Necessity = Mother of Invention

- $5.1 billion in unpaid bills to schools, social service agencies, hospitals, small businesses and others,

- $11 billion budget deficit,

- Highest unemployment in decades leading to lost revenue in retail sales and income taxes,

- Runaway spending and borrowing.
 

Let’s face it: Illinois government is a mess. Seven years of spend-and-borrow policies, coupled with current economic woes, have brought us to this point. The governor and the political party in power haven’t been able to fix it. Moreover, it doesn’t look like they’ll be bringing forth solutions anytime soon.
 
While a change in leadership becomes an option in the November General Election, our schools, hospitals and social service agencies simply can’t wait. So, I’m suggesting another idea.
 
Crowdsourcing. According to Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing: Why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business, “(c)rowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.” Read the rest of this entry »

February 2, 2010 | Ruth Munson | Tags: , , , , , | Comments Closed

A portal to accountability

From time-to-time I will be highlighting individuals who are working towards greater transparency and ethics reform in Illinois state government. Illinois State Representative Michael Tryon is one of those individuals. Rep. Tryon has worked hard over several years to secure passage of ethics reform legislation that created the Illinois Transparency & Accountability Portal. Unbelievably, even against the backdrop of the Blagojevich fiasco, this legislation faced some challenges. Rep. Tryon stayed tough and his effort to provide Illinois residents with information about how their tax dollars are spent was signed into law last year. I’ve asked Rep. Tryon to share a bit about his legislation…
 
Getting to Transparency – a Portal to Accountability
by State Representative Michael Tryon
 
It’s hard to believe that just one year ago, then Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office. His impeachment stemmed from federal criminal corruption charges, which shed light on the pay-to-play allegations that plagued Blagojevich since the moment he took office.
 
Following his removal from office, public trust in government and elected officials was at an all-time low, and Illinois was placed in the punch line of late night comedians across the nation.
 
So where do we go from here? What steps can we take to restore the public’s trust in state government? The first thing that had to be addressed was transparency, specifically transparency in Read the rest of this entry »

January 28, 2010 | Ruth Munson | Tags: , , , | Comments Closed

Zep & me

The alarm went off at its usual time: 4:46 a.m. It was one of those mornings that I could have easily justified turning off the alarm, pulling the covers over my head and going back to sleep. I had already put in four days at the gym this week, my body ached, I stayed up late the night before and had a busy day planned that would go well into the evening. Another hour of sleep was earned…
 
I hit the snooze.
 
Then I remembered. Read the rest of this entry »

January 23, 2010 | Ruth Munson | Tags: , | Comments Closed

What if the Illinois statehouse were made of glass?

The Illinois State Capitol Dome image titled Capitol bulding (sp) dome (www.flickr.com/photos/mklingo/166435302/) was created by Max Kingensmith (www.flickr.com/people/mklingo/) and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-No derivative Works 2.0 Generic License. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en)

Serving in politics is a bit like living in a glass house. As a politician, your every move is scrutinized and your well-meaning motives are often questioned. I know. Four years on the Elgin City Council, followed by six years in the Illinois House of Representatives, has made my life an open book. The time served also clarified for me why it is important for government to be transparent. After all, it’s not easy keeping secrets while living in a glass house.
 
But, a glass house is not where Illinois government resides. Backroom deals, pay-for-play, and prison terms for governors have been the norm for far too long. Ethics reform has fallen short and the call for greater accountability is getting louder. Read the rest of this entry »

January 4, 2010 | Ruth Munson | Tags: , , , | Comments Closed