SATURDAY
D e cember 26 , 2015 • $1 .0 0 *
NORTHWEST
SPRING TRAINING BOUND
HERALD
HIGH
CLC grad Sadzeck hitting 100s on radar guns / C1
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Illinois budget may be pushed back Local lawmakers warn budget approval could be after March primary By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com It may not be until after the March primary election that state lawmakers approve a 2016 budget, McHenry County lawmakers warned. They find the idea even
more abhorrent than the fact the state has gone almost seven months without a budget, and they pledged to help push for getting a deal done as soon as possible once lawmakers reconvene Jan. 13 for the spring legislative session. To Democratic Rep. Jack
Franks and Republican Rep. Mike Tryon, it’s election-year politics over people, and who can blame whom. The state fiscal year started July 1. “The governor will be giving his budget address for the next fiscal year, and we don’t even have a budget for this
fiscal year. That’s how messed up this is. We are the ultimate freak show,” said Franks, D-Marengo. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and legislative Democrats who control the House and Senate have been at loggerheads since lawmakers in
May approved a deficit budget that spent $4 billion more than the $33 billion the state was expected to collect. Rauner vetoed it, citing the long-ignored balanced budget provision in the state constitution, but approved the portion funding public schools.
Rauner, who was elected last year on a platform of revitalizing Illinois and fixing its deep budget woes, wants to link Democratic calls for higher taxes to reforms such as a two-year freeze on property
See BUDGET, page A7
Med. clinic prescribes legal help for housing By CARLA K. JOHNSON The Associated Press
Photos by Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Huntley freshman Blake Kazminski, 14, navigates through the new Huntley High School website while participating in user testing of the new site during his 3D animation and gaming class Dec. 11.
School districts weigh cost, benefits of websites By ALLISON GOODRICH agoodrich@shawmedia.com
Huntley freshmen Ryley Albright (left), 14, and Max Babich, 14, navigate through the new Huntley High School website while participating in user testing of the new site during a 3D animation and gaming class Dec. 11.
SPORTS
Bears Insider HUB ARKUSH: Bucs a matchup problem for Bears / C1
HUNTLEY – The website for Huntley Community School District 158 is the primary source of information for many people, a district official said, and the newest version of it only cost the district only $114. As director of communications and public engagement, part of Dan Armstrong’s job when he came in last year was to revamp the district’s website – a task several other districts have undertaken recently as websites have become a go-to source for information. “One of the main goals was to get all of our school sites and our district site on one platform,” Armstrong said, later adding, “We were trying to modernize our look to make it cleaner and fairly consis-
tent with our brand. Before it was kind of a hodgepodge.” A spotlight feature, the same that cost the $114, is a calendar that includes all the district’s activities and can be filtered based on what visitors are looking for. Armstrong opted to use WordPress, a free and open-source content management system, aiming to keep the cost low. In McHenry County, the inhouse practice makes the district an outlier on a website-related spending scale. Like several others, Fox River Grove School District 3, went with an outside Web-hosting service, which cost $2,130 for the initial development and an annual cost of $4,680.
See WEBSITES, page A4
LOCAL NEWS
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Two McHenry County electronics recycling programs put on hiatus / A3 LOCAL NEWS
CHICAGO – She didn’t look sick, but Mahoghny Walker struggled to learn. Blood tests showed high levels of lead from old, chipping paint in her Chicago home. She had lead poisoning. So did her eight siblings. That much was clear to nurse practitioner Martha Glynn, the family’s primary care provider. What wasn’t: How to help their mother, Lanice Walker, navigate the Chicago Housing Authority’s system to move her kids to a safer home. Glynn turned to the Health Justice Project, a joint effort of Erie Family Health Center and Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Since 2010, project attorneys have received more than 2,000 referrals about patients with legal issues such as housing, education, disability and family law. Nationally, the medical-legal movement, rooted in AIDS patient activism, now boasts nearly 300 hospitals and health centers in more than 30 states with partnerships helping vulnerable, low-income patients. In Philadelphia, a medical-legal partnership prevented utility shut-offs for hundreds of families with medical needs. In Atlanta, a partnership attorney helped with custody issues that cleared the way for a child to get a needed heart transplant. In Nashville, attorneys assisted patients facing evictions.
See HEALTH, page A7
AP photo
Emaurie Walker, 4, has her height and weight checked during a physical Dec. 16 at an Erie Family Health Center clinic in Chicago, where her family has received legal help in moving out of a public housing unit with lead-based paint.
A well-deserved break McHenry Masonic Lodge hosts Great Lakes sailors on Christmas / A3
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