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Ill. House votes to halt pay raise Rauner praises move to repeal automatic increase; Senate vote next week By HANNAH PROKOP hprokop@shawmedia.com The Illinois House approved legislation Tuesday that would repeal the 2 percent automatic cost-of-living adjustment that lawmakers recently received and is set to take effect this month. Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan was the lead sponsor for House Bill 576, which passed the Illinois House on Tuesday with a 101-1 vote. The vote followed a tense floor debate during which Republicans asked Madigan why their own efforts months ago to block the raise never were
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allowed to come to a vote. Madigan said the raise is just a small piece of what he called a “historic struggle” between the majority Democrats in the Legislature and the new GOP governor. “We’ve made a good faith effort to meet the governor halfway. His response? ‘I have to have my agenda, as is, no change. If I get it, I’ll talk,’ ” Madigan said. “We are in an
impasse. We are involved in a historic struggle.” A budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 has not yet been approved. The state is facing a deficit of up to $4 billion. Rauner said in a statement he is ready to work with the Legislature on “true structural reforms and a Michael balanced bud- Madigan get.” He also urged the Senate to pass House Bill 576. One of the lead co-sponsors of the bill, state Rep. David
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McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills, said it is “absolutely outrageous that members of the General Assembly should get a pay increase” when the state has not yet passed a budget. “ T h e y should lock us in the capital until we pass a budget without a tax increase,” McSweeney said. He said David that without McSweeney passage of a budget, social service agencies are starting to feel the pressure. Local Reps. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, Barbara Wheeler,
R-Crystal Lake, and Mike Tryon, R-Crystal Lake, also voted in favor of the legislation. McSweeney already has donated the $1,563, the amount of money the 2 percent automatic cost-of-living adjustment would add up to annually. Half of the money went to the McHenry County Pioneer Center for Human Services, a nonprofit that helps economically disadvantaged and disabled people; and half went to The Night Ministry, a nonprofit that helps the homeless. McSweeney also has cut his own pay and district office budget by 10 percent, according to a news release, and is not going to accept his pay-
checks until a budget is decided on. Earlier this year, McSweeney introduced House Bill 1313, which called for eliminating cost-of-living adjustments for legislators and forces them to take furlough days, according to a news release. A spokeswoman for Democratic Senate President John Cullerton said he has “deep reservations” about whether the state constitution allows lawmakers to block the automatic pay raise, but said Cullerton will call a floor vote on the legislation sometime next week.
• The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WOODSTOCK WOMAN SHARES HOW HER MOTHER FELL VICTIM TO FRAUD
Group to help ID replacement for Vicky Smith By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – The 15 members of a committee tasked with overseeing the search for McHenry County College’s next president have been chosen. The members were nominated by various stakeholder groups, including the Board of Trustees, the college’s administration, students, faculty and the general public. The committee will be responsible for developing the framework and timeline for Vicky Smith the search, as well as creating a profile that reflects the ideal presidential candidate, according to college documents. The current president, Vicky Smith, plans on retiring at the end of December. The committee members, who were unanimously approved by the college’s elected Board of Trustees, include: • from the administration, Workforce and Community Development Executive Dean Terri Berryman and Chief Information Officer Allen Butler; • from the Board of Trustees, Vice Chairwoman Linda Liddell and Trustee Molly Walsh, both of Crystal Lake; • from the general public, McHenry County Economic Development Corporation President Pam Cumpata and Mike Spiltt, owner of In Sync Systems in Crystal Lake; • from the McHenry County
Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Glynnis Walker Anderson poses for a portrait holding a photograph of her mother, Rosalind “Joyce” Walker, at her Woodstock home Tuesday. Walker, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, was in her 80s when she became a victim of elder abuse and fraud. Even after Walker’s death, her daughter was harassed by holders of fraudulent wills. Anderson has written a book about her experience.
Experts say elder abuse a problem in McHenry County By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com WOODSTOCK – Glynnis Walker Anderson never got to say goodbye to her mother. Anderson, a Woodstock resident, was the long-distance caregiver for her widowed mother, Rosalind “Joyce” Walker, who lived in Victoria, British Columbia, before she died in June 2011 at the age of 87. Anderson thought she had the situation under control. She was handling the upkeep and bills for her mother’s home. She had taken care of all the pa-
perwork, directing a will to be put together and having her mother grant her power of attorney. When her mother’s health started to deteriorate and she began exhibiting signs of dementia, Anderson found her mother a nursing home, a difficult decision because her mother missed her dog, her house and “her little bit of heaven.” Despite all that, however, Anderson’s mother became the victim of elder abuse and fraud, Anderson said. Studies have found between 7.6 percent and 10 percent of older Americans have experienced abuse in the previous year, according to
statistics compiled by the federal government’s National Center of Elder Abuse. Older adults with Alzheimer’s disease – such as Walker – were found to be nearly five times more likely to have been the victim of abuse than those without the degenerative cognitive disease, according to a 2013 research article in the Journal of Aging Research. “We see everything,” said Marsha Boncosky, adult protective services supervisor for Senior Services Associates in McHenry County. The nonprofit is contracted by the state of Illinois to investigate
the abuse and exploitation of seniors and people with disabilities in the area. “We see a great deal of financial exploitation, taking the elder’s money for their own purposes,” Boncosky said. “We see a lot of emotional abuse, threatening our elders and demeaning them because they are limited in their abilities. We see a fair share of neglect, sometimes passive where the caregiver doesn’t know there are resources. We also see willful deprivation.” The women who Anderson said perpetrated the fraud against her
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