Audits find mistakes in awarding lottery and video poker contracts

By Jamey Dunn

Two audits released today found problems with the way state government awarded contracts associated with two pivotal funding sources for the state's embattled capital construction plan.

An audit of the Illinois Department of Revenue took issue with the process used to choose Northstar Group as the new manager of the Illinois lottery. Northstar Group represents gaming vendors that have previously contracted with Illinois — Rhode-Island-based GTECH Corp. and New-York-based Scientific Games Inc., along with marketing partner Chicago-based Energy BBDO. Lawmakers approved a turnover of lottery management to a private firm as part of the capital bill with the hopes that a company could bring in greater profits for the state. The two other bidding finalists, Intralot S.A. and The Camelot Group, protested the state’s choice of Northstar, claiming the process was unfair. The state denied both protests.

Auditor General William Holland’s report found that some of the scores from members of the evaluation team were not certified by the department and some were not officially submitted until after the state had publicly announced its choice of Northstar as the manager.

However, Sue Hofer, spokesperson for the Department of Revenue, said the department had electronic copies of the evaluation team’s scores before a choice was made, and these copies were used to make a decision. “They provided their assessment twice, once electronically and once in a signed affidavit that said they had no conflict of interest,” she said. Hofer said the scores were valid whether submitted electronically or on paper, and the department provided Holland with the electronic copies of the scores.

But the auditor disagreed that the scores came in on time, whatever the delivery method. “The department’s response appears to want it both ways. They say auditors relied on the hard-copy evaluations, which we note were not timely. This is factual. Then the department wants us to utilize emails, which we also considered. However, as we note in the finding, these too showed the electronic submissions were not timely. The only constant was that all the discrepancies noted in the finding are from department documentation, whether hard copy or electronic,” the report said.

The audit also found that Oliver Wyman, a contracted consulting firm that helped the department with the bidding process, started work before it signed a contract with the state. Wyman sought and collected the names of firms interested on managing the lottery before the firm had a state contract. The audit also found that once Wyman was under contract, the firm failed to meet some of its deadlines, potentially shorting those considering bids time for a review process. “Failure to meet deliverable deadlines may have contributed to state evaluators having less than one week to evaluate the Request For Proposal responses in Step 1 of the process, a process that eventually would turn over a $2 billion state asset for private management,” the audit said.

“Those people were on a contract where they would get paid for product delivered. They were not getting paid by the hour,” Hofer said. “They started several days before the contract was officially signed, and that was at their own risk.”

Holland found that Kroll, a subcontractor hired by Wyman to provide investigative and consulting services as well as ensure that the bidding process was fair and open, had previous connections with Northstar. The report said two members of Scientific Games’ board of directors were previously Kroll board members and that a former incarnation of Scientific Games retained Kroll’s services in 2002. However the audit notes that the relationships ended three years prior to the work Kroll did on the lottery contract, so Wyman was not required to disclose them. The report also said Kroll was “very qualified” to do the work it was contracted for, and the auditor general’s office found no problems with reports submitted by Wyman and Kroll.

Overall, Holland’s report said: “The department should protect state interests and not allow vendors to work without an executed contract in place. Additionally, the department should enforce contract milestones or amend the contract to reflect updated priorities and time frames. Further, the department should ensure that all subcontractors disclose any relationships that may, even if only in appearance, impair the integrity of the procurement process.”

An audit of the Illinois Gaming Board also shed light on what went wrong with the bidding process for a central computer system needed to implement legalized video poker in bars and restaurants throughout the state. The revenue from video gaming is supposed to pay off borrowing for the state’s construction plan.

The board awarded the contract to Scientific Games, one of the companies in the Northstar Group, only to rescind the deal after it was found that the board had done its math wrong. “Lack of review for the scoring of pricing in the evaluation process of the Central Communications System (CCS) procurement resulted in the award to a vendor that was not the highest ranked,” the audit said. The report says only “one set of eyes” reviewed the pricing information that companies submitted with their bids. The audit also found that the board got different information from bidders, so it was not comparing apples to apples when it came to cost estimates, and it never followed up with the bidders to get like information. The board employee whose one set of eyes reviewed the cost estimates told auditors that the board was under pressure to make a choice, and any holdups would be “‘frowned upon.’”

Gene O’Shea, spokesperson for the gaming board, said that any pressure felt by the board or its employees is self-imposed. “There is no person or outside agency that is exerting any kind of pressure on the gaming board to get things done before they should be done.”

He added: “There’s just a lot of work to be done and few people to do it. … There’s people that are on the staff here that are working a tremendous amount of overtime to get the job done.”
The board has scrapped the original bid for the computer system and is in the process of a new bid.

The implementation of legal video poker in some bars and restaurants in the state has been put on hold until the Illinois Supreme Court rules on a constitutional challenge to the capital plan.  However,  state agencies are continuing work on the issue in anticipation of a positive verdict or the approval of a new plan by the legislature.

State reaches deal on private lottery management

By Jamey Dunn

Illinois will hand over the reins of its lottery to a private firm next summer.

The state finalized its agreement let Northstar Lottery Group manage the Illinois Lottery for the next 10 years in return for the promise of more revenue. According to the Division of the Lottery, which operates under the Illinois Department of Revenue, Northstar plans to grow profits by about 10 percent over the next five years.

Northstar Group represents gaming vendors that have previously contracted with Illinois -- Rhode-Island-based GTECH Corp. and New-York-based Scientific Games Inc., along with marketing partner Chicago-Based Energy BBDO.

Northstar’s pledge to increase revenues by $1.1 billion over the next five years topped the proposal by the United Kingdom's lottery manager, the Camelot Group, by more than $500 million. “The state will benefit from [Northstar’s] familiarity,” Jodie Winnett, acting lottery superintendent, said when Gov. Pat Quinn announced the winner of the contract.

Camelot protested the decision, saying the state gave Northstar advantages in the bidding process because, in part, of the firm’s previous relationship with Illinois. The state denied protests from Camelot and the other failed bidder, Intralot S.A, a Greek firm.

If Northstar cannot reach its profit goal, it will have to pay the state half of its projections. It the firm cannot reach the numbers that the state estimates the Division of the Lottery could have achieved on its own, the firm must pay the entire difference. New revenues will go, in part, to help fund the state's capital construction plan, approved by the General Assembly in May, 2009. Plans to privatize the lottery and since-stalled efforts to sell lottery tickets online and allow video poker in bars restaurants across the state were all part of the original funding for new construction in Illinois.

Susan Hofer, a spokesperson for the Illinois Lottery, said Northstar has not changed its business plan from the original proposal pitched to the state last September.

According to the proposal, the firm plans to expand into so-called big-box stores, such as Walmart.

Hofer said the group is “using this time to gear up, so that they can hit the ground” at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2012 — when they are set to take over management in July.

“The lottery office at the Department of Revenue will do the state’s portion,” Hofer said. She said if lottery sales are expanded, it will be up to the state to investigate new vendors. The lottery division would also continue to investigate any alleged violations or fraud associated with lottery ticket sales.

Quinn chooses familiar firm to run lottery

By Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn chose a private firm made up of companies that already work with the Illinois Lottery to manage its efforts for the next 10 years.

Northstar Group represents gaming vendors, Rhode-Island-based GTECH Corp. and New-York-based Scientific Games Inc., along with marketing partner Chicago-Based Energy BBDO. The firm beat out the Camelot Group, which runs the United Kingdom’s lottery.

The Illinois Department Of Revenue and a yet-to-be-named advisory panel recommended Northstar to Quinn because its bid set higher profit goals and lower operation costs than Camelot’s. Quinn accepted the recommendation. The firm will undergo additional a four- to six-week vetting process before the state signs a contract. UPDATE: The department has released the names of the nine state workers that made up the advisory panel, and most of the bidding information is now posted on the Illinois Lottery website.

Jodie Winnett, acting lottery superintendent, said the state was looking for a firm that can expand the lottery’s customer base in a responsible way, but the top priority is increasing revenue for education and capital construction projects. She said Northstar’s plan was tailored specifically to Illinois, and the groups experience means it can unroll its plan quickly, resulting in a faster profit increase. “The state will benefit from their familiarity.”

According to the Department of Revenue, Northstar pledged to bring in an additional $1.1 billion in profits over the next five years, which is more than $500 million higher than Camelot’s pledge.

If Northstar does not make those goals, it has to pay the state half of the difference between the target and what it makes. The Department of Revenue also projected what the lottery would have made without the help of private firm to run day-to-day operations. If profits fall below those estimates, Northstar would have to repay the entire shortfall. Quinn described the lottery’s current profits as “stable but rather stagnant.”

“From what the lottery officials told us today, if they ran the lottery over the next five years, it would generate $3.3 billion. With a private manager, this first-in-the-nation approach is slated to generate $4.8 billion. The lottery's own statements acknowledge that the private sector can do this better,” Senate President John Cullerton said in a written statement.

Winnett said it is hard to stay on the cutting edge of promotions when dealing with the red tape of government. “To be a nimble responsive marketing organization [as part of a large bureaucracy] is difficult.”

The Division of the Lottery will continue to operate in the Department of Revenue, and current employees will “work alongside” the management firm. Winnett emphasized that the state will still own the lottery and have a say in all decisions. She added that her division and Northstar would hold “monthly meetings as a formal matter, but I am sure it will be every day.”

She said some of the plans moving forward include expanding from 7,500 retailers to 13,000 — including “big box” stores and pharmacies — such as Walmart and CVS. Marketing efforts would also include highlighting projects funded with lottery profits.

Quinn said Northstar is promising profits greater than what the state original projected an independent firm could bring in, which he says "more than make up for any short-term shortfall from video gaming." The controversial capital project revenue source has hit several road bumps, including the state having to scrap a contract for a computer monitoring system that it had previously awarded to Scientific Games after admitting it miscalculated the cost of the bid.

Winnett said Northstar will start a transition period early next year, and its business plan for managing the lottery will kick off at the start of fiscal year 2012 next July.

Quinn to choose lottery manager tomorrow

By Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn is expected to make a decision tomorrow that will be the first of its kind in the nation and could drastically change the way the Illinois Lottery is run for the next decade.

Quinn is set to choose a private firm to manage the lottery for 10 years. The state will pay the firm a management fee to cover costs and incentive payments that will be tied to profit increases. According to the Justice Department, no state can pay a private firm more than 5 percent of its net lottery income.

The legislature approved the move last year as part of the capital bill revenue package — which also includes legalized video poker — with hopes that a management company could increase lottery profits. The firm Quinn picks will also run a pilot program to sell lottery tickets online.

Jodie Winnett, acting lottery superintendent, said that after the firm takes over, there will still be a Lottery Division in the Department of Revenue. The state will have final say over the firm’s decisions and will continue to license retailers, pay prize claims and conduct drawings.

The process leading up to tomorrow’s choice has been roundly criticized for lacking transparency. The companies’ bids are not open to the public. Intralot S.A, a firm based in Greece, was eliminated from the running without public explanation and is threatening to protest the final agreement. Members of a panel advising Quinn remain anonymous.

However, Jeffery Cramer, who helped to investigate bidders and the selection process for the state, said some information had to be kept from the public, so Illinois could get the best deal. “It would have been improper, in my opinion, to reveal a lot of the documents early in the process,” he said at a Chicago hearing. Cramer, managing director of the Chicago office of Kroll's Business Intelligence, said that releasing the names of the panel members would have been a “recipe for disaster” from an ethics standpoint because it would have left them open to possible pressure and attempts to influence their choice.

He said the competition was fair because all bidders had access to the same information. “This process is not going the way of the Illinois … well-documented history of corruption,” he said.

The two bidders Quinn will chose between stand pretty sharply in contrast. Northstar Lottery Group represents two vendors — Rhode-Island-based GTECH Corp. and New-York-based Scientific Games Inc. — that already provide services for the Illinois Lottery. That company is vying against Camelot Group, which operates the Untied Kingdom’s lottery.

At a public hearing in Chicago, where each firm gave the broad strokes of its case, Northstar representatives emphasized the group’s experience working with the state’s lottery and its ability to make a smooth and speedy transition. “We are ready to push the button as soon as the governor makes his decision,” said Connie Laverty O'Conner, chief operating officer of Northstar.
Jaymin Patel, president and chief operating officer of GTECH Corp., played up the group’s experience as vendors, saying that it will make communication more efficient and claiming Northstar can reduce vendor costs by 24 percent in the first year.

However, Camelot Group representatives touted the fact that they have no connection to potential vendors and added that they want to conduct a transparent procurement process to hand out contracts.

Dianne Thompson, executive director of Camelot Group, said her organization wants to replicate the model it has implemented in the U.K. of encouraging high-income young adults to play the lottery frequently but likely not buy many tickets at once. Seventy-two percent of the adult population plays the lottery in the U.K., compared with 49 percent in Illinois.

She said targeting that group makes the lottery less regressive and that it would last longer as a revenue source. “We’ve got millions and millions of people spending small amounts of money each week. And long may that continue,” she said. She added that Camelot Group would not launch any game that targets underage, low-income or gambling- addicted residents.

Quinn’s deadline to make a choice is tomorrow. Check back for an update.

Friday follow-up

A few loose ends that we recently wrote about have been tied up today, while few more are about to reopen next week. The Illinois House returns to Springfield Wednesday and Thursday to debate funding for a statewide construction plan and to reverse some of the governor's recent actions.

AFSCME: It’s fair
First, a lot of rallies, meetings and political undertones potentially came to rest Friday as about 37,000 state employees have a new, agreed-upon contract with their top employer, Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration. Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 vocally opposed increases in their health care costs that they say the administration sought. Months of negotiations led the union to request a mediator to bring the two sides closer together.

The result is a four-year contract that gives members a 15.25 percent wage increase during the life of the contract, and retired employees will retain the pension and health benefits they received under the former contract. However, employees are going to pay more for their health insurance premiums, co-payments and deductibles. Cohen said monthly premiums will increase by $12 twice during the next four years. “The state was asking for huge amounts, and we ended up are what we feel are modest amounts,” Cohen said, later adding: “Our members feel it was fair. When they looked at that contract, it wasn’t everything they wanted, but it was fair.”

He said they didn’t get relief from mandatory overtime, which they expect to intensify as more workers are laid off and the remaining employees do “more with less,” an all too familiar phrase.

The governor’s office also said in a statement that the contract was “fair" for both taxpayers and state workers. "Both sides spent months in negotiations, and this contract is the result of that tireless work.”

AFSCME: It’s unfair
Council 31, however, still disagrees with the administration about a separate issue: closing a once troubled facility for people with developmental disabilities. William A. Howe Developmental Center and the Tinley Park Mental Health Center in Chicago's south suburbs were decertified by the federal government for reports of neglect and other deficiencies. The lack of federal certification means the state no longer receives federal money to operate the facilities. But the Illinois Department of Human Services continued to operate and fund the centers without a federal match. We wrote about the centers, as well as some new plans for caring for people with disabilities, in the June Illinois Issues magazine.

AFSCME opposes shuttering the center because it would leave about 800 employees without their state jobs and benefits. About 600 are AFSCME members, said John Cameron, Council 31 spokesman. Some families also opposed the closing because they fear for the continuity of care for their loved ones with few alternatives. The administration announced that it planned to move residents to other state institutions or to community-based services. Yet, Cameron said, this affects people with high needs of services, and the union questions whether the state has enough capacity to support community-based services that already are under-funded and have long waiting lists.

The Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities said about 15,000 individuals are on a waiting list for such services. However, the council said shutting one door opens another. Instead of placing people with disabilities in more institutions, advocates look to community-based services as a way to improve what they describe as an outdated system. Read more in the organization’s report, “Blueprint for system redesign in Illinois.”

Home for the House days
State Rep. Jim Watson, a Jacksonville Republican and staff sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, flew home from Camp Pendleton, Calif., today after serving more than six months in Iraq. Watch Illinois Issues magazine print edition to read more about the work he did to help one province establish its first form of representative government, which the U.S. military just handed over to the Anbar Provincial Council on Labor Day.

Watson arrives home just in time for the Illinois House to reconvene in a special session to discuss funding a capital construction program by leasing the Illinois Lottery to private investors.

But even if the House approves a lottery deal — with some modifications to the governor’s original proposal — it still has to go to the Senate, which isn’t scheduled to come back to Springfield before November. And even if the Senate approved a measure to let the governor lease the lottery, then it still would take months to figure out the amount of money it would generate and the amount of money that the state would have to borrow. Only then would the House draft a spending plan for that money, according to Rep. Gary Hannig, a Litchfield Democrat and deputy majority leader.

But voting on a lottery plan is a first step in that process. Expect the House to include such “safeguards" as requiring the state treasurer and comptroller to sign off on the lottery deal to ensure that it’s a good deal for taxpayers. Hannig also said an ethics portion would “ensure that there’s no temptation to engage in any kind of pay-to-play antics,” and they could limit the amount consultants and lawyers could make from the deal. “Hopefully we can pass this bill next week and send it to the Senate,” Hannig said. “And it isn’t that much different from what they have already passed.”

We’ll see about that.

The House also is expected consider some of the governor’s amendatory vetoes, including the unanimously approved ethics legislation that Blagojevich expanded. And House members could try to approve restoring some of the money the governor cut that resulted in hundreds of layoffs, closed state parks and closed state historic sites. But it would restore some, not all, of the cuts, Hannig said.

Throw it into reverse

The Civic Federation lacks confidence in state leaders to rake in new cash and spend it wisely, which is partially why it withdrew its support of an income tax increase proposed last year.

The federation is a nonpartisan research body consisting of powerful corporate leaders in the Chicago area. It released a report today, reversing its position on a state income tax increase to generate new money to help pay down old and compounding debt.

“Last year, we supported a reasonable income tax increase if, and only if, it was tied to reform,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation. He also serves on the Illinois Issues Advisory Board. “And some of those reforms would be very similar to what the Illinois General Assembly and the governor demanded of the Chicago Transit Authority, in terms of what they had to do before the state was support additional funding for them.”

Part of the Chicago Transit Authority deal negotiated in January included saving taxpayer dollars by increasing employee contribution rates, increasing the retirement age to 65 and shaving down health care benefits for future employees.

Last year, Msall said, the committee offered a modest income tax increase as an alternative to the Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s failed gross receipts tax on businesses. The recommendations started with momentum at the beginning of the year but deflated under a whole host of budget issues lasting throughout the year. And the legislature and the governor haven't shown signs of banding together behind reform any time soon.

“We have seen no evidence that there has been any serious effort, unlike three years ago when the governor stood up in a state budget address and said: ‘We have a big problem. We’re going to have to reform our pension benefit system,’” Msall said. “The General Assembly adopted only the most modest of those recommendations and then proceeded to take pension holidays, making the problem even worse.”

FYI: A special panel created by statute issued recommendations in 2005. You can read them here. Read more about the legislature’s pension holidays in Illinois Issues magazine here and in a state report here.

The Civic Federation's report says the governor’s proposed budget fails again to make “reasonable” payments to the pension system for public employees. As a result, the state’s compounding debt includes $44 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and another $24 billion in health care liabilities for retired state employees. Fun fact: That's about half of the state's entire budget.

The group also said it can’t support the governor’s proposed infrastructure program, which depends on privatizing the Illinois Lottery for an immediate influx of cash. The Civic Federation report said the proposal lacks a detailed plan for spending the money.

“There is no comprehensive improvement plan. There is a series of projects and lists,” Msall said. “You owe it to the public — and the General Assembly should demand — that they know what priorities are before they approve the extraordinary borrowing against the future revenue stream, which is what the lottery is.”

The governor’s budget office says the Illinois Board of Higher Education is responsible for evaluating and prioritizing its capital projects that would be included in a statewide infrastructure plan, and the state depends on a statutory formula for distributing capital funds for school construction projects. The Illinois Department of Transportation also has an extensive list of roads and bridges in need of repair, as well as a list for new roads and projects.

The Civic Federation’s overall message from last year still applies, however. The state should reduce, not increase, operating costs and new spending, which is why the group supports the governor’s proposals to cut most state agency budgets by 3 percent and to consolidate state agency functions to reduce administrative costs.

See “Shaky Business” in Illinois Issues, May 2007, to read about the business community’s support for a state income tax increase last year.

Many questions, few answers

BY BETHANY CARSON AND DEANESE WILLIAMS-HARRIS
Even with no testimony from Gov. Rod Blagojevich and with few details provided on privatizing the state lottery, Illinois lawmakers could vote Friday on whether to give the governor authorization to do two things: 1) lease the lottery to a private firm for at least $10 billion and 2) issue $16 billion in bonds. Both are tactics to reduce state debt in the public employee pension systems.

Hours of testimony in a special House committee and in a separate Senate committee provided few answers for some of the biggest questions. For instance, many asked how much revenue the state would share with a private operator, as well as how the state would compensate for revenue lost by leasing the state asset. Lawmakers also expressed skepticism because only a handful of states are considering privatizing their lotteries, but none have actually done it.

“Do we want to be first, or maybe we’d be better off second or third?” said Sen. Terry Link, a Waukegan Democrat, during the Senate committee.

Mark Florian, marketing director for Goldman, Sachs & Co., which is advising the governor’s office on the deal and stands to profit if the deal goes through, said the size of Illinois’ lottery makes this state a potential frontrunner. “People are going to stretch and stretch very, very hard [so] that there will be a premium, a trophy premium, to have access to this lottery system,” he told the committee. The Blagojevich Administration often cites estimated revenue at about $10 billion.

That’s exactly why some lawmakers questioned why the state would want to lease the lottery if it has so much potential for revenue growth, which would put more money into the state’s education system.

Some of the same questions came up during about 6 hours of questioning by a special committee of the entire House, in which the governor was invited to participate but declined. “I must confess that I believe you are more interested in playing games and taking solutions off the table than trying to find solutions to solve real problems,” he wrote in a letter to House Speaker Michael Madigan that was shared with legislators and the media. A series of rather snippy letters have been exchanged between the speaker and the governor this week, continuing the gridlock that led Blagojevich to convene a special session seven days a week until a full state budget comes to fruition.

“If the governor believes this is a waste of time, I think that’s pathetic,” said Rep. Jack Franks after the House committee. The Woodstock Democrat came up with the idea to invite the governor to the committee of the entire chamber and led Thursday’s hearing. “I think it’s cowardly for him not to have been here after calling the [special] session.”

At the end of the business day, the House moved three pieces of legislation, one proposing the lease of the Illinois Lottery, one proposing the issuance of pension bonds and one nonbinding resolution urging the General Assembly to resolve pension reform and debt before the legislative session adjourns for good in 2007.

Tom Johnson, president of the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois, said the administration was putting the cart before the horse because the lottery proposal comes up with a funding mechanism for state pension obligations before it addresses mounting pension liabilities. He said a better plan would evaluate the expense of the benefits offered as a way to cut costs. “The lottery is the taxpayers’ asset,” Johnson said. “The [pension obligation bond] debt will be the taxpayers’ debt.”

John Filan, chief operating officer, said with $41 billion in debt, “all solutions will be expensive, very expensive, and require major revenues.” When asked whether the governor’s initial gross receipts tax proposal was still on the table, Filan didn’t answer yes or no. He simply said the administration would consider other forms of business taxes, such as ending some corporate tax breaks.

The governor is not expected to appear before the House Friday, either.

Touché

\House Speaker Michael Madigan has challenged the governor to produce major budget legislation that will be debated and immediately voted on Thursday afternoon, the first day of a “special session” proclaimed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich last week.

The governor said Friday that the General Assembly would remain in special session until it approved an overdue state budget for the fiscal year that started July 1. He said the first topic of discussion would be state public employee pension reform.

In a letter addressed to the governor and copied to the House members and the media Monday, Madigan and Rep. Jack Franks challenged Blagojevich to detail his proposal to lease the Illinois Lottery as a way to pump billions of dollars into the five public employee pension systems, which have been under-funded for years. Then Madigan plans for the chamber to vote on the proposal, giving the governor a deadline to produce the legislation.

Part of the letter to Blagojevich reads, “It is, therefore, your responsibility to have the necessary legislation drafted and submitted to us in a timely fashion — no later than 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, July 5.”

Another part of the letter rebuts the governor’s public criticism of the lawmakers’ three-day workweek and lack of focus on the budget. It says the Committee of the Whole format would allow maximum participation and media observance, another comment reportedly made by the governor during backdoor budget meetings. The letter goes on to call the governor out on alleged hypocrisy.

“Over the last six months, from the moment our members took office for the 95th General Assembly, and despite your general absence from the State Capitol during most of that time, they have remained ready and available to work with you for the purposes of crafting a fiscal year 2008 budget,” the letter reads.

Franks, a Woodstock Democrat who often vocally disagrees with the governor’s ideas, said he brought up the idea to the speaker after a month of overtime session and closed-door “negotiations” produced nothing but a one-month, bare bones budget. On his cell phone Monday afternoon, Franks said, “Why don’t we try something different? Why don’t we make a transparent process, put it on the House floor, bring the governor in, make him produce bills, let him defend those bills, and then we will vote on them after the legislature has a chance to ask questions?”

Franks held a committee about leasing the Illinois Lottery earlier this spring and said the administration didn’t provide many details back then. “Whenever you have $10 billion on the table. Your antenna’s going to go up,” Franks said. “From what I’ve seen on the merits of the proposal, it doesn’t hold water." Madigan said last month he didn’t think the idea had enough support in his chamber.

If the governor accepts the invitation — we haven’t heard from the governor’s office, yet — the letter says the Committee of the Whole will “last as long as necessary.”

UPDATE
Response from the governor's office: "This is exactly the kind of dialogue and direct involvement from legislators we were hoping for by calling special sessions," Blagojevich spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch said in an e-mail.