Executive Report

New state ratings and bonds sale

STANDARD and Poor's Corporation and Moody's Investors Service, both of New York, retained the state's double-A+ and triple-A+ bond ratings, respectively, the week of March 19. On March 27, the state sold $90 million in general obligation bonds, accepting a bid of 9.19 percent from the Citi-Corp Capital Markets Group of New York. Included in the sale were $63 million in Capital Development Board bonds, $15 million in transportation bonds and $12 million in anti-pollution bonds. Other bids came from the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago and the Merrill-Lynch Capital Markets Group of New York.

A sale of general obligation bonds in November drew an average interest rate of 8.85 percent. The latest bond sale lifted Illinois' total principal debt on general obligation bonds to $3.4 billion. The sale was the last of three planned by the state for the fiscal year ending in June, bringing the total of bonds sold to $360 million.

AFSCME to represent state professionals

OVER 12,000 state professional employees are now represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO (AFSCME). In a statewide mail-ballot February 17, nearly 7,300 employees rejected both a bid by the Teamsters Union and also the option of no union representation.

The official vote totals were announced by the Illinois Office of Collective Bargaining (OCB) on March 6: AFSCME, 5,292; no representation, 1,076; Teamsters, 865, These results gave AFSCME 73 percent of the total votes counted.

The election brought the largest group of previously unrepresented state employees into the union since collective bargaining for employees under the governor's jurisdiction was authorized by Gov. Dan Walker's executive order in 1973 (see Illinois Issues, April 1979, p. 7).

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Workers now represented by AFSCME include professionals such as social workers, psychologists, therapists, physicians, engineers, accountants, lawyers, educators and many other highly technical state job classifications. AFSCME considers these workers as one new bargaining unit, contrary to the OCB, which divides the group into a technical unit and a professional unit. As of late March, the OCB had yet to give these new bargaining units official titles. A representative of AFSCME said questionaires have been sent out to the entire new bargaining unit to help prepare AFSCME for negotiations for a union contract.

AFSCME is the nation's and the state's largest public employee union. It now represents some 40,000 state of Illinois employees — with the new gains offsetting membership losses — and a total of 50,000 public employees in Illinois. AFSCME expects another election to be held in May on representation for white collar city government workers in Chicago.

Nursing Home Advocacy Program

GOV. James R. Thompson unveiled a new plan for monitoring nursing homes in an announcement on March 7. The Nursing Home Advocacy Program calls for more stringent enforcement of nursing home standards and will be spearheaded by the Department on Aging (DOA) and the Department of Public Health (DPH). The departments of Public Aid, Registration and Education, and Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities will also be involved, along with the Guardianship and Advocacy Commission, and the Developmental Disabilities Protection and Advocacy Board. The new program is designed to strengthen the enforcement of nursing home regulations, to organize a program of client advocacy, to establish a 24-hour hotline that will handle complaints about nursing home care and to coordinate a statewide consumer education program.

These activities will be headed by an interagency coordinator, whom the DOA hopes to hire by April 1. The coordinator will head an interagency "strike force" to handle emergencies in nursing homes and deal with recurring serious problems.

In addition, the DPH has hired Ford "Chet" June III to head its new enforcement division (see Illinois Issues, April 1984, p. 41). As part of this program, fines and penalties will be assessed against facilities which repeat violations. Thompson said a team of volunteers will be recruited and trained to monitor "problem" nursing homes to ensure that the facilities provide proper care for residents. Their work will enhance the capacity of the DPH to use receivers, who are appointed by courts to take full control of a nursing home that is endangering the life or safety of a resident. Under provisions of the new plan, once an emergency situation is established, such a receiver would be appointed by the court immediately. In a nonemergency situation, the court is required to hold a hearing no more than five days after a petition against a facility has been filed.

The DOA, through its area agencies on aging, will also initiate a coordinated Ombudsman Program to concentrate on client advocacy. This program will recruit and train nursing home visitors and will provide technical assistance to nursing home resident councils. It is expected to be in full effect by October 1.

In addition, the departments involved in the program plan to develop a series of consumer guidebooks to help the public locate and evaluate good facilities and to help people find alternatives to nursing homes. The guidebooks are scheduled for release on July 1. A Nursing Home Rating Book, with an expected completion date of October 1, will be put together by state agencies working with groups and individuals in the private sector.

Funding for the advocacy program will come from a variety of sources. The DOA will fund the 24-hour hotline with $200,000 from the federal Older Americans Act Fund, along with state and other federal funds from the DPH. Each department involved will contribute existing publication money to fund the new comprehensive set of guidebooks.

Education project for new sexual assault law

THE departments of Public Aid (DPA) and Children and Family Services (DCFS) will fund an education project to help implement the Illinois Criminal Sexual Assault Act. The funding of $160,000 will be administered by the Illinois Coalition of Women Against Rape (ICWAR), which worked with the Illinois House Rape Study Committee to draft the new law that goes into effect on July 1.

Announcing the project, Gov. James R. Thompson said, "This law completely changes the way we deal with sex crimes in Illinois and it could be a model for the nation. But it represents such a change from the past that we will never realize its full potential unless we educate the police, prosecutors and public on how to use it."

The funds will come from federal social service block grants that the state agencies administer and will go toward the writing, production and distribution of training and informational materials. The educational project, which will begin on April 1, is designed to inform the public of its rights under the law and to work with law enforcement agencies on how to implement the law.

The DPA will provide approximately $140,000 for the project and up to $20,000 more will come from the DCFS; $85,000 will go toward the production of a 25-minute movie on the new law. The ICWAR hopes to have the film ready for distribution to interested groups in the state by mid-July.

The Criminal Sexual Assault Act replaces eight old criminal statutes with one new law (see Illinois Issues, February 1984, pp. 6-11). The main advantage of the new law is that all sexual crimes, regardless of the age, gender or relationship of the defendant or victim, are treated uniformly, said Polly Poskin, executive director of ICWAR.

According to Department of Law Enforcement figures, there were approximately 2,500 reported rapes in Illinois last year. DCFS figures show about 5,170 allegations of sexual abuse of children. Preliminary figures for 1984 indicate an increase in these crimes, and critics of the old rape laws have charged that most of these crimes have gone unreported.

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