Afternoon news update: June 4, 2015

The Illinois House is in an overtime session – a continuous session - considering a new workers' compensation proposal from Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, among other items. Governor Bruce Rauner calls it phony reform, but that’s not all he has on his plate today. The audience was different, but the message was the same: Illinois is in a world of hurt, and it's the Democrats' fault. Gov. Rauner convened a meeting of his cabinet Wednesday afternoon. He reviewed the points he has been saying since the May 31 conclusion of the scheduled spring session: the lack of a balanced state budget is the fault of the House and Senate leaders; some of the consequences, absent a budget agreement by the July 1 start of the fiscal year, will be facility closures; the need for "reform," in the form of such concepts as redistricting, term limits, and workers' compensation restructuring, must come before added revenue. As for today's "continuous" Illinois House session to address workers' compensation, four amendments have been filed. After a quick review by his team, Rauner says the legislation is "not real reform. It's more of the same. More phony reform. More insignificant reform, and we've seen this movie before." And the governor touched upon the pension situation. He says he anticipated the Supreme Court declaring the 2013 pension overhaul unconstitutional, and the lawmakers failed to take the opportunity to prepare for that. "I tried to get them to negotiate a pension alternative, so we'd be ready to move quickly when the Supreme Court ruled," he said. The governor's own budget proposal relied upon $2.2 billion in pension savings which did not occur. The General Assembly, with only Democrats' support, passed a budget which, like Rauner's February proposal, was billions out of balance. The session continues Thursday (June 4) in the House and Tuesday (June 9) in the Senate. Democrat House member Litesa Wallace believes the budget needs to be balanced through both cuts and tax increases. She spoke with our news partners at Fox 39.
The Governor's office has just recently announced that people and businesses in DeKalb, Ogle and seven other northern Illinois counties are now eligible to apply for low-interest, long-term loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration to help them recover from the April 9 tornadoes. The Governor's office had made the request for SBA assistance on May 29th.
Rockford city alderman Ann Thompson Kelly is hosting a public Town Hall Meeting tonight to address recent community violence. The event is from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. at Rockford Health Systems Auditorium at 2400 N. Rockton Avenue. Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey and Police Chief Chet Epperson will join Winnebago County Chairman Scott Christensen, State Representative Litesa Wallace, Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana and others at the event.
A Rockford man with a long history of drug dealing is back in jail today suspected of delivering crack cocaine throughout Rockford. Nashawn Nevlis, arrested on Loomis Ave after a foot chase with police, faces charges of dealing crack cocaine, along with other violations.
The YMCA of Rock River Valley and Rockford Area CrimeStoppers are working together to seek out information in the disappearance of Antonio Little. The YMCA is offering up to a $5,000.00 reward for information leading to Little’s return. Little is a Program Coordinator for the YMCA’s Community Outreach location. He has been missing since May 25. The YMCA of Rock River Valley will hold a public prayer vigil Tuesday, June 9, 2015, at 5:30pm outside the Log Lodge at the ID Pennock Family YMCA in downtown Rockford.
Illinois courts could use specially trained dogs to make young, disabled victims of sexual abuse more comfortable under a bill headed to the governor’s desk. The legislation lets courts use “facility dogs” to help kids tell their story to prosecutors or while giving testimony in court. Lake County State’s Attorney Michael Nerheim supports the idea. The bill, which also applies to those who are mentally or developmentally disabled, still needs to be signed into law by the governor.

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