If you’ve followed news out of the Capitol over the last several years, you may have heard or read something about “a scathing report from Auditor General Bill Holland.”
Holland’s retiring, and, as the choice to succeed him points out, the office has a megaphone but no enforcement mechanism.
Representative Frank Mautino, a lawmaker since 1991, is the survivor from among four finalists interviewed by the Legislative Audit Commission. The General Assembly must vote – 3/5 in each chamber – whether he will succeed Holland.
Mautino, who survived a close 2014 election and a 2015 of treatments for esophageal cancer, says neither of those points moved him to try to get a new job; in fact, he says, he has been circulating petitions for a 2016 run.
He says there’s one thing in common between the auditor general’s office, the legislature, and his family’s more-than-century-old liquor distributorship: serving people.
In other state news, fees are being cut in one of the college savings plan offered through the Illinois Treasurer’s office.
Treasurer Mike Frerichs says management fees will be cut by 43 percent in the Illinois’ Bright Directions savings program, which allows parents to invest money for their child’s college tuition free of federal taxes.
Frerichs says reducing the fees won’t affect the management of the program.
The program’s $10 setup fee and quarterly $3 maintenance fee will be eliminated. Frerichs says if these charges had been slashed last year, nearly $3.6 million would’ve been saved for the 104,000 Bright Directions accounts in the state.
The changes go into effect November 15.
