‘State owes $128M to area agencies, firms’

By Lauren FitzPatrick and Michael Drakulich

To try to persuade state leaders to refinance Illinois’ $8.75 billion debt, Gov. Pat Quinn on Thursday released records showing the state has a backlog of $128 million in unpaid bills to vendors and public agencies in nine Southland House districts.

The largest IOUs are held by municipalities and school districts. But private doctors and contractors, service agencies and transportation companies have been waiting for checks from the state for months.

They range from 2 cents owed to a Dolton woman to $13 million owed to the Bloom Township school treasury.

To plug the budget hole, Quinn wants to refinance the debt into a lump sum that would cut checks promptly to vendors, spokesman George Sweeney said. Taxpayers would repay the lump sum over 14 years, he said.

“By delaying our bills, we’ve ended up (paying) a lot,” Sweeney said, referring to a 1 percent fee tacked onto bills the state pays late.

Quinn released the data — a statewide snapshot from Feb. 4 — to try to pressure lawmakers to vote for the bill.

Some, such as state Rep. Renee Kosel (R-New Lenox), have opposed any kind of borrowing to repay debt. Kosel said Quinn only released the list to build support for his borrowing plan, which GOP legislators oppose.

“Where is his (Quinn) plan to make sure we never get into this mess again? I see ‘Give me more, give me more,’ and nothing to get us out of this mess,” she said.

Kosel said Quinn’s list, which showed vendors in her House district awaiting almost $11 million, was inaccurate. It missed some vendors and incorrectly included others, she said.

“If you’re going to do something like this, take the care to be accurate,” she said.

Kosel also questioned the amounts listed for vendors.

According to the list, the state owes Trinity Services $17.70. But Kosel said the nonprofit agency, which helps the disabled, may be owed more than $1 million.

Dr. Susan Rife, an Orland Park physician on the list for $55, believes that figure is much too low. Her office bills the state for Medicaid patients, and the state is at least six months behind in paying, she said.

“It’s why doctors are refusing patients on public aid,” Rife said. “My office does not take any new patients who are on public aid. Now, if circumstances change with my current patients, we make accommodations.”

Rife said she would be in favor of the state borrowing to pay its vendors but only if it wasn’t from the federal government.

Some 640 Southland creditors were owed $500 or less from the state. About 290 of those are owed $100 or less, but 25 towns and school districts each still await $1 million or more in state payments, according to the SouthtownStar’s analysis.

Barb Damron, Mokena’s finance director, said the state owes the village $399,080, a little less than Quinn’s estimated $477,000. She said the state’s been working to get up to date, making two payments this month, two in January and two last July.

“At one point, they were going four or five months behind, and now they’re about three months behind,” Damron said. “It seems like they’re making an attempt.”

Keith Pain, superintendent in Summit Hill School District 161, said his district has received no money this year, primarily for special education and transportation.

“They have an obligation to the kids in the state of Illinois and their education,” he said of the state.

The Arc of Illinois, a Frankfort organization that helps families get adequate services and care for their disabled relatives, is owed about $318,500.

The Arc executive director Tony Paulauski said the non-profit has cut staff from 14 to seven, and it would be able to hire back staff if it gets its state funds. He favors Quinn’s plan to borrow.

“We’ve been in favor of this since last spring. Delayed payments is the most talked-about issue among human service providers,” he said.

Small-business owner Gennaro Giuntoli said he overpaid his state tax a few years in a row on his A & G Amusements business for a total of about $8,600.

“They acknowledged the overpayment, but they have not been able to come up with the funds to repay the money,” he said. “We’ve been waiting roughly a year for it.”

Contributing: Victoria Johnson

Memo: Fact Box: House District Amount unpaid
37 $25,203,363.00
29 $21,336,220.05
35 $18,268,979.74
80 $17,949,341.23
85 $16,983,864.84
81 $10,785,835.50
38 $8,193,419.03
36 $6,615,098.98
28 $3,013,263.33

As published in the SouthtownStar, Feb. 25, 2011, on page 4.

Feb. 5, 1984

You were born on a Sunday, early in the morning. Your name was going to be Seamus or Shannon, our mother decided. We lived on Ripka Street, went to Holy Family. And on the Friday before your birth, our grossly pregnant mother sent me to school as usual. I was in the second grade. 

We were bundled off to church after school that day to have our throats blessed. And when I finally got home an hour or so late — I walked then with other kids from school — our mother was frantic.

— Where were you?
— They took us to church to bless our throats. It’s the feast of St. Blaise. What are you talking about?

That was Friday afternoon. You were born on a Sunday early in the morning. The name stuck in our mother’s mind and she gave it to you.

And on that morning, I was seven, and my bedroom had moved to the third floor to make space for you.  Our father had collapsed into bed after a long night of labor and I woke up to see what was up.

I peeked into his room at the bottom of my stairs.

— So?
— It’s a boy, he said, and rolled back over. He went to sleep again.

I burst into tears, I know, because I feared another brother like the instigator I already had, who wrecked my toys and my play and my life. I cried because I didn’t know a little brother could be anything else.

Later in the day, when I stopped crying and he was himself again, he’d tell me you couldn’t breathe at your birth. The doctor gave you a slap and you didn’t cry, as babies did, to take a breath. And he and our mother were so scared, and the hospital put you on a machine for a minute and then you were ok.

But he and our mother were so scared you couldn’t breathe. And you came home and that was it. We were going to be friends, because you weren’t the sort of little brother who wrecked things and I found your name for you.

I like you immensely now, more, sometimes than I love you. And I wish you a very happy birthday today.

‘Scant participation in PIW by employers in southwest suburbs’

The state’s Put Illinois to Work program enticed businesses and nonprofits to hire temporary part-time workers by paying their salaries.

In the south and southwest suburbs, nearly 500 firms and organizations climbed on board, but most of the hiring was concentrated in the southeast suburbs, such as Chicago Heights, where 48 businesses and nonprofit organizations participated in PIW, funded with federal stimulus dollars.

In Matteson, 23 employers took part, while Country Club Hills had 15. In the southwest suburbs, only a few businesses signed up to get what were essentially free summer workers.

Tinley Park, with a population greater than Chicago Heights and Matteson combined, had just four employers sign on. Orland Park had six, while in Oak Lawn, three businesses joined.

Word just didn’t spread about the program, mayors and local chambers of commerce said.

Maureen Kelly said the Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce she heads never got the details from the state about Put Illinois to Work’s benefits. So the chamber, which covers about 85 communities, never publicized it.

“Without the specifics of the program, we really didn’t get involved,” she said. “It’s a missed opportunity for everybody. Tons of people who are looking for work.”

Kelly said small businesses could have had help paying seasonal workers, like college students.

Orland Park Mayor Dan McLaughlin lamented that the program was not better publicized.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “If I’d have known about it, I’d have made sure the chamber knew about it.”

Dave Heilmann was also sorry that the small businesses and residents of Oak Lawn missed out.

“It’s really rough out there,” he said. “A lot of jobs are gone and they’re not coming back. You want to help everybody out every day.”

Published in the SouthtownStar, Sept. 7, 2010, on page 8.

‘Vets taking business into their own hands’

BY LAUREN FITZPATRICK

Dennis Gravitt knew there was more to personal finance than managing millions for the wealthy.

And he was confident he could do more to affect people’s lives than repair office equipment, as he had learned to do during a stint in the Air Force.

“It wasn’t my calling,” Gravitt said. “It paid the bills.”

So nearly three years ago, Gravitt took the plunge and left his finance job at Morgan Stanley to start Long Run Financial, a planning firm for middle-class families, from his Frankfort home.

He launched before realizing there was free help available to him as a veteran.

Gravitt, 46, since has connected with fellow vet and small business coach Bob Rakstang at Governors State University’s small business center, CenterPoint, who has helped the fledgling business find better ways to sell itself to clients. Among other things, Gravitt’s been playing up his military service.

Vets also qualify for certain advantages when bidding on federal business and contracts in some states, except Illinois.

Yet it’s the guys who’ve been out of the service a while, rather than those who’ve been to Afghanistan and Iraq, who seem to be hanging out a shingle.

Despite terrible unemployment numbers, young men and women returning home to the south suburbs from ongoing wars abroad aren’t starting businesses, according to CenterPoint.

CenterPoint educates and supports entrepreneurial vets at Boot Camp workshops held twice a year.

Rakstang, a Vietnam vet who leads the Boot Camp, said the majority of folks he’s helped had served in the first Gulf War or in Vietnam. They’ve launched service and professional businesses, an animal control firm, pest control businesses, IT and computer supplies, he said.

“They’re looking for alternatives after they finished a full enlistment,” Rakstang said. “It might be the attraction of the university,” where the average student age is 31.

“Sometimes education and entrepreneurship might be seen as alternatives to employment,” he said.

The younger vets appear to be taking advantage of a GI Bill that pays a $1,742 housing allowance in addition to tuition costs.

Fed contracts ‘a challenge’

Disabled vet Joe Lubovich preps files for scanning on a giant old pool table, making sure all the staples are out and the pages line up.

With industrial scanners and four employees – all of whom are family members – Lubovich’s business, FileScan, helps businesses archive their records by burning boxes of paper files to computer discs or uploading the scans to servers.

Since 2004, when he quit his corporate job to try something new, Lubovich has worked with area dentists, trucking companies and credit unions.

Soon after his discharge from the Air Force during the Vietnam War, Lubovich also used the GI Bill to get a college education. Injured during his tour in Vietnam, he decided to get certified as a disabled veteran business owner shortly after he and his wife bought the scanning business she had worked for.

A nice stable of corporate clients now keeps his payroll steady, so Lubovich, 62, wants to pursue government contracts to round out his Frankfort-based business.

“It’s been tough to expand,” he said. “That one federal contract would be nice.”

Illinois doesn’t put aside any contracts for veterans or disabled veterans the way it reserves some for women- and minority-owned businesses. But the feds keep some for veterans and for disabled veterans, and Lubovich has tapped CenterPoint for help getting his stack of paperwork in order.

Government bidding is complicated, he said. He’s yet to land a job, but not for lack of trying.

“Federal contracts are a challenge,” Lubovich said. “They’re not going to throw one in your lap because you’re a vet.”

Rakstang’s program spends a chunk of time on the mess of paperwork required to work with the government. And he hones in on special loans and government programs open only to people who’ve completed military service. But he does small business basics, too.

“Some of their needs are common to those thinking about running a business or starting a new business,” he said. “Developing, financing, improving, growing.”

‘Leap of faith’

Straight out of the Air Force in 1988, Gravitt got an Illinois VA grant and 17 years to finish his undergraduate degree. With a full-time job and three young sons, he needed those years to complete all his credits and graduated from Governors State with a finance degree in 2005.

He found work and a mentor at Morgan Stanley, sucked up everything he could in two years, and then, in August 2007 launched Long Run.

Leaving a good-paying job at Morgan Stanley to start his own business “was a leap of faith,” he said.

He has bet his living on his idea that middle-class families need his help to budget their way out of debt and plan for their priorities in the future. He wants his clients, mostly south suburbanites with average incomes, to live within their means and to use their money to be happy. Debt, he believes, is killing the middle class.

Gravitt is looking for ways to expand his client base, and has turned to CenterPoint for advice on marketing Long Run through social media, blogging and newsletters.

“I don’t have a good sales pitch yet.”

GETTING THE BOOT

Governor State University presents its entrepreneurial Boot Camp for veterans Wednesday at the University Park school. Registration starts at 7:45 a.m., and the event runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. There’s no cost for veterans; $25 for non-vets. To register, go to www.centerpointgsu.com or call (708) 235-7643.

HIGHER JOBLESS RATES

The unemployment rate last year for veterans who had served in the military at some point since September 2001 measured 10.2 percent, compared with a 9.3 unemployment rate for the general civilian population, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Young vets, age 18 to 24, had a 21.1 percent unemployment rate last year, higher than the 16.6 percent rate for non-vets of the same age range.

Illinois has about 530 veteran-owned small businesses, according to the Veterans Administration. Half of those are owned by vets with a service disability. Nationwide, there are about 22,000 veteran-owned small businesses, 12,000 of which belong to disabled veterans, according to the VA.

In awarding contracts for goods and services, the federal government gives special consideration to disabled veteran business owners, as do some states. Illinois, however, does not.

As published in the SouthtownStar, May 18, 2010.

PDF 2010-05 Veterans in business || The SouthtownStar || A1
2010-05 Veterans in business || The SouthtownStar || A8

Printable 2010-05 Vets taking business into their own hands

All 33,443 of you

That’s how many of you I write for every weekday, according to the latest numbers.

There are more on Sundays. More like 46,000. Nearly 8,000 fewer than the year before.

I’ve talked to a number of you on the phone. Some of you email me. More of you read my stuff online and the Not-So-Mighty-Dollar blog I keep up.

I enjoy it. I love the phone calls and the conversations. It means a lot to me when someone calls us for help.

Like Franchon Johnson, who didn’t know how else to get a copycat Facebook account shut down.

Or Nicole Dankert, who was afraid her ex-husband might get more custody of their son he blamed in the death of his infant baby.

But the slide is depressing. I wish they counted our online readers, too.

‘New Lenox businessman accused of tax evasion’

It’s amazing what you can learn about a house from the assessor’s office. Like how many bathrooms it has. Which in this case is 6.

The politically connected owner of a Markham construction business illegally wrote off his palatial New Lenox home and a 37-foot yacht as business expenses, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Robert C. Blum, president of the Markham-based Castle Construction, also is accused of lowballing his personal income by nearly $2.5 million over four years. He faces four counts of personal tax fraud and four counts of corporate tax fraud.

The 57-year-old associate of a former fundraiser to ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich also has charges pending against him in Cook County Criminal Court in a contract fraud scheme alleging he completed minority-owned business contracts in Chicago with white-owned subcontractors. He and his company have since been banned from doing business with the city.

The new federal charges allege that, between 2003 and 2006, Blum falsified $1.9 million of Castle’s business expenses, underpaying his corporate taxes by $665,000, prosecutors said.
And during that same time, he underreported his personal income by almost $2.5 million, failing to pay $875,000 in personal taxes, they said.

Blum had Castle Construction, which also has received $10 million in municipal contracts from Country Club Hills, pay for his 7,000-square-foot home at 1930 Tessington Court, and the purchase and maintenance of his 37-foot personal yacht, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Built in 2005 on 1.5 acres, the home has six full bathrooms, according to the New Lenox Township assessor’s office.

Read the whole story as published in the SouthtownStar, April 14, 2010.
PDF 2010-04 Contractor accused || The SouthtownStar || A6

Ack! More nominations!

Kind of exciting. More Lisagor finalists were announced. I ended up with another nomination for a military mom story I absolutely loved reporting and writing. What a charming excuse to check in with the mamas.

Lauren FitzPatrick and Amy Lee, SouthtownStar, “Military moms share thoughts on Afghanistan plan”

This stuff was named in the Illinois Press Association contest. I don’t know what place or anything. Think that comes out in late April, too.

News Reporting-Series – Human soul (Lauren FitzPatrick, Becky Schlikerman & staff)
“Human soul” is shorthand for “Burr Oak scandal and aftermath”

Business/Economic Reporting – A battle for jobs (Lauren FitzPatrick)

These vets are the best. I’m glad other people noticed.

UPDATE: (Read the whole list in this a story published in the SouthtownStar, April 12, 2010, page 7.
PDF 2010-04 More competition honors || The SouthtownStar || A7

Lisagors get announced and awarded on April 23. Cross your fingers.

‘No pay-to-play for small-time Southland donors’

So we asked ourselves in the wake of the Blagojevich pay-to-play allegations — that the Governor who got arrested on Dec. 8 had been making folks pony up bigtime to do business in the state of Illinois — what did his teeny donors get?

Sadly, the PDF got et up in the system.

The response from donors we found using campaign donation data: Whole lotta nothing.

Such a typical smartass Southtown story, really.

By Lauren FitzPatrick and Nathaniel Zimmer
Staff writers

For $8 million in aid, Gov. Rod Blagojevich wanted the CEO of Children’s Hospital to cut him a campaign donation check for $50,000, according to federal authorities.

And in exchange for $25,000 steered into the Blago war chest, Tony Rezko could get donors cushy appointments to state boards and jobs.

Blagojevich is now charged in connection with various pay-to-play schemes, including trying to wrangle himself and his wife posh jobs in exchange for an appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama[0]. He denies any wrongdoing.

But Southland donors to the governor’s campaign coffers generally pale in comparison to such high profile donors, most of whom come from Chicago and the northern suburbs.

Likewise the favors paid back to them were mostly underwhelming.

So in exchange for $450 donated in June at a Blagojevich event, Kathleen Maher of Homewood got, um, breakfast.

“I didn’t want anything, I wasn’t looking for anything,” said Maher, a grandmother of 12. “I’d never been to a fundraiser or anything in my life. I thought, ‘Well, this is fun.’ It was just another
experience in your life.”

Maher said she just liked Blagojevich.

“He had a funny name, his parents were immigrants, my parents were immigrants, and I just though, well, this guy, what is he up to?”

But now she’s shocked by what she called the governor’s stupidity.

“He said to people, ‘Better not talk about this on the phone.’ And he’s on the phone. The stupidity is overwhelming.”

Tracey Alston, of Orland Park, president of a PR firm, donated $7,000 to Blagojevich’s campaign in 2004 and 2005.

“It’s a sad day for Illinois,” she said. “This is really just unbelievable When he first came on the scene, it was very promising. He had all of the right intentions.”

Alston’s firm has done work for the Illinois Department of Transportation, and there’s nothing wrong with that, she said.

“As a business owner, you are always looking for opportunities to do business with the state,” she said.

But the news about Blagojevich “blew me away when I saw it in the paper,” said George Paige, of Crete, who’s listed as donating $1,000 in June. “We certainly have a legacy with governors, don’t we?”

Paige said he doesn’t remember writing the check; likely it was his wife, Billie Paige, a longtime health care lobbyist, who signed from a joint account. She’s donated to all kinds of candidates, he said.

But $1,000 drawn from George Paige’s account hasn’t translated into any sort of job or contract for jobs for him. He said he hasn’t worked in 19 years now.

“Not me, I’m just a retiree playing golf.”

Lauren FitzPatrick can be reached at lfitzpatrick@southtownstar.com or (708) 802-8832.

Since 1982

Jobless claims largest in 26 years

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 7:38 AM CST, December 11, 2008

WASHINGTON – The government says new claims for unemployment benefits reached their highest level in 26 years last week, as companies cut workers at a rapid pace.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 573,000, from an upwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. That was far more than the 525,000 claims Wall Street economists expected.

A Labor Department analyst says the jump is partly due to a rebound in claims from the Thanksgiving holiday week when government offices were open for fewer days.

Still, the four-week average, which smooths out fluctuations, was a seasonally-adjusted 540,500, the highest since December 1982, when the economy was emerging from a steep recession.

“Breaking” news: it’s a recession

UPDATE: Site working. Here’s the link to NBER’s release.

Oh really? Economic turmoil is all of a sudden news? 

I tried to click on the NBER web site to see what they are reporting. As of noon-ish Dec. 1, the server’s down. Guess most of America had the same idea as me — who in heck are these people that just figured it out now?

December 1, 2008 

FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The NBER – a private, nonprofit research organization — said its group of academic economists who determine business cycles met and decided that the U.S. recession began last December.

The White House commented on the news that a second downturn has officially begun on President George W. Bush’s watch without ever actually using the word ”recession,” a term the president and his aides have repeatedly avoided. Instead, spokesman Tony Fratto remarked upon the fact that NBER ”determines the start and end dates of business cycles.”

”What’s important is what is being done about it,” Fratto said. ”The most important things we can do for the economy right now are to return the financial and credit markets to normal, and to continue to make progress in housing, and that’s where we’ll continue to focus.”

Many economists believe the current downturn will last until the middle of 2009, and will be the most severe slump since the 1981-82 recession.

By one benchmark, a recession occurs whenever the gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, declines for two consecutive quarters. However, the NBER’s dating committee uses broader and more precise measures.

The GDP did contract by 0.2 percent at an annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2007. However, that drop was followed by a 0.9 percent rate of increase in the first quarter and a 2.8 percent spurt in the second quarter, when the economy was boosted by the distribution of millions of economic stimulus payments.

However, employment, one of the measurements tracked by the NBER, has been falling since January.

The GDP turned negative again in the July-September quarter of this year, falling at an annual rate of 0.5 percent. Many economists believe the GDP is falling in the current quarter at an even sharper rate of 4 percent, and that the economy won’t begin to rebound until late 2009.

In a news release, the NBER said its cycle dating committee held a telephone conference call on Friday and made the determination on when the recession began. Founded in 1920, the NBER has more than 1,000 university professors and researchers who act as bureau associates, studying how the economy works

The NBER decision means that the economic expansion lasted from November 2001 until December 2007. Economic expansions peak and recessions begin in the same month, according to the NBER’s dating methods.

The decision on the recession means that during the eight years that Bush has been in office, the country has seen two recessions. The first downturn lasted from March 2001 until November of that year.