June 12: Illinois distributes first $25M to local pharmacies to help them compete.”

June 15: “Illinois lawmakers seek to streamline contracting for service providers.”

Lawmakers passed the Prescription Drug Affordability Act last year. That created a fee structure affecting pharmacy benefit managers, generating enough revenue to give $56,892 in grants to 434 independent pharmacies to support operations, expand hours and offer services like delivery and remote consultations. Recipients are in 252 cities across 94 counties.

Obviously, folks are happy to get the money. Joy is considerably less evident in the second story, which focuses on human services agencies that contract with the state and report significant payment delays or lag time in even getting contract renewals finalized before the start of the fiscal year.

Circumstances are nowhere near as dire as last decade’s two-year budget impasse, where the state’s bill backlog cleared $16 billion, but the frustration is justifiable for people who are trying to provide for clients. A 2023 contractor survey shed light on the situation, noting disparate impact on smaller contractors already running on tighter budgets.

The contradiction reminds us that there’s a large gap between the accomplishment of a grant award and the optimistic news release from a lawmaker who “secured the funding” and the day the check actually clears and concrete plans can take effect.

It’s become commonplace to note the red-flag phrase “subject to appropriations” indicates a passed proposal comes with strings attached, but administrative delays can cause their own loose ends often ignored in pursuit of the next positive headline.

That said, credit for the recent passage of House Bill 4340, which clarifies agencies must submit vouchers to the comptroller within 30 calendar days of getting a contractor’s invoice or bill and stipulates the state will issue contracts at least 60 days before the fiscal year starts or 60 days after accepting required documentation.

State Sen. Mike Halpin, D-Rock Island, sponsored that bill and noted the state can’t just pass out money, placing focus on “the integrity and the transparency and the responsibility that we have as a state to make sure that taxpayer money going out the door, goes out in an appropriate way.”

The hope is HB 4340 strikes the intended balance between those concerns and “maintaining convenience and participation on the part of the organizations,” Halpin said.

Legislators wouldn’t have enacted such grants or established funding partnerships without a sincere hope of realizing the end goals the money is supposed to serve. But good government requires diligence and time, meaning it takes real work to keep the front-end happiness a reality for recipients.

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

Inmates, lawyers, guards, medical staff, administrators, chaplains (and families of all of the above) and more – anyone who has had to personally or 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.

Sometimes, the sources take care of the heavy lifting.

Consider this quote Peter Hancock used in his Capitol News Illinois story on the State Board of Education’s adoption of a new Comprehensive Numeracy Plan. The board took the formal action Wednesday, and member Donna Leak was on point:

“One of the things that I always have struggled with is people say, ‘Oh, you know, I don’t do math. I’m not a math person.’ Nobody ever says, ‘I don’t read,’ right? So how do we take away that stigma of mathematics being something that is unattainable for everyone?”

Comparing the two is apt because the numeracy effort is a direct result of ISBE’s excitement over the literacy plan it approved in 2024. State Superintendent Tony Sanders noted the earlier effort was a response to a handful of legislative proposals to improve reading and writing, prompting education leaders to be more proactive regarding arithmetic.

In April 2025, a statewide needs assessment survey began the process. Then, in June, a daylong Numeracy Summit yielded a 182-page report with the operating theme that numeracy (defined as applying math to real-world contexts) comes from fluency (the computation and manipulation of numbers). ISBE then conducted seven in-person and one online listening session.

Kirsten Parr, ISBE standards and instruction director, said the final plan is built on input from thousands of people. I encouraged readers to either attend listening sessions or at least contact local school board members to encourage them to communicate about the process at public meetings, all as a reminder that there are way more options than the occasional vote for everyday residents to help influence government operations.

But Leak’s quote helps remind us that although public schools are very much a function of government, the work of academic growth happens in and outside those walls and often with the influence of factors – tangible and otherwise – that teachers and administrators can never control.

I’m very much guilty of identifying as “not a math person” or, as written in September, an “English major who can’t help his sons with their math homework once they reach middle school.” Leak is correct; no one jokes about illiteracy. Typically, adults who struggle with reading try hard to mask the situation.

Some might think it’s amusing to not understand calculus, but obviously, it’s vital to grasp math concepts and their use in daily life. It’s great to have nice test scores, but we also have to prepare students for adulthood.

Here’s hoping the numeracy effort lives up to its billing.

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

In many cases, it’s the same solution: more money. But that simple reality also is why none of the problems are easily solved – there’s never enough to go around.

Consider Wednesday’s in-depth piece from Capitol News Illinois and the Illinois Answers Project detailing the struggles of families seeking services from Early Intervention, a public program for children up to age 3 who doctors identify as having disabilities or experiencing delays in typical development.

Meredith Newman and Madison Hopkins provided must-read coverage for anyone interested in the topic (tinyurl.com/IAPearlyintervention), but the upshot is that there aren’t enough therapists to meet demand, which leaves needs unmet during critical phases.

The problem, as usual, is money. Illinois therapists working in the program earn less than those in other states. They’re independent contractors – no benefits, no pay for traveling to a client’s home or time spent on paperwork – and don’t earn anything if a family cancels a session.

“It’s not like this in other states,” according to the report. “In Indiana, speech language pathologists have an hourly rate of $118, compared to $85 in Illinois. New Jersey reimburses therapists 50% when clients miss appointments. Missouri offers mileage reimbursement and travel incentives.”

Factor in other employment opportunities for these trained professionals, and it’s not surprising to hear that almost 500 Early Intervention therapists withdrew from the program each year from 2018 to 2022. All of this makes it easy to say Illinois should just throw more money at the issue: Higher base pay, better reimbursement policies, maybe some student loan credits or tuition and certification cost reductions, and so forth.

Clearly, money alone doesn’t solve the problem. Needs such as these exist in every corner of Illinois, and it’s difficult to envision a way of guaranteeing qualified therapists in every county. Evidence to that effect is the number of other professions with similar concerns. We have “deserts” all over the state: child care, maternity, emergency rooms, pharmacies, lawyers and more. You can’t just “salary and benefits” your way out of those struggles.

That said … real fixes aren’t possible without extra money, either, otherwise the problems probably wouldn’t persist. And so it’s back to the beginning: absent additional spending, no improvements will be sufficient.

With respect to Early Intervention, Illinois is trying. The budget for Fiscal 2027 includes $15 million more than last year. But advocates called for $40 million. And the state’s consultants said getting our reimbursement rates on par with comparable states takes about $150 million. Annually.

Which of course means the program finds itself in the deep bucket of competing Springfield priorities – one of which is those who want to spend less every year on everything.

“Easy solutions” are usually neither.

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

When it comes to government in Illinois, the dynamics are a little different because the Democratic power stronghold means the two sides are less likely to be left-right than two factions within the ruling party, or in some strange cases, an almost unanimous group of lawmakers seeking to placate external groups with conflicting missions.

As noted on Wednesday, advocacy groups aren’t responsible for the big picture, but can be expected to push their own interests. That was the case regarding proposed changes to the federal 340B drug pricing program, with community-halted centers and hospitals on one side of the ledger and drug companies on the other.

A May 19 column explained a Senate amendment to House Bill 2371 would protect access to the federal program, launched in 1992, which requires pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs at steep discounts to certain providers serving large numbers of Medicaid patients. Those facilities then profit when selling medications to patients.

That piece relied on original reporting from Peter Hancock of Capitol News Illinois (tinyurl.com/CNI-340B), who also filed Monday’s piece explaining where lawmakers settled during the busy days at the end of the spring session (tinyurl.com/340Boutcome).

Lawmakers ultimately passed a bill barring drug companies from interfering with the ability to use contract pharmacies to dispense covered drugs and limited mandatory disclosure of cost or income data to only what state or federal law already requires.

But that only passed, Hancock continued, with the addition of House Bill 4327, a “transparency” bill ordering the Illinois Department of Insurance to audit the program as a means of determining how much revenue the clinics and hospitals make as well as how it’s spent, along with other useful information, such as requiring drugmakers to report their aggregate discounts since 2020. The House approved the bill 106-8, and the Senate endorsed 57-0.

As is true any time medical care is the topic, anything Illinois does will never be a complete solution because so much of the healthcare system is entangled in federal laws and regulations. To the extent these bills placate either of the competing interests at this juncture – or even after all the audits are released and scrutinized – everything is subject to change if or when Congress changes the tools in the box.

CNI cited numbers from KFF, a nonprofit health policy, research, polling and news group, stating 340B accounted for $2.4 billion in nationwide drug purchases in 2005 and $66.3 billion in 2023. With that much money at stake and patchwork regulations, this matter is far from settled in Illinois and beyond.

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

From Capitol News Illinois Friday: “Gov. JB Pritzker suspends tax breaks for data center, urges more discussion.”

The first option is balancing facts and quotes from Maggie Daugherty’s reporting (tinyurl.com/CNIdatapause) against Jessie Molloy’s weekend Shaw Local story “Illinois data center fight escalates as state regulation fails and communities push back.“

A second is considering Pritzker’s action in the context of WGLT-FM’s Friday headline: “Trump administration blocks wind farm development in Illinois and across the nation” (tinyurl.com/WGLTwindfarms) to explore questions of executive authority versus local control.

Here, we’ll stick with the third: using the pause as a reminder that in government, special interest groups should always be expected to fully advocate for their own interests.

The Illinois Manufacturers’ Association released a statement Friday opposing the pause, with President/CEO Mark Denzler acknowledging “balanced regulations are important” but expressing concern about “risking growth, job creation and the next generation of technological breakthroughs” as well as “any policy framework that would inadvertently harm large manufacturers that use large amounts of energy and water to produce the goods that are a part of our everyday lives and help drive our economy.”

CNI said Climate Jobs Illinois and Illinois AFL-CIO organizers issued a joint statement predicting the pause would “send billions of dollars in investment and thousands of union jobs to Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio – states that sit on the same electrical grid, where those data centers will be built anyway, just without Illinois workers protected by nationally leading labor standards and without the clean energy requirements we’ve collaboratively fought to establish here.”

This is how it should be: these organizations have state purposes and Pritzker’s pause runs counter to those goals. And whether these or other groups align with the governor politically on other issues is and should be irrelevant when that runs headlong into a disagreement.

Similar scenarios play out throughout the year, but especially during the state budgeting process. My inbox was full of releases from groups that typically lean left but had plenty to say about the General Assembly’s funding commitments for certain priorities, notably K-12 and higher education.

Or there’s the strange bedfellows issue of nuclear generation legislation. A few years back, it was pretty easy to find a “Pritzker Sucks” sign in the same yard as a “Save the Nuclear Plants” placard. Those voters only got their desired outcome through red-district legislators collaborating with the ruling Democrats.

In short, it’s not a special interest group’s job to see the big picture. We reserve that challenge for those in elected office who must blend competing concerns into functioning governments.

Much easier written than done, but it’s the job they sought and won.

• 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.