Inmates, lawyers, guards, medical staff, administrators, chaplains (and families of all of the above) and more – anyone who has had to personally of professionally engage with the reality of incarceration – and everybody else.

Outside of touring a few facilities, working on criminal court stories and the occasional letter from an incarcerated reader, I count myself in with the outsiders. Chances are good you do, too, and we should all consider ourselves lucky.

The distinction between those who know and those who don’t is significant enough to always give pause when considering a column invoking IDOC. But part of the reason to keep trying to bridge the gap is the ease with which the “everybody else” contingent just moves on with their lives, sparing few thoughts for what to others is daily, inescapable reality.

Enter Friday’s news release from IDOC and the Capital Development Board regarding plans to “construct two new multi-level security facilities in Crest Hill … including design features that focus on creating rehabilitative and gender-responsive spaces with housing, education, programming, medical and mental health, dietary and recreational areas to support the successful re-entry of individuals into their communities.”

That means the end of the line for nearby Stateville, but also Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison in Lincoln that opened in the 1870s as “the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children.” This is problematic for the local economy, and despite any misgivings about people earning a living off caging other humans, it’s impossible to shake the reality that closing a major employer has immediate and long-term implications for even the “everybody else.”

And absolutely none of this is surprising. Judges have been ordering Illinois to fix various aspects of its prison infrastructure for years. A 2023 report showed $2.5 billion in deferred maintenance needs at IDOC sites. Lawmakers allocated $900 million in the Fiscal 2025 budget to close and rebuild Stateville and Logan.

We can’t even address all the life safety issues at public school buildings throughout the state so it’s not a big shocker prisons also can’t get capital funding. Some of these issues have been around stretching back multiple gubernatorial administrations to the point where it’s fair to wonder if elected officials think no one important is paying attention.

And, for “everybody else,” maybe that’s ultimately true, or at least electorally insignificant. But the people who know all too well what consequences this lack of attention has effectuated don’t have the luxury of turning to different challenges.

Illinois has created these problems over political generations and its current leaders must provide solutions. “Everybody else” should get on board.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.

In January 2021, I filed a column headlined “Foreign language study is valuable, but not essential in high school.” At the end of May 2026, the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 3070 – 58-0 in the Senate and 117-0 in the House – amending a law that made two years of world language study a mandatory high school graduation requirement.

According to a Capitol News Illinois summary of school-related bills to pass in the final hours of spring session, people who backed the change generally support the emphasis of language study in high school but conceded the mandate doesn’t square with the reality: there aren’t enough teachers to go around.

“What we’re finding is that teacher shortage is still a big challenge in our state and we do not have enough foreign language teachers,” Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, D-Westchester, said on the Senate floor.

Notably, the House didn’t consider another bill – a Senate amendment to House Bill 4795 – that would’ve just canceled the requirement altogether. The Senate also unanimously approved that bill but the House only approved the version that included provisions for approved career and technical education classes as an alternative to world language study.

“We want to put more effort in workforce development while we’re building that pool,” Lightford added, a tactful acknowledgment that by the time kids near high school graduation, one-size-fits-all curriculum dictates are simply too limiting.

With the stage reset, there is renewed opportunity for language advocates to embrace different approaches, such as starting second-language lessons in elementary school or ensuring proper credit for students who take a full year of high school-level language spread across two middle school grades.

I’ve never disputed the sincere value of learning languages beyond the one spoken at home, but I also sincerely believe in the importance of music or art classes through 12th grade, teaching everyone to drive, building lifelong health and fitness habits, understanding government and personal finances, developing critical reading and communication skills and, well, I’ve spent an awful lot of time trying to figure out how to make that all fit into eight semesters for my own kids and suspect I might not be alone.

There are enough ongoing challenges with public school systems to make it easy to argue against further mandates, funded or otherwise. And yet there are tremendous success stories of teenagers with high school diplomas ready to do great things because of success with a vocational program or an inspiring language teacher or some other great influence or opportunity.

Kids deserve chances to succeed. Languages warrant a seat at that table, but that table should be tall and wide and not limited to high school.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.

Today’s topic is Gov. JB Pritzker’s Building Up Illinois Developments initiative (tinyurl.com/CNI-BUILD), largely overlooked here during the spring session if only because it seemed unlikely to pass as too many housing shortage stakeholders couldn’t find common ground.

With that plausible outcome now reality, and given the unofficial shift from general session into campaign season, it’s reasonable to question what (if anything) the failure might indicate about electoral consequences. As such there was little surprise when reporters broached the topic during a Monday session with Pritzker, who said he didn’t consider the situation a political liability.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “The question is, do you want to elect somebody who’s actually for building more housing, or somebody who doesn’t have any plan at all?”

At this point in the exercise the actual topic (building more housing) is irrelevant. You can drop in any other policy area (property tax reform, transportation infrastructure, prescription drug access, etc.) and the question is equally applicable: Do voters want somebody with a plan or someone who is merely opposed to the status quo?

Pritzker himself hinted as much by pointing to other goals that didn’t reach the finish line on the first lap. He shrewdly chose to focus on an accomplishment – new statewide limits on student cellphone use – rather than something still in the hopper, but the point remains: no idea is ever truly dead because anyone can always introduce a new bill.

One step further, the inability to get a legislative proposal enacted isn’t the same degree of failure as passing a law that courts eventually negate, or especially Pritzker’s most embarrassing political defeat, the 2020 graduated income tax referendum through which voters soundly rejected a signature campaign goal.

But the larger takeaway isn’t just “do you like the candidate with the plan?” but for voters to consider stump pledges in a greater context than what a promise says about a politician. In other words: can this person get their ideas across the finish line?

Narrowing focus on BUILD, it’s certainly logical to ask a Democratic governor why the supermajority Democrats controlling the General Assembly didn’t enact something a Democratic Illinois Supreme Court majority would likely preserve.

Widening the aperture to all politicians reminds it’s always a good idea to wonder if any candidate’s speech carries the same amount of plausibility as an elementary school student council hopeful who pledges to outlaw homework or provide free nachos in the cafeteria.

Politics and government aren’t the same. Success requires being wildly effective at both, often concurrently. Answers to “How will you accomplish these goals?” – if available – often say more than any speech.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.

But those were yellow flags. Of much greater concern are red flags for taxpayers as the Lake Forest team continues attempting to convince Illinois lawmakers it deserves special treatment.

Despite mild comfort as the megaproject/payment in lieu of taxes approach ran out of gas on the final lap – and definitely “I love to say I told you so” vibes from a guy who used headlines such as “Would enough legislative districts benefit from granting Bears’ wishes?” and “Bears boosters still not giving enough lawmakers a good path to yes” – the slapdash proposals the Senate approved in Monday’s wee hours are equally concerning.

The House balked at the last-ditch effort, and although people like Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, say things like “There was no appetite at all to provide public dollars to a $10 billion sports franchise,” the fact is 37 people in Harmon’s chamber voted to do just that.

State Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, proposed allowing Arlington Heights (or Chicago) to create a new government body to own the actual football stadium. So just like any other public property in town – and just like Soldier Field – that parcel wouldn’t be on the tax rolls.

In complete isolation, that’s arguably a neutral move, insofar as no pro football stadium currently standing in Illinois generates real estate taxes.

Of course, nothing exists in isolation, least of all venues that seat tens of thousands of people. Even allowing the for the contention it’s difficult to pin down precise government spending owing to a professional sports venue, it should be easy enough to agree the answer is “more than zero.” That alone moves the ledger in the wrong direction.

Further, this new municipal stadium authority would’ve been empowered to issue revenue bonds to help fund construction, and fund that debt service with tax revenue, which doesn’t materialize from thin air, or perhaps team rent payments.

Then there’s the adjacent land, the primary reason the Bears want to leave Chicago’s lakefront: real estate development is profitable and the ownership family gets to silo such money outside the NFL’s revenue sharing pool. Designating that land a STAR bond district allows for reimbursing costs backed by future sales tax revenue, a tidy sum considering the land is presently vacant, and at least some of which comes at the expense of existing business activity. Which means as those businesses slow down, so does the state’s general revenue flow.

We already have an Illinois Sports Facilities Authority: it fronted the Soldier Field redevelopment that isn’t fully paid. Is this new proposal a false start or unnecessary roughness?

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.

Loyal readers know Illinois has lagged the nation on dealing with the implications of a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established local governments cannot take ownership of a delinquent property and sell it without compensating the original owner for their equity. Just last month U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly said Cook County should pay millions of dollars to thousands of former homeowners for violating their Fifth and Eighth amendment rights.

So the reform is obviously well overdue. But at least it’s also confusing!

According to Capitol News Illinois, the plan gets the biggest detail (mostly) correct: “if a homeowner fails to pay their debt in an initial redemption period, and their property is seized and sold, they will receive any surplus funds left over from the auction.”

This is all anyone really wanted, a means for people to at least get out the money they put in. There’s no meaningful argument to allow retained possession without ever paying property taxes, but neither was it proper to allow companies to take control of the full value of a home through the tax sale process.

But the bill also creates a six-year pilot program where Cook County – and only Cook County – can buy the tax debt itself on up to 100 “low-tax, homestead properties” per CNI, then submit an annual report outlining what happens to the certificates the county acquires and specifically how taxing districts and property owners are compensated.

State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, the lone Senate vote against the change, clearly explained his concerns in a quote given to CNI Friday: “In six years, Cook County’s going to do something completely different than the other 101 counties in Illinois, and I just don’t think that that makes sense,”

The bill also would create a surplus equity fund to help people who have lost their homes in the last two years (anything before that and you’re out of luck, it seems) with the money for said fund coming from a new set of fees charged to the companies that buy taxes.

Rose, along with state Rep. Steven Reick, R-Woodstock, expressed concerns the fee structure would disincentivize purchasing outstanding tax debt. While I’ve long been critical of Illinois’ clearly inadequate rules, it’s hard to fault companies playing by those rules and at the very least fair to acknowledge their role in getting governments their expected revenue.

This likely isn’t the final word, but it was long past time for progress.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.

Capitol News Illinois reported Wednesday on the current known sticking points as budget negotiations ramp up. No one this year has made any proclamations as bold as Gov. JB Pritzker’s late May 2025 pledge against signing a budget if it relied income or sales tax increases and new sales taxes on exempted services, but it’s still good to see where the players are laying markers.

Still, many things change between my writing and your reading. Illinoisans should actually expect plenty of new information given Sunday’s legislative deadline. Heck, if you’re reading this with morning coffee you know to expect developments before you load the dishwasher and head to bed, let alone my next column Tuesday.

As such, we’re not going wading into the weeds on this specific budget – are there even enough details for informed speculation? – but this part of the cycle always invites discussion about broader issues on how the state generates revenue.

Republicans are adamant about clamping down on revenue streams, pushing to suspend the sales tax Illinois adds onto motor fuels (after the gas tax is calculated) while some Democrats have eyes on increasing revenues about $4 billion through steps like taxing digital advertising and eliminating job creation tax credits.

CNI’s Ben Szalinski noted some of the push for new revenue now could be an attempt to offset a deficit in fiscal 2028 – a February report suggested the figure might reach $1.5 billion – with at least one Democrat specifically targeting concerns toward uncertainty from Washington, D.C.:

“We think it’s unacceptable to sit on our hands and not begin to make progress to change our unfair tax system at a time where were being attacked by the federal government and at a time where the cost of living is choking families,” said state Rep. Lindsey LaPointe, D-Chicago. “We can’t wait to start to bring in progressive revenue.”

If not directly implied, that remark at least hints at a reality anyone writing a budget must confront: stuff just keeps costing more every year, which means if budgets stay flat, people and services get cut. Lawmakers don’t deserve blank checks, but neither are there oodles of expensive, unpopular programs ripe for eradication.

Wherever this year’s budget settles, as is true every year, some will argue it takes in too much and others will demand increased spending in future cycles. There’s no way to fully satisfy either camp, underscoring the importance of making sure government functions adequately for enough voters to strike balance.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.

“Sports owners have notoriously short arms when it comes to their own deep pockets but gladly open their palms wide for public handouts,” I wrote June 23, 2021. “Any talk of the Bears moving, or luring an Olympics or Final Four, should trigger warning sirens for anyone concerned about government waste.”

It’s been an easy position to hold over the ensuing 1,800 days, one worth revisiting on the approach to an artificial deadline for deciding how much future elected officials are willing to mortgage in the name of private business.

Remember, the team’s lease on Soldier Field runs through 2033, and there are no indications the city would refuse to renew. Yes, there are incentives on the table should the family want to develop a biohazard site in northwestern Indiana. Yes, it’s been more than three years since the family paid $197.2 million to buy the former horse racing complex in Arlington Heights. Yes, the Illinois General Assembly ends its spring session Sunday. But no, none of those truths cast doubt about where the Bears will play the Minnesota Vikings Sept. 20.

I could use my space the rest of the year revisiting the many ways the Bears made all this harder than necessary, but perhaps my favorite quote of the saga comes from a December 2022 statement by Rep. Kam Buckner, the Chicago Democrat whose district includes the current stadium:

“Profits have ballooned for the Bears, but Chicago taxpayers still owe over $640 million” from the 2002 Soldier Field renovation, Buckner wrote. “Giving the Bears another gift-wrapped subsidy should not be on our list of priorities. Are the Bears ready to look taxpayers in the face and say why they deserve funding that could be going toward public safety, education and essential services?”

Consider that determination in the context of Tuesday’s Capitol News Illinois Insider report parsing the Cook County Treasurer’s Office analysis panning current proposals. But that math is murky given its reliance on hypothetical assessments, not to mention limitations of the family, urging focus on the stadium versus nine-figure infrastructure demands and larger questions about the remainder of the planned complex.

It’s been five years. There aren’t real plans; the only details we do have make it clear the team will only build if it gets to dictate property tax obligations, and now people who once stood firm against handouts are talking about making the best deal as if false urgency warranted reconsidering principles.

How many lawmakers who know better will still choose poorly?

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.

Not that we might be spared such a fate as the 31st of May approaches, but at least it’ll be a regular weekend past when we’d all rather be engaged in more pleasant spring rituals.

That said, every year the end of session contains too many developments to properly contextualize as they happen, so expect reviews of whatever passes or fails this week to carry well into June. But before then, I commend to your attention a piece from Tara Sun of the Medill Illinois News Bureau. Sun is a journalism grad student at Northwestern, which partners with Capitol News Illinois to enhance the type of Statehouse-based coverage that is CNI’s prime focus.

The headline: “Illinois grows millions of bushels of soybeans. Why aren’t we eating them? More local infrastructure urgently needed for Illinois’ own crops, especially soybeans, to make it from farm to table.”

Most folks understand agriculture remains a bedrock of the state economy, and there’s a fair chance even in-town residents know Illinois grows more soybeans than any other state. But I’m also comfortable asserting that it’s rare to find the nonfarm Illinoisan who truly understands the challenges of being a crop producer – I certainly don’t, even after 25 years of Midwestern newspaper work – and reports like Sun’s help broaden everyone’s understanding.

The entire piece is worth a read (tinyurl.com/MedillSoybeans), but it’s worth highlighting a few quotes and statistics.

The Illinois Soybean Association reports that 60% of Illinois soybeans leave the state, while the vast majority of the remainder is used for animal consumption. China is a leading importer of Illinois soybeans – a bit of a concern given recent disruptions in traditional international trade relations – and the fact that so much of the yield leaves the state overlaps significantly with transportation infrastructure concerns.

Sun’s report is about more than just a hill of beans.

“Ninety-five percent of food consumed in the state of Illinois is imported,” said state Rep. Sonya Harper, D-Chicago, House Agriculture and Conservation Committee chairwoman. “If there were any type of natural disaster, Illinois only has enough food that will last us for three days.”

I’ve written before about the Local Food Infrastructure Grant program, a key Harper initiative, which is showing early signs of potentially substantial impact if officials remain committed, especially financially.

Ag has long been big business. No one who understands Illinois would argue against its past, present and future importance. When considering farm policy, everyone needs good information to help contribute.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.