rk2's favorite articles on Inoreader
If you in the $935 million Powerball, just how much would you have to pay in taxes? A lot.
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Saturday's Powerball jackpot rose to an estimated $935 million. Here's how much you would have to pay in taxes if you win.
Report: Illinois teacher shortage requires new strategies for recruitment, retention - YouTube
Report: Illinois teacher shortage requires new ... What's driving a special education teacher shortage and how schools are responding ... Report: Most ...
C-U Public Health District launches free resources on mental health - The News-Gazette
Good Morning, Illini Nation: 'It was going to end sooner or later' · Barrett signs with Illinois · Bus to Boston: Orange Krush going the distance to ...
Illinois announces ambitious plan for equity-based funding model - Inside Higher Ed
Illinois announces ambitious plan for equity-based funding model  Inside Higher Ed
Community College Month declaration invites experiences, stories, including at IVCC
As Illinois Valley Community College celebrates a century of service, Gov. JB Pritzker is saluting the entire community college system's service ...
DCFS hires on-the-spot at hiring events - Freedom 95.9 and AM 1290
DCFS hires on-the-spot at hiring events  Freedom 95.9 and AM 1290
Appeals court skeptical of Mike Bost's case to stop ballot counts after Election Day - Tri States Public Radio
Appeals court skeptical of Mike Bost's case to stop ballot counts after Election Day  Tri States Public Radio
Appeals court skeptical of Mike Bost's case to stop ballot counts after Election Day - WVIK
Appeals court skeptical of Mike Bost's case to stop ballot counts after Election Day  WVIK
DCFS hires on-the-spot at hiring events - ibjonline.com
DCFS hires on-the-spot at hiring events  ibjonline.com
DCFS hires on-the-spot at hiring events - The Vedette
DCFS hires on-the-spot at hiring events  The Vedette
Appeals court skeptical of Mike Bost’s case to stop ballot counts after Election Day - The Vedette
Appeals court skeptical of Mike Bost’s case to stop ballot counts after Election Day  The Vedette
Abbeduto: State awards local food infrastructure grants as advocates seek program's extension - WMAY
Abbeduto: State awards local food infrastructure grants as advocates seek program's extension  WMAY
Vocal music teacher Aimee Wetenkamp sleaks to Neoga school board - Journal Gazette / Times-Courier
Vocal music teacher Aimee Wetenkamp sleaks to Neoga school board  Journal Gazette / Times-Courier
Illinois teacher shortage persists, survey finds
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A new survey shows schools in Illinois continue to struggle with a persistent teacher shortage.
DCFS hires on-the-spot at hiring events

By BETH HUNDSDORFER 
Capitol News Illinois
bhundsdorfer@capitolnewsillinois.com

Cyrenthia Threat spent Wednesday morning at a hiring event in Fairview Heights waiting for word on whether she was hired by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. 

Threat wants to move to Illinois from Georgia where she works as a social worker. She has 20 years of experience working in adult mental health. 

“I just need a change,” Threat said. “I need a job. I just need an opportunity.”

Candidates who attended the hiring event could receive a job offer that day – avoiding weeks and months of delay usually associated with seeking state employment.

DCFS hosted this event to boost numbers around the state as part of Gov. JB Pritzker’s proposed headcount increase at the agency. Under the plan, the agency would grow from 3,450 employees to 4,000. The headcount in 2017 was 2,481. 

“One of the biggest hurdles to successfully onboarding with the state was how long it took for them from when they first came in contact with the state and applied for a job to when they accepted an offer,” said DCFS Chief of Staff Jassen Strokosch. “And, as we know, folks do not like to wait around for a job. They are going to get other offers.”

To eliminate that obstacle, DCFS consolidated its 12-step hiring process, which includes interviews, grading, fingerprinting, and put it all in one place. The process is just as rigorous as a standard process, an agency spokesperson said, but merging the hiring processes allows for an expediated decision – contingent upon the outcome of background checks.

In recent years, DCFS has come under scrutiny after a series of deaths of children who died after contact the agency. Former Director Marc Smith received a dozen contempt citations from a Cook County judge who cited him personally for failing to ensure children were placed in appropriate settings. While those were eventually dismissed or overturned on appeal, Smith resigned from the position in October.

But for more than 30 years, DCFS has been under the supervision of a federal court. Part of the consent decree to settle a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of kids in care includes reducing worker caseloads, a goal the agency has struggled to meet. 

DCFS saw a five-year turnover rate of more than 20 percent statewide, according to an April filing connected to the decades-old consent decree. The new hiring system also attempts to address retention, Strokosch said. To keep the employees they are hiring, Strokosch said there were longtime employees in attendance at the hiring event to talk to prospective hires and let them know the rigors and rewards of the job. He also pointed out DCFS has one of the highest supervisor-to-caseworker ratios in the country, allowing newer employees to feel supported and guided.

“Most of the people that are coming to this event, are not straight out of school. These are folks with experience under their belt. For whatever reason, they want to change their career path. They are coming here because they want to be part of a mission-driven organization. And they want to know that they are making a difference. And we take that incredibly seriously, part of our job is to make sure that, if you are here, it’s because you care about kids,” Strokosch said.

In Fairview Heights, DCFS was looking to hire mostly permanency workers, who monitor and facilitate compliance with safety plans. Germaine Yancy, of East St. Louis, came out to see what DCFS could offer him. Yancy is currently unemployed but has worked with children and has a background in security.

“I saw an opportunity presented itself with the state of Illinois. They were seeking child welfare workers, so I just said I would come on out, see what it was all about,” Yancy said.

Candidates who may not qualify as a children protection investigator or a permanency worker may get a call later about a clerical or other position with the agency. 

“We have a whole table of career counselors here that take folks who may not have the qualifications for the job they thought they were coming here to get. And we try to match them up with another job in the agency that they might be qualified for and, and potentially recruit them down the road in the next few weeks. So, it is a win,” Strokosch said.

On-the-spot hiring events were previously held in Rockford and Bloomington. Additional hiring events are planned around the state. 

At the hiring event in Fairview Heights, 123 people were offered conditional employment. 

Threat, the Georgia social worker who hopes to relocate, was still in line at the event on Wednesday afternoon. No word on whether she was offered a job.

 

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association. 

 

Appeals court skeptical of Mike Bost’s case to stop ballot counts after Election Day

By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com

CHICAGO – A panel of federal appellate judges on Thursday seemed skeptical of legal arguments made on behalf of Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, who claims Illinois’ law allowing counting of mail-in ballots for two weeks after an election is in violation of federal law.

Bost’s late 2022 lawsuit was filed with help from a conservative group that assisted former President Donald Trump’s efforts to block the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day 2020. The suit named the Illinois State Board of Elections, seeking the court’s intervention against a 2015 state law that allows vote-by-mail ballots to be counted if they’re received within 14 days of Election Day so long as they were postmarked on or before Election Day.

A lower court judge dismissed Bost’s case last summer, ruling the state’s law governing mail-in ballots is in step with federal law. But Bost appealed, leading to Thursday’s oral arguments in front of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

The arguments happened to be scheduled nine days after Illinois’ 2024 Primary Election, in which the race for Cook County State’s Attorney was still too close to call Thursday as local election authorities were still counting mail-in ballots. While that scenario didn’t come up in front of the panel, Bost’s own recent electoral history did.

“Right now, he’s ahead in the count,” Bost’s attorney Russell Nobile said of his client’s close race against Republican challenger, former State Sen. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, the failed GOP candidate for governor in 2022. The Associated Press called the race for Bost the morning after the March 19 primary when Bost was 2,590 votes ahead of Bailey.

Read more: CNI’s 2024 Primary Election Results

“He has spent nine days monitoring late arrival ballots, calling districts, checking the internet, having his staff do it, to make sure that the victory that is believed he received on election night is not taken away by late-arriving ballots,” Nobile said.

In dismissing the case last summer, U.S. District Judge John Kness rejected Bost’s arguments that he had the right to sue over Illinois’ law allowing ballots to be counted for two weeks after Election Day. Bost claimed the law forced him to spend significant resources on his campaign for that same time period.

“It is mere conjecture that, if Congressman Bost does not spend the time and resources to confer with his staff and watch the results roll in, his risk of losing the election will increase,” the judge wrote. “Under the letter of Illinois law, all votes must be cast by Election Day, so Congressman Bost’s electoral fate is sealed at midnight on Election Day, regardless of the resources he expends after the fact.”

Alex Hemmer, who argued on behalf of the Board of Elections, sought to discredit any argument that Bost’s lawsuit was on behalf of voters who were “injured” by the law because the continued counting of mail-in ballots for two weeks after Election Day would “dilute” votes made on or before Election Day.

“Voters aren’t injured by a law that makes it easier for voters to cast ballots,” Hemmer told the panel.

Bost had also made an originalist argument about Illinois’ ballot counting law not comporting to the nearly two-century-old law that set Election Day as the first Tuesday in November. But Hemmer cut that argument down, pointing out that the nation’s first mass use of absentee voting occurred during the Civil War, when soldiers’ ballots were counted “days or weeks” after Election Day.

“The historical record does not support this argument at all,” he said. “If anything, it tends to refute it,” he said.

Judge Michael Scudder pointed out that many states also allow for the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day, and pointed out that Congress has long allowed ballots from overseas military personnel and has updated federal law recently enough to have considered the existence and impact of other state laws.

“It seems odd, though, in the military statutes, that Congress would acknowledge and respect the fact that some states have receipt deadlines that postdate Election Day,” Scudder said. “And that in the text of the federal statutes, Congress would allow those to be respected if, at the same time, all of the state law was categorically preempted.”

 

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

Unit 40 adapting to influx of students learning English as second language
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Effingham Unit 40 is taking steps to better accommodate its students who are learning English as a second language.
DCFS seeks to add more than 500 to the payroll
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Cyrenthia Threat spent Wednesday morning at a hiring event in Fairview Heights waiting for word on whether she was hired by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Appeals court skeptical of Mike Bost’s case to stop ballot counts after Election Day
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CHICAGO – A panel of federal appellate judges on Thursday seemed skeptical of legal arguments made on behalf of Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, who claims
DCFS hires on-the-spot at hiring events
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Cyrenthia Threat spent Wednesday morning at a hiring event in Fairview Heights waiting for word on whether she was hired by the Illinois Department of