Opinion ! s 3AUK 6ALLEY -EDIA
WWW SAUKVALLEY COM
EDITORIAL
&RIDAY $ECEMBER
THE CARTOONIST’S VOICE
Dave Granlund, GateHouse News Service
Michael Krabbenhoeft/mkrabbenhoeft@saukvalley.com
A check for more than $9.2 million arrived in the city of Dixon’s mail 2 days before Christmas.
Dixon’s money made it home for the holidays What we think Just in time for Christmas, $9.2 million stolen by Rita Crundwell was returned to the city of Dixon. The holidays are brighter in City Hall, thanks to the feds’ hefty check.
I
n his signature Christmas song, Perry Como sings, “Oh! There’s no place like home for the holidays.� That sentiment goes for people, of course. It also applies to tax dollars. Rita Crundwell, the former Dixon city comptroller now serving a long prison term, made off with nearly $54 million in public funds before her thefts came to a screeching halt in April 2012. On Monday, some of that money made it home for the holidays. The city of Dixon received a big check from the federal government as the city’s portion from the sale of Crundwell’s property. How big? Try $9,214,801.45. What a timely gift for the city!
Officials knew the money was on the way, but it still must have been a thrill when the check arrived in the mail – just like opening a big Christmas present! Mayor Jim Burke said the money would be deposited in the capital development fund. Possible uses will be decided later. In this season of giving, we’re pleased that Dixon residents have been given back a big chunk of stolen money. Kudos to the federal government for its opportune timing. “If you wanna be happy in a million ways, For the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home!� Como sang. This holiday season, Dixon taxpayers have more than a million ways to ponder their city’s future happiness – $9.2 million, actually.
THE READER’S VOICE
Support for Santa event is appreciated JOHN STAUTER Sterling
The Kiwanis Club of Sterling would like to thank all who took part in our Breakfast with Santa during Sights and Sounds weekend. That was a cold weekend, and just getting out in the weather was appreciated. The Kiwanis motto says we serve the children of the world, and working the breakfast is a fun way to do that. All of our members look forward to working this event, and it is very fulfilling. Breakfast with Santa would not be possible without the help of Sterling Moose Lodge 726; they are the greatest to
work with and are always ready to help. To the individuals and companies that donated time or supplies, we say thank you. To the Kiwanis Key Clubs at Sterling and Newman, thank you for your help; you do a great job. A special thanks to Santa (who has a busy schedule this time of the year); thanks for being there. To all the families and children, thank you for making this a success. All of the funds raised from this event go to our scholarships for local youth. Again, thanks to all, and we hope to do this for many more years (hopefully with better weather). Note to readers: John Stauter was the chairman of Breakfast with Santa.
What do you think? Do you agree with the opinions on this page? Do you disagree with them? Let us know. Write a letter to the editor, send it to our office, or email it to letters@saukvalley.com. Or, comment online at saukvalley.com. If you haven’t registered to comment, use the Livefyre link that appears at the bottom of each story.
STATEHOUSE INSIDER
Private firm takes it on chin Public staffers will take over eligibility work Now that pension reform is on the books, the anti-public union/ public employee folks will have to turn their attention in a new direction for a while. Thankfully, Medicaid fraud is available to take up the slack. As part of Medicaid reforms passed a couple of years ago, state agencies were required to review Medicaid rolls to get rid of people no longer eligible for benefits. Face it, if a recipient lives in Wisconsin, Illinois shouldn’t be paying his bills. The state wasn’t exactly vigilant in dumping ineligible people from the program. Whether this was because of a lack of willpower or lack of manpower is still being argued, although it’s worth noting that the state’s workforce is significantly smaller than it was a decade ago. Anyway, an arbitrator ruled last summer that the eligibility review work should be done by state employees, not Maximus, the private contractor hired by the state. Last week, the administration announced the results of negotiations to implement the ruling. It includes hiring more
dougFINKE Doug Finke’s column is syndicated by GateHouse News Service. Contact him at doug. finke@sj-r. com.
than 500 new workers, but also keeping Maximus around in a limited role for a while longer. Immediately, some were predicting doom and gloom because public, rather than private, workers will be doing the work. It will be interesting to see whether the pubGov. Pat lic workers Quinn will uncov“I don’t want er enough to spend the rest of my fraud to life in court,� satisfy the Quinn said naysayers, in explaining why the state or whether would not they will challenge the ever be able arbitrator’s to produce decision. enough to satisfy those who think the private sector can do it better. As Gov. Pat Quinn said, in explaining why the state didn’t further pursue a challenge to the arbitrator’s decision: “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in court. There is a curse – may your life be filled with lawyers. I don’t intend to
have that happen to us or the state of Illinois.�
PERCENT "ALONEY One number tossed around last week was that Maximus found 40 percent of those receiving benefits were ineligible. At least, that’s how some people characterized it. Baloney. Maximus reviewed about 497,000 Medicaid cases since the beginning of 2013. Of those, the final review work was completed on about 315,000 cases. And of those, 40 percent were found to be fraudulent and terminated. So it’s not 40 percent of all Medicaid cases, it’s 40 percent of those checked, which is far less. Also, the ones that were checked first were mostly cases where the state already had suspicions. In other words, easy pickings. Once those are gone, it’s entirely possible the rate of fraud discovered will go down.
!POLOGIES Apologies are in order to the Quinn administration. Two weeks ago, we said in this column that the state Supreme Court had shot down Quinn’s move to eliminate money from the state budget to pay lawmakers until they approved pension reform. The administration was quick to point out that was incorrect
‘‘
It will be interesting to see whether the public workers will uncover enough fraud to satisfy the naysayers. ...
’’
Doug Finke
and kindly shared its thoughts with us. In fact, it was a lower court that handed Quinn his lunch on this. Quinn appealed to the Supreme Court, which hadn’t ruled when pension reform was approved a couple of weeks ago. Since it was approved, Quinn is dropping the appeal. We’ll have to wait for another day to learn definitively whether a governor can take away salaries from lawmakers until they approve the bills he wants approved. On a related note, Quinn didn’t collect his own salary while all of this was going on. When he cut lawmakers’ salaries, Quinn said he, too, wouldn’t take a paycheck until pension reform passed. By the time he signed the pension bill, Quinn had forgone about $70,000 of his salary. Now that pension reform is law, Quinn is once again collecting his salary. Plus, he’s collected all of that back pay he was owed. Should be a happy holiday season in the Quinn household.
THE READER’S VOICE
Freedom of speech: Who draws the line? LAURIE WEGMEYER Dixon
I am a mother of four, two of them being sons. One is in the Army, and the other is in the Army Reserve. Both of my sons have been deployed, and the younger of the two is
EDITORIAL BOARD
4(% &)234 !-%.$-%.4
Jennifer Baratta Jim Dunn Sheryl Gulbranson Larry Lough Trevis Mayfield Jeff Rogers
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
waiting to leave any day for a second deployment. It is said that our young people are defending our freedoms from outside aggressors who would take them away. My question is: Are our freedoms being taken away from within by our own culture? I recently read of the Duck Dynasty patriarch being suspended from the “reality� show
about his own family for expressing views that were not popular with many in our culture. Some of his comments were put more crudely than my personal preference, but as for the unpopularity of his comments, well, who draws the line on the practice of freedom of speech? It is my understanding that he was not suggesting riot and rebellion,
“When it comes to war and peace, life and death, reporting skeptically and thoroughly is the highest form of patriotism.� Rem Rieder, editor, American Journalism Review, 2003
1UOTES BROUGHT TO YOU COURTESY OF
only expressing his own opinions, supposedly based on his religious beliefs. Will the young people who risk and sacrifice so much to defend our freedoms, among them speech and expression of religion, come home to find that if their beliefs don’t line up with popular culture, those freedoms they fought for are not for them?
3HARE YOUR OPINIONS Mail: The Reader’s Voice Sauk Valley Media 3200 E. Lincolnway, P.O. Box 498 Sterling, IL 61081 Email: letters@saukvalley.com Fax: 815-625-9390 Website: Visit www.saukvalley.com Policy: Letters are to be no more than 300 words and must include the writer’s name, town and daytime telephone number, which we call to verify authorship. Individuals may write up to 12 letters a year.
OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN LETTERS AND COLUMNS ARE THOSE OF THE WRITERS AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF SAUK VALLEY MEDIA.