As part of the ongoing discussions of our group of independent and reform-minded Democrats, we are planning discussions over the summer with the Governor and legislative leaders.

Rather than wait months for the details for the Governor's budget cuts to unfold, I requested of Speaker Madigan that he call a house Democratic Caucus with an analysis from certain key advocacy groups representing education, children and youth, business and taxpayers. He agreed and after the groups take a couple of weeks to analyze the situation and the cuts, they will report to us and be available to answer our questions. This is one way I believe we can stay involved in the ongoing budget process and continue our involvement with the Governor's office.

As you know, we gave emergency budget powers to the Governor with our unprecedented budget strain, but we did require that he report back to us quarterly. As he announced cuts of $1.4 billion last week, we are uncertain just how many items will fare. It looks grim indeed for education, higher education, and so on.

As we continue to look at ways to address our financial woes, I wanted you to be aware of the belt tightening being proposed by Governor Quinn.

On July 2, 2010, in conjunction with signing the new budget, the Governor signed an Executive Order aimed at saving the state money by calling on state agencies to do the following:

1. Review, identify and dispose of all surplus property.
2. Review and renegotiate state leases to achieve savings.
3. Urge all state employees to help reduce energy costs and continue to implement energy conservation practices.
4. Reduce and restrict all travel-related expenses.
5. Terminate all unused or unnecessary land-based telephone lines; inventory all mobile phones and other mobile communication devices with a goal of 20% reduction.
6. Cancel all unnecessary subscriptions and memberships.
7. Implement plans to reduce overtime and other personal service costs.
8. Develop a plan to reduce retiree and group insurance which may include increasing co-payments and deductibles.
9. Reduce printing expenditures by 25%.
10. Perform an eligibility audit of all people receiving a pension or group insurance.
11. Report on the feasibility of selling the state's uncollected debts.
12. Create contingency reserves.
13. Implement a pilot program for Medicaid Managed Care.
14. Encourage management and staff at the various state agencies to offer suggestions on saving state dollars.

All state employees are being asked to join in the effort to diminish spending. Every penny counts.

One of the key components to achieving any kind of recovery in the state's finances is clearly strong leadership in reducing corruption. When a watered down campaign finance reform bill was proposed, I voted no. We cannot be weak in the face of our state's fiscal crisis when so much of it is tied to procurement discrepancies, insider deals, and elected officials beholden to special interests.

Pension reform is also critical to addressing cash flow tensions. Recently enacted legislation provides two-tier pension benefits for state employees by raising the retirement age and capping the maximum salary on which pensions can be based.

Our newly created transparency portal improves accessibility to policy information and data allowing sunshine in on state operations. Providing a greater ability for the public to keep an eye on how the state is run will make tremendous inroads in transparency and accountability.

I will continue to take a strong stance pushing for reform and transparency in Illinois government. We all deserve better.

Illinois' greatest government expense is $14 billion spent on Medicaid. As of this year, 20% of the state's population receives its health care coverage through Medicaid, compared to 14.6% of the U.S. population overall.

Click here to see a recent Tribune editorial addressing recent and proposed steps for improving the Medicaid program's efficiencies. One new step will be my recently enacted legislation that eliminates monthly membership cards and creates permanent cards, an effort to drastically diminish administrative waste.

I am setting up a local Medicaid task force to encourage citizens to send ideas for any streamlining and efficiencies we can create to reduce the costs of the Medicaid program.

Mental Health Care for Veterans

My House Bill 6103 was signed into law by Governor Quinn last week. It amends the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code to provide that any veteran who receives services provided by a state mental health facility that are not covered by the veteran's existing insurance plan shall not be liable for any charges. The legislation is vital to our veterans, many of whom are returning from long tours of duty with tremendous need for mental health services due to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Green Manufacturing Grant Program

My House Bill 6030 was also sent to the Governor recently and awaits his signature. This legislation creates a green manufacturing grant program, authorizing the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to provide grants to manufacturers with 500 or fewer employees toward the cost of capital equipment that will reduce environmental impact and achieve cost savings. Grants may also be used for developing, expanding, or retooling a manufacturing facility to produce renewable energy or energy efficiency products or components. This legislation will improve not only our environment, but stimulate job growth in green manufacturing and renewable energy technologies.

Mandatory Rape Kit Testing

Last week, Illinois became the first state in the nation to require that every rape kit collected from a victim of sexual assault be submitted for DNA testing. Prior to the passing of this law, thousands of unprocessed rape kits were sitting in police stations across the state. The justice system's failure to process evidence collected from sexual assault victims sent a horrible message to the survivors of these devastating crimes. We will never know how many assaults could have been prevented if every rape kit had been tested promptly and followed up on by law enforcement. Hats off to Attorney General Lisa Madigan for working with the General Assembly to get this law passed.

I am pleased to announce that I was recently named Chair of the Renewable Energy Committee. I also was recently named to the Personnel and Pensions Committee. Both will certainly keep me busy in addition to my other committees: Electric Utility Oversight; Environment & Energy; Environmental Health (Chair); Health Care Availability Access (Vice Chair); Mass Transit; Medicaid Reform Subcommittee; O'Hare Airport Environmental Impact; and Public Policy & Accountability.

It was so great to see everyone at the Deerfield, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest/Lake Bluff and Northbrook Fourth of July parades! What a gorgeous day to celebrate our nation's birthday!

Come join me at the Lake Forest Day parade Wednesday, August 4 at 10:00 a.m.

email: karen@repkarenmay.org

phone: (847) 433-9100

web: http://www.repkarenmay.org