Getting a 230-page transit bill passed by the Illinois Legislature this year was a relief for Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston) for several reasons. One: She gets stopped in the halls by lobbyists less often now.

How often did they “check in” with Hamos before the bill passed?

“All day long,” Hamos said. So, it was no surprise to the Illinois lawmaker who’s widely lauded for averting “doomsday” by working to pass the most recent transit bill when she learned the Regional Transportation Authority and the Chicago Transit Authority were ranked as the top two government agencies when it came to dollars spent on lobbying during the 2007 fiscal year, which ended June 30.

The report, recently released by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform was the first of its kind in the state. The group had to file Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain most of the information. The non-partisan watchdog group reported that the RTA spent the most money for the reporting period- $223,660- with the CTA a close second at just over $220,000.

Two other transit agencies, PACE (providing bus service to Chicago’s suburbs) and Metra (providing passenger rail services in and around Chicago), also ranked among the top 10 spenders in the report. Altogether, the four transit agencies spent almost $700,000 on 14 different lobbying firms over the one-year period.

David Morrison, assistant director at Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and chief author of the report, had mixed feelings about the prominent spots transportation agencies secured in the top ten list.

“If that expenditure is what it takes to get the state to understand our regional issue, then that’s worth it. At the same time,” he said, “14 firms is a lot.”

Morrison said the inspiration for the investigation came from the Center For Public Integrity, an independent journalism organization based in Washington, D.C. The organization tracks lobbying by state in its ongoing investigation titled “Hired Guns.” As of 2005, the most recent information available, Illinois ranked 45th in terms of the amount of information required to be disclosed by lobbyists and the government agencies who hire them.

Steve Carpinelli, media relations manager for the Center for Public Integrity said money spent on lobbying is not always money well spent.

“There isn’t always a correlation between amount of lobby dollars spent and budget dollars secured,” he said.

In the case of Illinois transit, Hamos said the taxpayer money spent was sadly necessary.

“I wouldn’t say it was a waste,” she said. “I do think it was a lot of money, and it was unfortunate…we wished they would spend their money in other ways.”

The Midwest High Speed Rail Association is a non-profit transit advocacy organization based in Chicago. One of its projects is Transit Riders’ Alliance, which held a Transit Lobby Day in Springfield last week. The organization brought members of the public to Springfield to discuss the expansion of transit in Illinois with state lawmakers, including Hamos.

Rick Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, said his group is “certainly not adversarial” with professional transit lobbyists, but that they are independent.

He supports the right of transit agencies to hire lobbyists because highway and road construction firms have lobbying built into their budgets and because such private companies can afford to spend much more than their public counterparts, such as the RTA and CTA.

“Given how much lobbying is done by the road gang, we certainly need something to counteract that,” said Harnish.

Hamos said while she appreciates the work lobbyists do in Springfield, she hopes the work of lawmakers and organizations, such as Midwest High Speed Rail Association, are not overlooked.

A searchable list of registered lobbyists is available through Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s office.

“If we had no lobbyists in this place, we would not be able to juggle 3,000 bills each year,” she said. “[But] at the end of the day, it wasn’t the lobbyists that got a transit bill passed.”

With little over a month left to file taxes, some cash-strapped taxpayers feeling the crunch of an economy sliding toward recession turn to refund anticipation loans. Such short-term loans mean they can walk out of a tax preparer’s office with their refund check in hand.

State officials and watchdog groups — such as Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and the Better Business Bureau — have been warning Illinoisans for years about the high interest rates and fees charged in refund anticipation loans. Now, a bill in the Illinois legislature could help balance the scales in taxpayers’ favor.

House Bill 1437 was originally intended to reform other short-term loans, but it appears a bill in the Senate was getting more traction on the issue. So, bill sponsor Rep. David Miller (D-Dolton) introduced an amendment to his own measure, gutting and renaming it “The Tax Refund Anticipation Loan Act.”

The bill requires state regulation of tax preparers, caps the interest rate on refund loans at 36 percent and requires tax professionals to post information about fees and interest rates on such loans.

Thirty-six percent may still seem like a lot, but it’s nothing compared to what is currently charged. A study released jointly by the Consumer Federation of America and the National Consumer Law Center said interest rates on such loans currently range from 50 percent to 500 percent. Other financial watchdog groups had similar figures.

“Our experience has been that [refund anticipation loan interest rates] are triple digits,” said Sharon Reuss, spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, a national research and policy group based in North Carolina.

Specific costs of a refund loan are uncertain until after an applicant’s taxes are prepared and they are approved for a short-term loan by the bank with which the tax preparer works.

All tax professionals contacted for this article declined to give specific rates, but promised discounts in fees charged for tax preparation to potential customers expressing interest in a refund anticipation loan.

Another concern addressed in the bill is the lack of regulation of tax preparers in Illinois. In a state that requires licensure for auctioneers, geologists and interior designers, a tax professional can operate without regulation of any kind.

The proposed regulatory responsibility would fall to the Illinois Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. Sue Hofer, communications director for the agency, said such a law would put Illinois at the forefront of tax professional regulation. Only California and Oregon have similar state statutes. Currently, the Internal Revenue Service is the only regulatory authority for tax professionals in Illinois.

“Right now, the companies are only regulated by the federal government,” she said.

However, participation in the IRS’s regulation program is voluntary. Enrolled tax preparers must pay $125 in dues and attend 72 hours of continuing education every three years in exchange for the designation.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office noted income taxes function as an interest-free loan to the government, which the IRS pays back to taxpayers every year in refunds.

“The government’s had your money all year anyway. Why pay more money to someone else?” said Scott Mulford, deputy press secretary for the office. Mulford said most taxpayers can file electronically and sign up for direct deposit of their return, usually obtaining a refund within two weeks.

The IRS is also taking a closer look at refund anticipation loans, accepting comments from the public on the marketing of refund anticipation loans through April 9. The agency is considering curtailing the promotion of such loans, depending on the feedback it receives.

There are several Illinois Department of Human Services programs offering free tax preparation help for residents earning less than $15,000 a year ($40,000 per family). More information is available by calling (312) 409-1555. Also, the Center for Economic Progress has 36 free tax preparation sites throughout the state offering similar services. Call (312) 252-0280 for more information.

A call by Chicago’s Better Government Association for an audit of Chicago Public Schools magnet school applications was heeded this week.  But the watchdogs aren’t satisfied.

Sabin Magnet School Principal Barton Dassinger blew the whistle on 12 cases of application fraud at his school earlier this year.  Parents and one clerk at the school falsely claimed student applicants had siblings already attending the school, increasing the prospective students’ chances of enrollment.

Sandra Alverio, a former Sabine clerk, resigned last year, denying allegations she put her niece’s name as a sibling on student’s applications to the school.  Some parents admitted to fudging applications to Sabin without intervention by Alverio.

After calling the incident isolated, Chicago Public Schools said no inquiry would take place regarding application fraud.  Two days later, after calls from the Better Government Association to do so, Chicago Public Schools said they would perform a random audit several undisclosed magnet schools.

Michael Vaughn, Chicago Public School’s press secretary, confirmed the forthcoming audit Wednesday, Feb. 13. Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association, was not convinced the planned audit would go far enough. He was concerned about the timing of the audit.  A widely publicized audit of applications may serve as a warning to school officials and parents to avoid impropriety in the application process for one year, but he said he doubts it will clean up any widespread fraud that may be occurring.

“Who’s going to do the follow-up?” Stewart asked.

The audit will review whether applicants’ assertions of having siblings at a school are accurate.  Such a connection enables prospective students to participate in a “sibling lottery.”  The audit will also examine whether applicants live within 1.5 miles of the school, a requirement for participation in the “proximity lottery.”

The audit will not look at the 5 percent of students admitted at a principal’s discretion, another area worth investigating according to Stewart.

Stewart also advocated including a parent verification signature area on the application.  At selective enrollment schools, parents must affirm the information on the application is correct, but magnet schools do not have that requirement.

Vaughn said such suggestions are under consideration.  A “boxed statement” which would require a parent’s signature to verify that the information on the application is correct and true is “something which we’re looking at doing,” said Vaughn.

Vaughn said the audit will occur over the next few months and will be run by the Office of Academic Enhancement.

Stewart criticized the source of the audit.  He compared Chicago Public Schools’ investigating its own schools to the proverbial fox watching the hen house.

Despite such objections, the Illinois State Board of Education would have little investigatory control.  Though the State Board did not return calls for comment, John Lyday, associate executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards, said the culture of education would likely be a barrier to a state audit.

“Local control is a venerated part of Illinois, and frankly national, education; magnet schools exist at the discretion of an independent school district,” Lyday said, explaining that how to organize and operate magnet schools remains the decision of individual municipalities.

Moving the nation’s first primary contest from one flat, Midwestern state to another may not seem like a radical idea. But changing the primary schedule so that the “Land of Lincoln” voted before the Hawkeye state could change the outcome of presidential elections altogether.

“It would be a remarkably different world,” said Kent Redfield, political science professor at the University of Illinois in Springfield.

Illinois is one of 22 states with primaries scheduled Feb. 5, known as Super Tuesday, to weigh in on the candidates for president. Iowa held the first caucus in the nation on Jan. 3.

Illinois and Iowa are not as similar as their shared border may suggest. Most notably, Illinois is more diverse.

According to U.S. Census data from 2006, 35.4 percent of people living in Illinois identify themselves as a race other than white, which is very close to the national average of 34.8 percent. In comparison, Iowa has only a 9.3 percent minority population.

The Associated Press named Illinois “the most average state” in the country in a study published in 2006 based on census data. In the same study, Iowa ranked 41st.

IIlinois has “a lot greater variance in terms of how people look at government,” said Charlie Wheeler III, professor of public affairs reporting at the University of Illinois in Springfield.

Illinois is “much less ideological” than Iowa, Redfield said, which makes religion less important for candidates in this state.

Also, certain issues that are not raised in Iowa might become more central in candidates’ stump speeches if Illinois were first, For instance, Redfield said Democrats might talk about urban problems, transportation and big city revitalization while Republicans might focus on globalization and manufacturing if they campaigned in Illinois first.

Republicans might have a harder time talking about immigration in Illinois, Wheeler said. Iowa Republicans are “trying to out-jingo each other,” he said, whereas in Illinois, they would have to be “a lot more flexible on immigration.”

J.R. Cohen volunteered at Sen. Chris Dodd’s campaign office in Davenport, Iowa until the senator dropped out of the race. A New Jersey native, she supports Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status over other states because of the way Iowans interact with candidates.

“They beat them up a few times . . . it’s just ingrained,” she said. “That’s what makes this place better than New Jersey or Illinois.”

But Cohen’s colleague, Gary Turco, disagreed. Turco is from Connecticut and admitted to being a little jealous of Iowa’s political importance. He said he would support a system where other states got a chance to be first.

“It does seem like it would be more fair,” Turco said.

When analyzing Super Tuesday, experts often talk about the three big states voting that day: California, New York and Illinois. However, in land area (excluding water), Iowa is actually larger than Illinois by almost 300 square miles.

What makes Illinois “big” is Chicago. The population of Illinois is more than four times that of Iowa. Redfield estimates 60 percent of the Illinois vote comes from Cook County.

Any candidates competing in Cook County can expect to pay big money for advertising.

A 45-day “political window” just before a state’s caucus or election is set aside by federal law, in which candidates running for national office cannot be charged more than the lowest rate charged to other advertisers. Still, advertising price differences between Iowa and Illinois stations can be large.

Doug Wood, director of sales for several Des Moines area radio stations, estimated a 30-second ad might cost $250 in Des Moines, while a Chicago station might demand ten times that amount. He estimated the ratio for TV ads would be the same.

Iowans point to differences like these as a reason for their state to remain first. Susan Frembgen, chairman of the Scott County Democratic Party, said it is easier for candidates to invest campaign funds in Iowa.

“It’s good for the nation, obviously,” Frembgen said. “If you want to take it to a state like California or New York, it will become a 30-second commercial everywhere and that’s how you’ll vote for your next president.”

The outcome of the most recent Iowa caucus would be much different were it an Illinois primary instead, Redfield said.

For example, Mike Huckabee (winner in Iowa) and Ariz. Sen. John McCain (winner in New Hampshire) would have been at an economic disadvantage to rivals with bigger war chests, he said.

Redfield predicted that Ill. Sen. Barack Obama’s “favored son” status here would have given him an even easier win than his almost 8 percent margin of victory in Iowa.

Moving the nation’s first primary contest from one flat, Midwestern state to another may not seem like a radical idea. But changing the primary schedule so that the “Land of Lincoln” voted before the Hawkeye state could change the outcome of presidential elections altogether.

“It would be a remarkably different world,” said Kent Redfield, political science professor at the University of Illinois in Springfield.

Illinois is one of 22 states with primaries scheduled Feb. 5, known as Super Tuesday, to weigh in on the candidates for president. Iowa held the first caucus in the nation on Jan. 3.

Illinois and Iowa are not as similar as their shared border may suggest. Most notably, Illinois is more diverse.

Chicago is not doing enough to address the “sad state of family housing,” a leading affordable housing advocate told several Chicago City Council members last week.

“How are we servicing families?” asked Kevin Jackson, executive director of the Chicago Rehab Network, after the Housing and Real Estate Committee received a quarterly update from the Department of Housing‘s Acting Commissioner Ellen Sahli.

Commissioner Sahli said several new development projects have been constructed in neighborhoods around the city, including Kenwood and Lawndale. She also highlighted the department’s outreach efforts, which include holding expos and targeting grants to specific groups of residents who need housing assistance.

This is the second year of the city’s five-year $1.5 billion housing plan. So far in 2007 the Department of Housing has spent more than $235 million on about 6,000 housing units, according to a Department press release, and by year’s end the Department expects to commit over $537 million in resources to support 12,309 units of housing.

“We are on target,” Sahli said of her department’s progress. Although she noted the second quarter spending was not a ‘full fourth’ of this year’s budget, Sahli said it was due to building cycles. She predicted that the third quarter building boom would more than make up for the slower growth during the period from April to June.

After the city official spoke, the Chicago Rehab Network’s  Jackson gave his analysis of the housing report to committee members. Jackson praised the department’s work but said more money should be spent on affordable housing in Chicago.

The city’s housing budget this year is $31.4 million, Jackson said, but he believes the Chicago Department of Housing should receive $40 million next year, since it has not been spending enough on public housing projects.

Ald. Ray Suarez (31st), chairman of the Housing and Real Estate Committee, admitted the city “can do more,” but insisted that the report “shows that the city of Chicago is working.”

Suarez said no city does more for affordable housing than Chicago and there are no additional funds to expand the department’s budget. He suggested the private sector could step in but noted it is unlikely unless businesses could make enough money investing in affordable housing.

“The bottom line is profit,” Suarez said. “If they can’t make a profit, they won’t do it.”

Jackson said the city shouldn’t depend on private funding because the role of government is to “be involved where the market is not involved.” Jackson believes investing in affordable housing should be a main priority of the department.

“We called for the city to do more…because the payoff over time is incalculable,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s entreaty fell on a quiet room. The only members of the Housing Committee present, other than Chairman Suarez were Aldermen Lona Lane (18th), Sharon Dixon (24th) and Ariel Reboyras (30th). The aldermen only asked a few clarifying questions of Jackson and Sahli.

Journalist Mick Dumke also noted the low attendance of committee members at the housing meeting in a posting on a Chicago Reader blog last week.

Aldermen Pat Dowell (3rd), John Pope (10th), James Balcer (11th), Billy Ocasio (26th), Scott Waguespack (32nd), Richard Mell (33rd), Carrie Austin (34th), William Banks (36th) and Bernie Stone (50th) also serve on the committee but were absent from the Sept. 19th meeting.

Jackson had no comment when asked for his reaction to the low aldermanic turnout but said government should be “attentive and responsive” to important issues such as affordable housing.