As lawmakers continue to hash out the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, a Quinn administration program suspected of misappropriating grant money, the governor has signed a bill putting ineligible would-be recipients on a special list.
Sponsoring State Sen. Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge) says with about $47 billion in grants, there’s plenty at stake.
“We’re going to make sure that we don’t have conflicts of interest; that taxpayers aren’t going to see anybody who has a criminal history getting a grant,” says Kotowski. “When somebody receives a grant from the state of Illinois, they’re going to have to have a history of positive production and performance, they’re going to have to have the infrastructure in place to deliver on what they are supposed to in the grant, and then we’re going to have the kind of accountability that taxpayers deserve.”
The bipartisan Legislative Audit Commission is meeting today in Chicago. Federal prosecutors have asked lawmakers to wait to question former Quinn administration employees but lawmakers haven’t agreed on how long to wait.