John Gebhardt on House Republican Task Force Meeting

Thanks for your information about previous House Republican Task Force meeting you attended
last August.  I did attend the meeting as the JWCCAA Legislative Chair -
our JWCCAA President was unable to attend so she asked me to represent the
Chapter as the Legislative Chair .  Here is my summary of the meeting
along with the letter I left with Rep. Tracy and Sen. Sullivan.  It was
sturctured different from the meeting you had.  There was a lot of
interaction with the audience and with both parties there a lot of finger
pointing.  It became what I would term a very "democratic" meeting with all
side being heard.  I enjoyed the give and take.



Let me know what you think after
you read my comments.



John Gebhardt




RE: Attendance at the House Republican Pension Task Force Meeting in
Mt.
Sterling
07/24/2006

 

Date:  July 25,
2006

 

I attended the House Republican Pension Task Force hosted by Rep. Jill
Tracy at the AFSCME Local 3567 Hall in Mt. Sterling on Monday, July 24th
from 6-8 p.m..  In attendance were
Republican Representatives Bill Mitchell, Rich Meyers, and Jill Tracy, and
Democratic Senator John Sullivan (Rep. Tracy had invited Sen. Sullivan to the
meeting).  There was an audience of
about 25 people with people representing the prison guard’s union AFSCME Local
3567, the Vets Home employees, and teachers.  Rep. Jill Tracy opened the meeting with
remarks that this meeting was designed to get public input to seek solutions to
the problems of pension funding.
She also is planning similar meetings on the Road Tax and Medicare
Funding.

 

The format of the meeting was: first each Representative and Senator
Sullivan made opening remarks.  Then
Matt Habrocker from the Republican Legislative Research Staff presented a Power
Point presentation showing the history (as viewed by the Republicans) of the
lack of pension funding.  Then Rep.
Mitchell threw out a lot of facts and figures at which time Sen. Sullivan did
the same to try to balance what Rep. Mitchell presented.  Most of the information was presented so
quickly that I was unable to get it down accurately.  Rep. Mitchell said we all would be sent
the information presented in the Power Point.

 

At various points during the two hours there were a lot
of verbal exchanges between the Republicans and Sen. Sullivan as to what was
spent and funded.  Rep. Tracy and
audience members tried to cut off the verbal exchanges whenever the discussions
got into one party blaming the other for the problems we now face.  The format for the evening was basically
questions and statements from the audience to the Representatives and Senator
Sullivan.   

 

In summary, I believe the Representatives and Sen.
Sullivan began to realize the audience was tired of hearing partisan politics
and they wanted the members to begin to work more on a “bipartisan” level to
solve the problems with pension funding, the staffing shortages of the prisons,
the lack of funding to education, and shortage of staff at the veterans
homes.  A theme that surfaced from
the meeting seemed to “priorities and revenue”.  Republicans representatives were pushing
for an established set of priorities as to what needs to be funded and all felt
there is a need to find new sources of revenue as there is not enough coming
into pay the bills.  I sensed from
the audience that they would not be opposed to an increase in income tax “as
long as it was dedicated to funding the shortfalls that currently exist vs.
spending for new programs”.


 

On the issue of getting more for “downstate”, Sen.
Sullivan said he was recently appointed as Chairman of “downstate”
Democrats.  Rep. Meyers said five
years ago, they use to have a bipartisan meeting of “downstate” representatives
and he would look into trying to get that going again.  Both agreed that “downstate”
Representatives and Democrats needed to work together if they are to get
anything downstate because of the Chicago influence.  Sen. Sullivan said 60% of the people of
Illinois live within a 75 mile radius of
Chicago.    

 

There was mention of an A+ Coalition being formed to try to get people to
work together to solve the current funding problems.  The AFSCME union representative passed
around a sign up sheet for members in the audience to join the coalition.  Since I was totally unaware of what this
group is or what they are proposing, I did not sign the sheet.

 

The question came up about GASB 45 and I was surprised to learn that
“none” of the Representatives or Senator Sullivan was informed about what it was
and what implications it would have on pension funding, but they would all look
into it.

 

When asked about selling off state assests, like Illinois highway
tollways, to raise revenues, everyone present stated they were not in favor of
doing so as it would be a short term solution to a long term problem.  Also, if the state is making money with
an assest, why sell it off for someone else to make the money.  Rep. Meyers said he was basically not in
favor of selling off assests, but as a member of House committee that will be
looking into this area he wants to see the facts and figures before he makes a
final decision.

After the meeting I gave both Rep. Tracy and Sen. Sullivan the following
statement as the “Legislative Chair of the JWCCAA Chapter of SUAA.  This statement was approved by JWCCAA
President Susan Deege who appointed me JWCCAA Legislative Chair, so I could
represent JWCCAA at this meeting. 

Respectively submitted,

John Gebhardt/JWCCAA Legislative Chair

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