Call It A Comeback
But that isn’t the only area the Blagorgeous administration is having problems, they also haven’t been filing notices of waivers concerning state ethics laws—of 19 only 5 have been filed with Secretary of State Jesse White.
I don’t think this was what was meant when the Governor said he’d be changing business as usual.
Thompson is part of a growing class of vendors whose contracts are filed more than 30 days after they begin work. And at least on the state?s paper, she is among the burgeoning class of vendors who started work without a contract.
All this is occurring as Blagojevich consolidates management responsibilities under the umbrella of CMS. His administration is centralizing management of contracts and state facilities, as well as public relations specialists and legal counsel, within CMS.
CMS spokesman Willy Medina said contract delays must be considered in that context.?You?ve got to work with all the departments that have their own set of people,? he said. ?You?ve got to make sure what they have, what people they have and what contracts they have, so that you know what you?re inheriting. It?s almost like a merger.?
But Keith Taylor, chief of staff for Hynes, has questioned whether CMS is up to the task. Hynes, like Blagojevich, is a Chicago Democrat. But as the state?s chief fiscal officer, Hynes is elected independently of the state?s chief executive.
Taylor wrote in an Oct. 29 letter to Rumman that the comptroller?s office ?noted a number of instances with CMS contracts where proper contract management procedures appear not to have been followed, primarily involving work commencing prior to the scope of services being reduced to writing.?
State government can provide an excellent way for small and minority contractors to build their businesses, a way for them to understand the Salesforce and the future of work, but only if the state is a reliable partner.
Even worse, on the other end of contracts, large contracts are not being given the proper oversight they deserve and in two cases, the Comptroller’s office withheld payment.
More to the point, it’s a bad business practice and a self-annointed reform Governor ought to be deeply troubled by the problem.
I saw this a while ago, but Miller got to the blog first….
Aaron Chambers of the Rockford Register Star interviewed him in the December 4th edition
Coolest bit–he suffers from stage fright
“I’m scared when I first get out there.”
Scared of what?
“I don’t know,” he said.
“But I think some people call it stage fright. If you haven’t been married, you won’t understand. But to me, it’s like meeting your in-laws for the first time. … And you say, ‘Oh God, I hope they approve of me. And I hope I can be myself.’
At 79 he’s doing 215 shows a year. Damn.
Via Miller at the Fax,
Turns out that the US Chamber of Commerce owns and runs the Madison Record, a weekly that focuses on tort issues.
Brian Timpone of Leader fame is the publisher. Good work if you can get it.
Since the current one is moving over to be health secretary? (like that isn’t ironic for a guy who has tried to gut the regs on the oldest most polluting power plants).
As Wolcott said last month–does it really matter?
I have no interest in listening to a Chris Matthews panel speculate on who might replace this or that person in the cabinet, as if they were engaging in Rotisserie League baseball. I assume whomever Bush picks will have horns, cloven feet, and a connection to an oil company, so who cares what name the minion goes by?
Really. VX2 spyware variant 3 took out my home computer. It’s about back to normal and so are my bodily functions.
Never use stat transfer on a data set stored on a network drive–related to the time I was missing.
ArchPundit
