The state of the State
Your privacy
Probably the largest mass of data concerning private citizens maintained by an Illinois agency is found in the office of secretary of state which licenses drivers and motor vehicles, administers the safety responsibility law, issues corporation charters, files security interests under the Commercial Code, etc. To advise him on according "full consideration" to individuals' rights of privacy, Secretary of State Michael J. Hewlett appointed an Advisory Committee on Privacy (2/5/75).

While many of the records kept by the secretary's office are public information, others are not, but the secretary has the discretionary power to release information in many areas.

Private group to give state tests
The state, in effect, has admitted it is not to be trusted to conduct licensing examinations. Educational Testing Service (ETS), a nonprofit organization based in Princeton, N. J., has been engaged to conduct the state's exams for insurance agents and brokers licenses (3/17/75).

"Not only will this settle the question of political influence in the testing and awarding of licenses, it will end the possibility of any such influence," said Robert B. Wilcox, director of the Department of Insurance. It was disclosed some months ago that a state examiner forged answers on examination papers.

Powell in the headlines
Always a newsmaker in life, Paul Powell's name popped into the headlines again when Attorney General William J. Scott filed an antitrust suit in federal court against six contracting firms and four individuals for alleged bid rigging in connection with the rehabilitation of the State House in 1969 and 1970. The complaint alleges the defendants bribed Powell (secretary of state from January 11, 1965, until his death October 10, 1970) to induce him to overlook bidding irregularities.

Scott said the amount of damages suffered by the state has not yet been determined but could run into several hundred thousand dollars.

After Powell's death, his executor found an estimated $800,000 in cash in his Springfield hotel room. How Powell accumulated so much cash—and why he did not bank it—have remained a mystery.

Fourth in federal aid
Illinois received approximately $2.3 billion in federal aid to the state and its local governments in fiscal year 1974, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Illinois' share was 4.9 per cent of the total $46 billion and ranked Illinois fourth after New York, California, and Pennsylvania. Major aid to Illinois came in three areas: public assistance, $778 million; revenue sharing, $311 million; and hfghways, $206 million.

Spending exceeds revenue increase
State general spending was up $406 million in the first two-thirds of fiscal 1975 compared with the same period a year ago, reported Comptroller George Lindberg (3/20/75), and general revenue was up $269 million.

Increased spending categories were:
public aid, $148 million including $143 million in medical assistance; school aid, $133 million; operations of agencies, $92 million; all other, $33 million. Increased revenue amounts were: income tax, $123 million; sales tax, $96 million; other state sources, $32 million; transfers, $20 million; but federal aid was down $2 million. Transfers were swelled by $28 million from a new source, the lottery fund.

Lindberg said the available balance at the end of February was $293 million, $71 million less than a year ago.

$102 million state payroll
Payroll statistics for November 1974, released by the state comptroller in April, showed that payrolls totaled $101,026,673. Compared to November 1973, average pay per month went up from $788 to $871, or 10 per cent. The state had 116,007 employees, or a little more than one employee per 100 population.

However, if an allowance is made for the fact that 5,458 Cook County public aid employees were shifted to the state payroll in January 1974, the number of personnel went down slightly over November 1973, about 1.7 per cent.

Garbage disposal grants
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency announced eight grants totaling $5,822,227 to local governments for demonstration programs to deal with garbage disposal (3/12/75). Grants to provide up to 75 per cent of design and construction costs are going to the cities of Edwardsville, Peoria, and Springfield and to the counties of Fulton, Iroquois, Jasper, Monroc, and Whiteside. The grants are financed by proceeds of the $750 million antipollution bond act passed by the voters in 1970.

Examples of the types of programs to be funded: a plant for shredding refuse for use as a supplemental fuel by the municipal electric plant (Springfield); a municipal recycling center for glass, aluminum, mixed metals, used motor oil, newspaper and other paper, kitchen grease, lumber, and bricks (Edwardsville).

Unclaimed property
Property in safe deposit boxes and cash in savings accounts which goes unclaimed for 15 years is turned over to the state under the Uniform Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act, passed in 1961, for eventual deposit in the State Employees Pension Fund (III. Rev. Stat., ch. 141, sec. 101ff). In 1974 the Department of Financial Institution accumulated $1.5 million from this source, and Anthony J. Fornelli, department director, urges individuals to record holdings in such places for their heirs. "The state doesn't enjoy obtaining abandoned property, but the law gives the cash or other property to the state," said Fornelli.

186 /Illinois Issues/June 1975