News Progress

•September 23, 2015•

By Ariana Cherry
NP Columnist

People and organizations in Illinois are hurting in more ways than one. Families and individuals who depended on government benefits have had to take a serious cut on the financial assistance that they receive. The Ameren PIPP (Percentage of Income Payment Plan) has become non-existent. The LIHEAP program had no summer assistance and will be running a month behind for the 2016 season.

Many people will be far behind or shut off possibly come the Oct 1 date. Although, come October 1, LIHEAP will be available only to seniors and disabled on the first round. Round two, in November, the program will add households with children under six years of age. Then in December, the general public will be able apply. Those who have state regulated utilities might be able to coast by some, as the winter moratorium will take place beginning December 1 and last through March 1. Although residents who have local utilities could be disconnected by the time they can apply in December.

Into its third month of the new fiscal year, Illinois still has not passed a budget, hurting many state funded agencies and organizations, one being the LIHEAP program. Everything has been pushed back a month, and low income families are having to tighten their belts even more. Read More

•September 16, 2015•

Submitted by U of I Extension

The fall series of University of Illinois Extension’s Four Seasons Gardening program, which focuses on environmental stewardship and backyard food production, gets underway this month. The first session of the series is titled, Practical Weed Control. The program is offered at 1:30 p.m. September 22 in both the Coles County Extension Office, located at 707 Windsor Road, Suite A, Charleston, and the Moultrie-Douglas Extension Office, located at 122 South Walnut Street in Arthur.

This session is also available for home participation by pre-registering at http://web.extension.illinois.edu/hmrs/4seasons/ Read More

•September 9, 2015•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

The state of Illinois typically lurches from year to year, focusing on its annual budget, never looking to the horizon. At present, operating without a formal budget as Gov. Rauner and Speaker Madigan wage their war of political attrition, the state is operating month to month, even day to day, as the courts step in to tell Comptroller Leslie Munger which bills to pay and when.

Given our grim budgetary situation and sullied state reputation, we almost desperately need to do some long-term thinking about Illinois, or we may crash. We don’t know where we are going.

I still recall from a 1970s book the lament of then North Carolina governor Terry Sanford that there is no one in the governor’s office whose only job is to gaze out the window and brood about the problems of the future.

More recently, former governor Jim Edgar told a group of up-and-coming Illinois leaders that, “Once you come into the governor’s office, there is no time for ‘the vision thing.’”

To put a point on Edgar’s remark, I remember when I was helping with the transition of new governor Jim Thompson into office in 1976, his chief of staff came into my office late one afternoon. He slumped in a chair and sighed that he had 400 telephone message slips(!) on his desk from mostly influential people who wanted something or to tell Thompson how he should run things. Read More

•September 2, 2015•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Some readers might think this column a tad eccentric. I like to call it “thinking outside the box.”

I propose a plan for Illinois to dramatically increase volunteerism for the state’s educational and social services, as a way of picking up some of the slack that results from state budget cuts.

Here’s the situation. Illinois will be figuratively toting an anvil on its back for the coming decades, represented by the $110 billion, or probably more, in unfunded pension liabilities.

To right the situation, which the state high court has ruled must be done, will require about $7 billion off the top of each year’s state budget. That is equal to almost two percentage points in the rate of the individual income tax. The rate now stands at 3.75 percent but will later in the year, I predict, go up to about 4.75 percent to balance the budget for the coming year.

As a result of budget shortfalls over recent years, there have been cutbacks in funding for social services and a woeful failure to meet what the state’s own experts say is the minimal amount of funding necessary to provide an adequate education. Read More

•August 19, 2015•

by Mary Hughes
Moultrie County Dove Inc., Outreach Coordinator

Studies consistently report victims are at a 75% higher risk of serious injuries and/or death once the victim has decided to end a relationship and/or while they are trying to leave.   The abuser believes he no longer has the power to get the victim back and under his control.  This is the most dangerous time for the victim and her children.   Although no one can accurately predict when or if a batterer will kill or escalate violence to a life threatening level, there are many indicators that can serve as warning signs that a batterer may be reaching that level.  It is important to note that while these indicators are a valuable assessment tool, the presence or absence of one or more indicators cannot definitively predict the behavior of a batterer.

The most important indication of life-threatening violence is the victim’s perception of her danger.  If the woman is very afraid and says she will be killed or may be killed, then the possibility of life-threatening violence is present.  National experts on domestic violence state that battered women are usually the best evaluators of the potential for lethal violence because they generally have more information about the batterer than anyone other than the batterer himself.  At the present time it appears that the best approach to screening for life-threatening violence is a combination of the women’s perspective and the domestic violence advocate’s assessment.

As long as the perception exists that the victims’ reluctance is the problem, efforts will be focused around what the victim should and should not do.  The question frequently asked is “How can we get victims to cooperate better?”  But that is the wrong question to ask since it is not likely to lead to greater perpetrator accountability or victim safety.  The questions most likely to lead to effective, long term solutions are:  “What can be done to hold perpetrators accountable? And who is in the best position to do that?” Read More