Thompson's cabinet

As Gov. James R. Thompson prepared to start his fourth term, he was expected to reshape his administration. At the least he must fill vacancies. He formed a "transition team" right after the election, calling on it to examine past performance and to make recommendations for the next four years. Chaired by Arthur F. Quern, a former Thompson chief of staff, the team is also involved in the governor's search for replacements in his cabinet.

The first to announce his departure was Michael B. Witte. After a year at the helm of the Department of Conservation, Witte announced in November that he would resign by year's end to accept a job in the private sector. He has spent a decade in Thompson's administration, most of it within the Department of Energy and Natural Resources where he served as director from 1981-84.

David V. Hardwick, director of the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) since October 1979, was the second resignation announced in November. Hardwick, who left for personal reasons, had served as assistant director of the old Department of Personnel (now absorbed into the Department of Central Management Services) from 1977-79. DVA's deputy director. David Knox, was named acting director; he has been with DVA since 1982.

Leaving in February will be J. Thomas Johnson. Thompson's revenue director since 1980 and with the administration since 1977. Johnson is joining the national accounting firm of Grant-Thornton in Chicago. He is the longest-serving director in the Department of Revenue's 43-year history.

Bowen named Teacher of the Year

An elementary teacher who seriously considered leaving the profession several years ago was named the 1986-87 Illinois Teacher of the Year at the State Board of Education' s " Those Who Excel" awards banquet October 31. Charles "Chuck" Bowen of Morton has taught for 13 years at Morton Unit District 709's Jefferson Elementary School. The district's first male elementary teacher, Bowen initially taught second grade but has spent the last seven years in a fifth grade classroom.

Bowen stresses organization and responsibility in both his classroom and curriculum. He also put great emphasis on writing skills which he helps his students develop through daily and extended composition programs. The programs are apparently a successful approach: In the last 10 years Bowen's classes have written and presented five original plays and have published three books.

Another tenet of Bowen's teaching philosophy is parent involvement. To foster the interest and support of his students' parents, Bowen sends home weekly assignment and grade reports and produces a parents' newsletter. He also distributes, at the beginning of each school year, a guide outlining his grading system, his expectations for the year and suggestions for how parents can become involved in their children's education.

During the coming year Bowen will represent the state's education community at various conferences and workshops. He will also be Illinois' candidate for this spring's National Teacher of the Year competition.

The Judiciary

A month after Carole Kamin Bellows failed to win election as an associate judge in Cook County, she was appointed a full judge in that circuit by the Illinois Supreme Court. Effective November 20 Bellows of Wilmette filled the vacancy created by the Operation Greylord conviction and subsequent resignation of Reginald J. Holzer. Bellows, who served as president of the Illinois State Bar Association from 1977-78, was a member of the law firm Reuben & Proctor from 1979 until its merger last summer with Isham, Lincoln & Beale where she became a partner.

The following judicial officers have resigned:

Donald W. Morthland of Decatur as circuit judge of the 6th Judicial Circuit, effective December 31, 1986. Morthland, who had been serving by high court assignment on the 4th District Appellate Court since March 1985, had been a judicial officer since 1962.

Ivan Lovaas of Sterling as an associate judge of the 14th Judicial Circuit, effective December 30, 1986. Lovaas had been a judicial officer for over 20 years.

Selected by his fellow circuit judges in the 7th Judicial Circuit as chief judge was John W. Russell of Carlinville. He succeeded Richard Cadigan on December 1, 1986.

'Your ideas may be worth a fortune'

The State Employees Suggestion Board kicked off its first campaign on October 15 to gather ideas from state employees on saving the taxpayers' money. One idea: the state should not wait 13 months to implement the law that established this program to save the state possibly millions of dollars.

Created by legislation signed September 1985, the program is administered by the Department of Central Management Services (CMS). The new suggestion board determines the winners. Employees below the managerial level can receive awards ranging from $25 to $5,000 for their money-saving suggestions, depending on how much the state saves.

"We anticipate we'll save a bunch of money," said CMS spokesman Patrick Foley. "We looked at other states to see how they were doing it, and we saw they were saving millions of dollars."

Chairman of the Suggestion Board is Sen. John Davidson (R-50, Springfield), and vice chairman is Sen. Howard Carroll (D-l, Chicago). Other legislative members appointed are Sen. Harry Woodyard (R-53, Chrisman) and Reps. Terry Parke (R-49, Hoffman Estates), Michael Curran (D-99, Springfield) and Karen Hasara (R-100, Springfield). The majority and minority leaders of the Senate and House each have two appointments. Their other appointments include Reynaldo P. Glover, Chicago, an attorney with the law firm Isham, Lincoln & Beale, and George Gruendel, a professor of management at Sangamon State University.

Ex officio board members from the governor's administration are Bureau of the Budget Director Robert Mandeville and CMS Director Michael E. Tristano.

By late October, the board had received approximately 30 suggestions, according to Gruendel, "but a majority of them have been from an inmate in a correctional institution," who is ineligible for the contest. "Your ideas are worth a fortune" is the official slogan for encouraging money-saving ideas. There are official entry forms, and state employees may obtain them by calling Donald Kinsel at CMS at (217) 782-6125.

Illinois' Office of Public Counsel: its first year

Illinois' new Public Utilities Act, which is now one year old, established an Office of Public Counsel. The office's broad mandate is to represent the state's ratepayers in utility cases before the Illinois Commerce Commission (I1CC) and other state and federal agencies and courts.

Appointed in December 1985 by Gov. James R. Thompson to give substance to this on-paper-only office was Stephen J. Moore of Chicago. His background includes positions with the Illinois attorney general's public utility division, the Legal Services Organization of Indiana Inc. and the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation.

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Moore has assembled an 11-member staff with offices in both Chicago and Springfield. Deputy public counsel is Stephen Fogel of Chicago. He served five years in a similar post in the Florida Office of Public Counsel. Fogel has a master's degree in economics and a law degree.

There are three assistant public counsels:
Nicala Carter of Chicago was previously a staff attorney at the National Clearinghouse for Legal Services. Carter was on the staff at the Federal Resource Bank of St. Louis, where she assisted in the production of its economic reviews. She holds degrees in economics and law.

Thomas Rowland of Wilmette worked at a Chicago law firm and during 1984-85, served as a law clerk and an attorney at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy. He has a law degree.

Michael Weisman of Springfield previously served with the governor's Bureau of the Budget where he reviewed the budgets of agencies with extensive bonding authority. Weisman, who has a master's in public administration and a law degree, is in charge of the public counsel's Springfield office.

Other staff in the office include Perry J. Pockros of Chicago, the regulatory policy analyst, who was a consultant to Chicago Mayor Harold Washington's Commission on Energy; Marie Gomez of Chicago, the office's accountant, who has worked in accounting firms in Washington, DC, and Virginia; and Nancy Jenson of Chicago, administratiave assistant, who held a similar post at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Much of Moore's first year was spent assembling his top-flight staff, but the office has waded into the state's utility issues. Although none was resolved by the end of 1986, Moore says the office will continue its efforts this year.

In July the office pooled financial resources with the Illinois Attorney General's Office to bring in a group of nuclear engineers to evaluate the reasonableness of the costs at Illinois Power's Clinton nuclear plant. The group's testimony, filed with the I1CC, showed nearly $1 billion of unreasonable costs.

In September the office filed testimony and comments with the I1CC and the federal Securities and Exchange Commission seeking to stop Central Illinois Public Service Company from diversifying.

In October, in an effort to save the ratepayers of the state an estimated $420 million in 1987 and $840 million in 1988, the office filed a petition with the I1CC asking that the rates of all gas and electric utilities and the six largest local telecommunications carriers in Illinois be reduced. The petition's rationale is that the federal Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduces the maximum tax rate for corporations and thereby its costs of doing business.

One of the more far-reaching efforts started in 1986 is the public counsel's move to require Illinois Power to establish a segregated decommissioning fund for its Clinton plant. Such a fund would ensure that the financial means are available in the future when Clinton closes and must be cleaned up. If this effort is successful the public counsel plans to pursue the requirement of a separate decommissiong fund for all nuclear power plants operating in Illinois.

Moore says the office will continue in its second year the work began in 1986. "The majority additional case," he says, "will be the analysis of the audits of construction costs at Edison's Byron and Braidwood plants."

The Office of Public Counsel is located at 205 West Randolph, Suite 930, Chicago 60606, (312) 793-1600; and downstate at 516 East Monroe, Suite 701, Springfield 62701 (217} 785-7687.

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Other appointments

Richard J. Carlson, director of Illinois' Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA), was named Region V representative to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/State Committee in November by USEPA administrator Lee M. Thomas. The committee, formed in 1985 by the USEPA, meets quarterly, providing a forum for the discussion of state and federal environmental problems and programs. Carlson represents Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota. Ohio and Wisconsin. Another director of an Illinois agency, Larry A. Werries of the Department of Agriculture, was appointed to an agricultural advisory seat on the committee in July.

William P. Johnson of Jacksonville was appointed to the Federal Commission on Education of the Deaf by U.S. Rep. Bob Michel (R-18, Peoria) in October. Johnson, who is the superintendent of the Illinois School for the Deaf, has worked in the area of deaf education for the past 17 years. This newly created congressional commission is studying current educational opportunities for the deaf and will make recommendations for improving the quality of that education.

Somit resigns SIU-C presidency

Culminating months of speculation, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (SIU-C) president Albert Somit submitted his resignation to university chancellor Lawrence K. Pettit at the end of October. Somit's resignation, after six vears in the post, is effective January 10, 1987. During his tenure as president Somit is credited with revitalizing student recruitment, improving the level of external funding and successfully restructuring the university's fund-raising effort. Pettit noted Somit's success in raising the academic excellence of the student body, citing the increased number of National Merit scholars attending the university and the increase in academic scholarships. For the 10 years prior to coming to SIU-C, Somit was executive vice president of the State University of New York-Buffalo. He has spent over 40 years in university teaching and administration. After a one-year leave, Somit will return to SIU-C in January 1988 as a distinguished service professor in the political science department.

Appointed by Pettit to serve as acting president beginning January 11 was John C. Guyon. SlU-C's vice president for academic affairs and research since 1981. It has been reported that Guyon is very interested in the presidency and that there is campus support behind him. According to an article by Nancy Weil in the Southern lllinoisan, Guyon has "long been mentioned as a likely on-campus candidate if Somit were to step down." Guyon came to SIU-C in 1974 to head the College of Science. In 1976, he was appointed associate vice president for research and dean to the graduate school. Before joining the university, Guyon, a chemist, spent two years as head of Memphis State University's chemistry department and 10 years at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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Illinois' longest tenured public university president will retire after nearly 13 years in the post. Leslie F. Malpass, president of Western Illinois University at Macomb since September 1974, will leave the post July 31.

In accepting Malpass's resignation in October, Board of Governors chairman Nancy Froelich noted that his "contribution to higher education, the BOG system, WIU and the city of Macomb will be long remembered. Western's recent designation by Gov. James Thompson as the Illinois Institute of Rural Affairs is an example of how WIU has performed its regional and state service mission under the leadership of Dr. Malpass."

Malpass, a psychologist, came to WIU from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University where he served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for three years and then as vice president for academic affairs from 1968-74.

The search for a new president, under the direction of BOG chancellor Thomas D. Layzell, began immediately after Malpass's resignation was accepted. In the interest of a smooth transition next July, Layzell has been directed by the board to submit six candidates for final interviews by the board at its June meeting.

Honors

• State Rep. John Cullerton (D-7, Chicago) received the first annual Prescott Bloom Award from the Illinois Coalition for Safety Belt Use October 20.

• The Illinois Hospital Association named House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels (R-46, Elmhurst) as its Legislator of the Year in November.

• Ernest R, Jenkins, executive assistant for community development for the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, receives one of the 1986 Lewis Hine Awards from the National Child Labor Committee this month in New York.

• Illinois had three winners in the U.S. Department of Energy's National Awards Program for Energy Innovation in October: Illinois' Capital Development Board, University of Illinois-Chicago's Energy Resources Center and Carol and John Harkness of Naperville.