarily raising the personal income tax to 5 percent from 3.75 percent and the corporate income tax to 7 percent from 4.8 percent. At the time, politicians heralded the tax hike as a way to combat Illinois’ growing debt problem. However, after taking in an additional $32 billion in revenue, the state barely made a dent in its unpaid bills, which were over $8 billion in 2011. And the state’s pension debt, which stood at $83 billion in 2011, had reached $111 billion as of 2015. The 2011-2014 tax hike only took money out of Illinois residents’ pockets, driving many of them to leave the state. It did nothing to right the state’s fiscal ship.

And more tax hikes will not solve the problem now. Illinois already imposes on its residents the nation’s fifth-highest state-local tax burden. The main cause of Illinois’ budget woes is not a lack of revenue, but rather unsustainable spending – particularly on government-worker pension costs, which now make up 25 percent of the state budget.

Raising taxes would not only hurt middle and working-class families, but would also be counterproductive. Fueling Springfield’s overspending with more taxpayer money would do nothing to fix the structural problems that have created the current fiscal crisis:unaffordable government-worker pensions and salaries and a shrinking tax base.

Moody’s bleak forecast should serve as a wakeup call to Illinoisans. The state needs a balanced budget, not an annual cycle of unsustainable borrowing and spending that leads to growing debt and more credit downgrades.


Up dated information for anyone who want to read them ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

ILLINOIS STATE REP CALLS DELAYED LAWMAKER PAY ‘EXTORTION AND CORRUPTION’
BUDGET + TAX / Article
August 9, 2016
State Rep. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, criticized payment delays for Illinois politicians, despite the fact that his compensation cost taxpayers nearly $100,000 in 2015.

As thousands of state vendors wait months for payments in Illinois, state politicianscontinue to voice tone-deaf complaints that they aren’t getting their own paychecks on time.

State Rep. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, took to Facebook to comment on the fact that State Comptroller Leslie Munger tossed lawmaker salaries into the state’s $8 billion pile of unpaid bills in April. Her office most recently sent out payments to lawmakers on July 4.

“Offering a financial incentive to an elected official to secure their vote on a subject is corruption,” Martwick wrote. “If you do that, you will go to jail. Withholding pay in order to force a vote is no different.”

His post linked to an article detailing one state lawmaker’s efforts to earn extra money bydriving for Uber.

“By denying him pay, Leslie Geissler Munger and Bruce Rauner are trying, and succeeding, at putting him in a very difficult financial decision,” Martwick continued. “That is extortion and corruption.”

Illinois lawmakers aren’t used to being treated like everyone else.

Martwick’s total compensation cost taxpayers nearly $100,000 in 2015, including his $67,836 salary, nearly $10,000 in health care benefits and dental insurance, and more than $9,000 in travel reimbursements and per diem payments. He also racked up an additional $12,800 in pension benefits for when he retires.

And that’s for what is essentially part-time work.

Illinois’ state lawmakers also enjoy levels of pay protection not granted to any other body of state government. Until April, state lawmakers were getting paid despite Illinois’ lack of a state budget.

That’s due to a 2014 bill rammed through the General Assembly by Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton. The bill exempted lawmaker salaries and operating expenses from the annual appropriations process. In other words, those payments became “continuing appropriations,” which means they must be specifically prohibited to stop money from flowing to politicians. They’re also immune from year-to-year cuts.

Former Gov. Pat Quinn signed it.

Clearly, Martwick needs a reality check.

Illinois lawmakers should keep in mind that they live in a state with the second-slowest personal-income growth in the nation. Too many Illinoisans have gone years without a decent paycheck. Illinois is also the second-worst state in the nation for putting people back to work in the wake of the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, Martwick and his colleagues receive high salaries, unprecedented salary security, great health care, and guaranteed pension payments on the backs of taxpayers.

Who can complain?



Mean while ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

COMPTROLLER PROPOSES ‘NO BUDGET, NO PAY’ BILL FOR ILLINOIS LAWMAKERS
BUDGET + TAX / Article
August 18, 2016
Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger wants to tie politicians’ pay to a balanced budget.

Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger announced on Aug. 17 a “No Budget, No Pay” bill that would link the salaries of state lawmakers to one of their most important duties: passing a balanced budget.

Under Munger’s proposal, Illinois lawmakers would need to pass a balanced, full-year budget in order for state constitutional officers and lawmakers to receive their paychecks.

Illinois has not passed a truly balanced budget since 2001.

In April, Munger threw lawmaker salaries in with the rest of the state’s $8 billion bill backlog. Up to that point, state lawmakers were getting paid on time despite Illinois’ lack of a state budget.

In fact, Illinois state lawmakers enjoy levels of pay protection not granted to any other body of state government.

That’s due to a 2014 bill rammed through the General Assembly by Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton. The bill exempted lawmaker salaries and operating expenses from the annual appropriations process. In other words, those payments became “continuing appropriations,” which means they must be specifically prohibited to stop money from flowing to politicians. They’re also immune from year-to-year cuts.

No other office or agency of Illinois state government enjoys that privilege. Continuing appropriations are typically reserved for expenditures such as pension payments, debt payments and interest payments.

Illinois lawmakers aren’t used to being treated like the rest of the state.

They earn base salaries of nearly $68,000 for what is essentially part-time work. When health care, dental care and pension benefits are included, taxpayers cough up an average of$100,000 per active Illinois lawmaker.

And yet, some have publicly complained about not receiving their pay on time, even as years of fiscal recklessness have led to extreme payment delays for state vendors, and a lack of pro-growth reforms has led Illinoisans to suffer under the second-slowest income growth in the nation.

While details on its implementation are slim, Munger’s proposal could serve as a combination of two needed reforms: a real balanced-budget requirement, and returning lawmaker pay to its status as an annual appropriation.

She has not yet announced which member of the General Assembly will introduce the bill.



Watch and see if this happens ... Pigs will fly first ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

 

NUMBER OF SIX-FIGURE CHICAGO PENSIONERS HAS TRIPLED IN LAST 4 YEARS
PENSIONS / Article
September 1, 2016
More government workers are taking home massive yearly pension payments as Chicagoans are battered by tax hikes.

As Chicagoans face a hefty hike in their water and sewer bills to pay for city-worker pensions, the number of retired workers receiving lucrative payouts is booming.

More than 220 retirees collect pensions of at least $100,000 a year from the city’s largest pension fund: the Chicago Municipal Employees Annuity and Benefit Fund. That’s triple the 2012 number, according to a report from the Better Government Association, or BGA. Chicago’s water-sewer-tax hike will dump $239 million into this flailing pension system.

Former labor leader and Streets and Sanitation Department employee Dennis Gannon takes home the largest pension in the group at nearly $190,000 year.

Gannon retired from the city in 2004 at age 50. While the city credited him with 33 years of service, Gannon spent more than a third of that time working for private labor unions, not city government, according to a 2011 Chicago Tribune investigation.

Part of Gannon’s lucrative arrangement is due to the fact that city government rehired him for a single day in 1994. And his pension payout is based on his salary as a union official, not as a city worker.

Like virtually all government-worker pensions in Illinois, Gannon’s has grown by 3 percent each year. His first-year payout came in at roughly $130,000, which he received while also earning a union salary, according to the Tribune.

The BGA’s pension findings follow the group’s recent research showing the number of Chicago city workers earning a base salary of $100,000 or more has nearly doubled since 2013.

Despite preparing to pay hundreds of dollars more per year on their water bills, and far more in property-tax increases, Chicagoans have seen no meaningful spending reform from City Hall.

While the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled any changes to unaffordable promised pension benefits unconstitutional, the city has refused to control skyrocketing pension payments with the tools at its disposal: pay freezes to rein in the salary levels that determine pension payouts, rightsizing payrolls, and moving new city workers to defined-contribution retirement plans.

Furthermore, city leaders have responded with deafening silence to calls for a state constitutional amendment that would allow them to bring government-worker pensions in line with what residents can afford.

As the data demonstrate, politicians at City Hall have no interest in acting on behalf of taxpayers. They’d prefer to hit up their constituents’ pocketbooks again and again.

Chicago is their kind of town ... WPT ... (YAC) ...