Illinois: Still the land of pork and subterfuge

Just when I think Illinois is finally on the right track, I take a quick look at the headlines and my hopes are dashed. What’s today’s news? Well, pork and hidden information.

The list of Illinois earmarks in the federal budget have finally been released. In my opinion, these are among the most outrageous:

* $237,500 for the repair and restoration of the Rialto Square Theater in Joliet
* $95,000 for History Makers, Chicago, for a digitization project
* $49,000 for security cameras for Jasper County School District
* $47,500 for the Easter Seals’s playground expansion and remodeling project in Ottawa
* $900,000 for astronomy equipment in Adler Adler Planetarium (background here)
* $786,000 for salaries and expenses for crop production and food processing in Peoria
* $2,077,000 for salaries and expenses for National Center for Food Safety and Technology

Let me say this: I am fundamentally against earmarks. However, I understand they were the grease in the wheels of Obama’s budget legislation. I get it. What I DON’T get is why my tax dollars are funding theaters, digitization projects, security cameras for a school district with 3300 students, playgrounds, astronomy equipment, salaries, and operational expenses. Local projects should be funded with local money. State projects should be in the regular budget of its parent agency. If a congressman has ideas on how to prioritize, he or she should sit down with agency staff and have those discussions.

And… as if the pork isn’t enough, IL Comptroller Dan Hynes is refusing to release audit findings and financial reports of a trust fund believed to be worth $300 million. The fund used to be administered by the Illinois Funeral Directors Association (IFDA), but was taken over by the comptroller’s office. Funeral directors fear financial mismanagement will leave them on the hook for millions of dollars. The Sun-Times reports:

Hynes also won’t release correspondence his office received last year from Regions Bank, which considered taking over the trust but backed out.

In 2006, Hynes ordered the IFDA to submit weekly reports on the association’s progress in becoming a licensed fiduciary. The comptroller’s office is also refusing to release those reports.

Why won’t Hynes release the documents? Well, his financial information officer says it’s that pesky IL Freedom of Information Act that doesn’t mandate their release. This subterfuge is twice as frustrating when a person realizes that Hynes has been held up as a transparency leader in Illinois for putting a contracts/campaign contribution database online. In fact, on that website, Hynes states:

“I believe that government should be an open book and that all public officials are accountable to the citizens they serve. As such, we all have an obligation to lead by example and to conduct business in an open and honest manner.”

OH REALLY??

State Representative Dan Brady has an idea of how to go about that.

“Provide the documents, answer the questions,” said state Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington, who still holds a funeral home director’s license from the state. “It’s not only reasonable to ask, it’s imperative to ask. It’s imperative for some 49,000 Illinois residents who put their trust in the IFDA that they get answers.

This isn’t their (the comptroller’s) money…. The people have a right to know.”

I’m glad someone gets it.