VILLA PARK— State Senator Tom Cullerton (D-Villa Park) released the following statement in response to the Performance Audit of the Legionnaires’ Disease at the Quincy Veterans’ Home released by the Auditor General on Monday:

“The Auditor General’s report confirms what we already knew: Former Gov. Rauner and his administration failed our veterans and their loved ones.

“The previous administration spent their time and energy covering up their lies and failures, instead of working with the General Assembly to implement solutions that would have protected the health and well-being of our veterans, their loved ones and staff at the Illinois Veterans Home at Quincy.

“Every level of the former administration was focused on hiding their inept response to the Legionnaires’ crisis in Illinois. It is inexcusable and sickening that they were more worried about concealing their lies to the General Assembly than saving the lives of our nation’s heroes.”

Cullerton passed Senate Resolution 1186 on Feb. 15, 2018 which directed the Auditor General to conduct a performance audit of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ management of the Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks at the Quincy Veterans’ Home.

The Auditor’s report can be found here.

SPRINGFIELD – Having blood drawn can be a very anxious thing for a child with autism. Thanks to Senator Tom Cullerton (D-Villa Park), medical professionals may soon have access to training to help ensure individuals and developmental disabilities are as comfortable as possible.

Cullerton advanced Senate Bill 1214 on Tuesday, which requires the Department of Public Health to ensure that those who draw blood have the most current method of drawing blood from individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities available.

“Health care professionals strive to provide the best possible care to all patients,” Cullerton said. “This measure ensures that they receive training on the best practices to draw blood from patients that are living with intellectual and developmental disabilities such as Autism and Down’s syndrome have a good medical experience.”

The Department of Public Health will be required to compile current methods of drawing blood from children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Senate Bill 1214 was an initiative of Michael Baker, a parent advocate of a young adult son with a developmental disability.

“Medical visits can be stressful for all of us, but especially for individuals who can often face extra challenges,” Cullerton said. “We need to ensure that communication and sensory issues are taken into account when medical professionals perform procedures such as blood draws.”

Senate Bill 1214 passed the Senate’s Committee on Public Health with bipartisan support and will move to the full Senate for consideration.

SPRINGFIELD – State Senators Tom Cullerton and Suzy Glowiak, joined DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin and representatives of the Transform Illinois coalition on Wednesday to highlight and support proposed legislation limiting the size, scope and cost of local government.

“Government consolidation is one powerful tool we can use to find efficiencies,” Cullerton said. “Transform Illinois continues to be vital in helping lawmakers reduce the government’s footprint without sacrificing services for local residents. I look forward to continuing to work in a bipartisan manner to ensure government evolves with the needs of the people of Illinois.”

Cullerton (D-Villa Park) advanced Senate Bill 1838 on Tuesday, which creates the School District Efficiency Commission to make recommendations on the number of school districts in the state, optimal enrollment for a school district and where reorganization and realignment of schools districts would be beneficial.

“Property taxes in DuPage County and across the suburbs are crushing residents,” Cullerton said. “The new school funding formula we passed two years ago will help us drive down taxes in our communities by funding schools the right way. The next step is evaluating redundant services at our educational system to eliminate the bureaucratic and outdated organization of school districts.”

Transform Illinois members were joined by lawmakers sponsoring more than 60 bills in the General Assembly’s spring session, aimed at improving local government efficiency, empowering voters to make decisions and increasing transparency and accountability.

“Embracing government consolidation will help save taxpayer dollars,” Glowiak said. “We need to continue to work together to reduce the redundant and outdated layers of government that we have in our state.”

The Transform coalition members noted increased interest in “smarter,” streamlined government services, evidenced by more than 100 pieces of legislation introduced since 2016, creating new opportunities for local government efficiency.

“Illinois has more units of government than any other state in the nation and one of the highest property tax rates,” Cronin said. “What unites our coalition is the notion that too many ‘legacy’ local government systems were created decades ago and they’ve never adapted to the changing times or new technology. But thanks to our Transform Illinois partners and thoughtful lawmakers, efforts to make government service delivery more efficient and effective are taking hold across the state.”

Cullerton and Glowiak look forward to working with Cronin this legislative session to streamline government services and tackle wasteful spending.

SPRINGFIELD – An Elmhurst family may soon be able to extend their backyard gardening season, thanks to State Senator Tom Cullerton (D-Villa Park).

The Senate’s Local Government Committee heard testimony on Wednesday in support of Cullerton’s measure, Senate Bill 1675, which would stop municipalities from banning the construction of a season extension or crop protection device such as a hoop house from October 1 to April 15 every year.

“Hoop houses allow residents to extend growing season to grow fresh produce all year round,” Cullerton said. “It’s a shame that the state needed to get involved to allow local residents to take advantage of countless health benefits throughout our winter months. My hope is the City of Elmhurst reaches a swift and responsible decision in the next week to avoid the state’s involvement.”

The issue began in 2015, when city officials told Nicole Virgil and her husband, Dan, that their hoop house violated city rules and directed them to take it down. The Virgils had designed and built a hoop house, which is a series of large hoops or bows—made of metal, plastic pipe or wood—covered with a layer of heavy greenhouse plastic. The plastic is stretched tight and fastened to baseboards with strips of wood, metal or wire. Hoop houses can be used to grow some crops year-round.

Since then, the Virgils have been battling zoning restrictions to get the city’s permission to extend their backyard gardening season. The Elmhurst City Council voted on the matter again in February, blocking the hoop house with the mayor casting a rare tie-breaker vote.

“Local and state government exists to preserve the rights of the people,” Nicole Virgil said. “I would like units of local government to respect and support the benign backyard activities of residents.”

The initiative is supported by the Illinois Environmental Council, Sustain DuPage, Urban Canopy, DuPage County Farm Bureau, DuPage NAACP, Eco-Justice Collaborative, Sierra Club and Elmhurst Hoop House. Nearly 1,500 supporters have expressed their support for the measure.

Cullerton hopes the City of Elmhurst will enact policies that will allow residents like Virgil to keep backyard gardens year round. The matter remains under discussion in the Senate’s Local Government Committee.