On Feb. 8, Candance Chow appeared before the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board. We asked her why she’s running for the Illinois House of Representatives in the 17th District:
My name is Candace Chow and I am a 30-year advocate for women, children and families. I’m currently in my second term as a school board member in District 65, which represents 8,000 children in Evanston, Skokie. I was board president last year when we addressed a huge financial crisis in our district and, because Trump and Rauner had no ability to help our children, we took it in our own hands and were able to pass a referendum to support our kids and prevent disastrous cuts to our schools at about 80 percent approval rate. So that was the impetus for me coming into office. I’ve also served in both the public and private sector in the last 30 years, helping nonprofit organizations better serve their clients. Advocating for women and girls in nonprofits in D.C. and also working with businesses to help them grow and innovate.
My top priorities are No. 1 — education. It starts with early childhood. I’m an executive fellow with the Erikson Institute, and early childhood policy and, really, the leverage for us to give every child and family equal opportunity to achieve starts there. Going through K through 12 and then also focusing on job readiness. We have a real gap right now especially among young adults who have some college background and being able to prepare them for them for the jobs that are available and new jobs as they become available. Lastly, it’s financial stability. We need to really address our large financial crisis in Illinois at the state level and like we did at the local level, take responsibility. Make reductions where we can but also come together as a community and do what’s right for kids and families.
The Chicago Sun-Times sent the candidates running for the Illinois House of Representatives in the 17th District a list of questions to find out their views on a range of important issues facing the state of Illinois. Candance Chow submitted the following answers to our questionnaire:
TOPIC: Top priorities
QUESTION: Please explain what your specific cause or causes will be. Please avoid a generic topic or issue in your answer.
ANSWER: My top priorities as an Illinois State Rep will be to ensure our state’s long-term financial stability and adequate, equitable funding for our public schools and social services.
Our state government must move past individual agendas and political posturing to truly tackle our deep, long-term financial crisis. We have an annual operating deficit that constitutes 58% of our annual spending on services and this is not sustainable. We need to take the same approach at the state level with our deficit as I took as President of the Evanston/Skokie District 65 School Board where we faced a $128M deficit over eight years. We first looked internally at where we could reduce costs. Next, we worked with our community partners to improve and expand programs through innovative partnerships. We then brought all of our employee groups together and negotiated a restructure of our compensation structure to slow the pace of expense growth and connect it to our growth in revenue. Only then did we go to the community for the first time in 30 years to increase funding for our schools because we had attracted 1,500 new students. The community responded with 80% support for our schools. This is a perfect example of shared sacrifice and how taking shared responsibility can work.
As the daughter of a single mother working two jobs to pay the bills because she was unable to graduate high school, I learned early that a better future depends on an excellent education. I will take a leadership role in Springfield to ensure that public education, necessary supports for special needs students, and early childhood learning remain a top priority. Until we achieve adequate funding, allocated equitably, to all public schools in Illinois and create a set of holistic education policy priorities with a viable path to implementation, our work is not done. Ensuring equitable educational outcomes also requires a commitment to affordable housing, healthcare (physical and emotional), trauma-informed care, and broader social services. If we destroy the cornerstones of our safety net and the hallmarks of a true democracy, we will all pay the price for years to come.
Candance Chow
Legislative District: 17th House District
Political/civic background:
- Education:Evanston/Skokie District 65 School Board Finance Chair (current) and President (past);
- McCormick Foundation Executive Fellow – Early Childhood Leadership Fellowship at Erickson Institute
- PTA President – Kingsley Elementary of District 65
- Affordable housing and homelessness:Founding Member and Advisory Board Member – Caring Outreach by Parents in Evanston (COPE)
- Board Member – Community Partners for Affordable Housing
- volunteer for Family Promise Northshore, Evanston’s Connection for the Homeless, and Good New Partners
- Youth advocacy:Co-Chair, Committee on Health, Safety, and Wellness – Evanston Cradle to Career
- Volunteer – YMCA Reader Program
- Mentor – Youth Job Center
Occupation: Owner, Principal of In Sight Consulting Group (non-profit consulting)
Education: MBA, Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management; B.A., American University
Campaign website: www.candancechow.com
TOPIC: Top district needs
QUESTION: Please list three district-specific needs that will be your priorities. This could be a project that is needed in your district, or a rule that needs to be changed, or some federal matter that has been ignored.
ANSWER:
- Increased access to mental health services, particularly for children and families. Our public schools have become the largest provider of mental health services in Illinois but receive no targeted funding or program support for these services from the state. The state should increase support for community health care centers and expand the pool of providers who can accept Medicare/Medicaid payments. We must invest in social and emotional learning, mental health supports, and trauma-informed care for the health of our children and our educators or we will pay the price for generations to come.
- Setting in motion a model for birth to kindergarten learning and services that focuses on holistic needs of families and ensures easy, consistent, and quality access to such services with ongoing support.
- Expanded funding and programs to create and sustain job readiness and workforce development programs so that young adults can recruit and retain higher paying jobs and build careers in areas of business and economic growth. We currently have approximately 65,000 unfilled jobs in our state and our unemployment rate is highest among our least educated residents. We need to do better in offering pathways to careers and economic self-sufficiency for young adults and their families. I am committed to working with our postsecondary institutions in private/public partnerships to reverse this trend and make sure our residents have the access to and are equipped for these and other well paid, high-demand jobs. This investment in workforce readiness is essential for families to thrive and will fuel broader economic growth critical to our state.
TOPIC: Pension debt
QUESTION: In 2017, Illinois’ unfunded pension liability ballooned to at least $130 billion. Do you support re-amortizing this debt? Please explain your answer. And what is your position on a constitutional amendment that would reduce the liability of the pension debt?
ANSWER: The Supreme Court’s decision was clear. We cannot legally diminish benefits for current employees or retirees. I believe the best path to reaching agreement on ways to address pension costs over time is to bring all the parties together, which is the approach we took when addressing our deficits locally. Together, the parties can explore options such as voluntary buyouts for defined benefit employees such that a portion of the expected value of the benefit is accepted today and the employee takes control over the funds and its investment. The most critical aspects of the dialogue needs to be around fairness to employees and ensuring higher predictability that the benefit will actually be there when collected.
TOPIC: Minimum wage
QUESTION: Cook County and Chicago are on their way to paying a $13 hourly minimum wage. Many suburbs in the county, however, have opted out of the wage increase. Should Illinois raise its minimum wage from $8.25 an hour? Please explain. And if you favor an increase in the state minimum wage, what should it be?
ANSWER: Yes, I support increasing the minimum wage across Illinois. I am not ready to set a specific wage target because I believe this is a healthy and important dialogue to have between employees, employers and other stakeholders. I also believe that Illinois needs to provide increased jobs training and workforce readiness programs through public-private partnerships that target specifically youth and parents/caregivers without college degrees. We currently have approximately 65,000 unfilled jobs in our state and our unemployment rate is highest among our least educated residents. We need to do better in offering pathways to careers and economic self-sufficiency for young adults and their families. I am committed to working with our postsecondary institutions in private/public partnerships to reverse this trend and make sure our residents have access to and are equipped for these and other well-paid, high-demand jobs. This investment in workforce readiness is essential for families to attain truly livable wages and will fuel broader economic growth critical to our state.
TOPIC: Pot
QUESTION: Should recreational marijuana be legalized in Illinois? Please explain.
ANSWER: I am in favor of decriminalization and would want to ensure proper regulations and oversights are in place to ensure safe access and use by legally of age individuals. We must have an evidence-based, data-informed discussion with voters throughout the state about the legalization of recreational marijuana, but, as with most reforms and the regulation of a new industry, the derived benefits or consequences with legalizing recreational marijuana — whether as a new source of revenue, much-needed reforms in our criminal justice system, and/or public health and safety considerations — depends significantly upon careful implementation.
TOPIC: Casinos
QUESTION: Would you support more casinos in Illinois, including in Chicago. What about racinos? Please explain.
ANSWER: I understand that increasing the number of and access to casinos would have revenue benefits for Illinois. Yet, I am deeply concerned about the impact of such expansion on individuals and families and it effectively serving as another regressive tax. Research has shown individuals with the lowest socioeconomic status in the poorest neighborhoods are at greatest risk for gambling problems. We need to be extremely cautious about the adverse effects that increased gambling would have on our most vulnerable communities, especially as decisions are made for short-term financial gains.
TOPIC: Property tax freeze
QUESTION: A property tax freeze in Illinois has been proposed frequently since Gov. Bruce Rauner took office. What’s your position? If you favor a freeze, how many years should it last? Should the freeze exclude property tax increases to service the debt, make pension payments or cover the cost of public safety? Again, please explain.
ANSWER: I do not favor a property tax freeze. In District 17, eighty percent or more of school funding comes from local property taxes and increases to these taxes are already capped to the rate of inflation. A temporary or permanent property tax freeze would have devastating effects on our schools and is simply poor policy. I support a long-term re-balancing of taxes such that we are less property-tax burdened in our state. That can only come with commensurate increases to state funding of education in particular, and must be considered in tandem.
TOPIC: School funding
QUESTION: A revised school funding formula was approved this year by the Legislature and the governor, but a bipartisan commission has concluded that billions more dollars are needed to achieve sufficient and equitable funding. Should Illinois spend more on schools, and where would the money come from?
ANSWER: Overall, I believe SB1947 is a significant step forward in increasing equity and quality in our K-12 public schools across the state. That said, there remains a mismatch in supply and demand and I believe there are specific aspects of the law that require further evaluation and vigilante oversight by legislators like myself who have expertise and experience in our schools – from volunteers to board members to policymakers. It is negligent, for example, to give tax credits for private and parochial scholarships when we are 50th in the nation in terms of state funding of education. In addition, funding for the $350M in new revenue to public schools has not yet been allocated, and we must ensure is is allocated each year. Finally, the current law wrongly penalizes school districts that are growing in enrollment because state funding is held at the same level for most if not all the schools in my district regardless of the number of students served. Illinois should spend more money on schools, shift to a graduated income tax, and explore a potential expansion of sales tax on high-end or luxury services to fund those increases. As stated previously, I believe this re-balancing could pave the way to lowering the local tax burden on property taxes.
Bookmark the Sun-Times 2018 Illinois Primary Voting Guide
TOPIC: Opioid abuse
QUESTION: How can the Legislature best address the problem of opioid abuse and addiction? Please cite specific laws you have supported or would support.
ANSWER: The Legislature can best address the problem of opioid abuse and addiction by increasing access and adequately funding public health facilities and clinics across the state. The southern part of Illinois has a high instance per capita of abuse and addiction and has little access to Federally Qualified Clinics (FQHCs) or qualified private physicians who can treat this problem. While seventeen FQHCs in Illinois received HRSA awards in Affordable Care Act funding in 2016, only four of those clinics are located in the southern half of the state. We need better access to FQHCs in these high need area and issuance of more waivers for physicians to prescribe Buprenorphine for the treatment of OUD.
TOPIC: Guns
QUESTION: Do you support a state ban on gun silencers? Please explain.
ANSWER: Illinois currently bans the sale and possession of silencers and should continue to do so. Silencers are inherently dangerous devices that suppress the sound of gunfire and mask muzzle flash, obstructing law enforcement efforts to quickly and effectively respond to active shooters. ShotSpotter, the technology that alerts Chicago police of a shooting based on the sound of gunshots, will be less effective or ineffective if silencers are used. We don’t need to impair the ability of law enforcement or citizens to hear the sound of gunshots any further; we need to reduce the amount of guns and gun violence in this state.
QUESTION: Should all gun dealers in Illinois be licensed by the state? Please explain.
ANSWER: Yes, like liquor store, car dealers, and barber shops, gun dealers should be licensed by the state.
QUESTION: Should family members be empowered to petition courts for the temporary removal of guns from emotionally or mentally disturbed people who may be a danger to themselves or others? Please explain.
ANSWER: Yes, as a parent or family member, you want to do everything within your power to keep your child safe and will advocate for what’s in the best interest of that child, no matter their age. I believe parents and closest family members are the best positioned to provide evidence and experience to justify the removal of guns for the safety of their family.
TOPIC: Medicaid
QUESTION: What would you do to ensure the long-term viability of the state’s Medicaid program? Do you support continued Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act? Should the state continue on a path toward managed care for Medicaid beneficiaries? Should everyone be permitted to buy into Medicaid?
ANSWER: I have long believed that the most efficient path to affordable healthcare for all citizens is the expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. I support continued expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act which has become a critical benefit to residents who are most in need of healthcare services. In Illinois, more than 650,000 residents could lose Medicaid expansion benefits if the ACA is repealed or significantly altered. HealthChoice Illinois, which is being implemented starting this month (January 2018), is bringing the number of Illinois Medicaid recipients on managed care to 80%, expanding coverage to many counties in the southern half of the state, which I believe is a positive development. However, I would caution expanding managed care for Medicaid beneficiaries beyond this 80%, as additional increases could put us dangerously dependent on specific insurers.
TOPIC: College student exodus
QUESTION: Illinois is one of the largest exporters of college students in the country. What would you do to encourage the best and brightest young people in Illinois to attend college here at home? Does Illinois have too many state universities, as some have argued?
ANSWER: I believe the number one reason students are leaving Illinois to attend other higher education institutions is the lack of certainty and predictability of higher education funding in our state. We have put students on a veritable roller coaster ride over the past five plus years with no end in sight. Illinois increased educational funding per student by 32.5 percent from fiscal 2010 to 2014, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. Then from 2015-2016, higher education funding was reduced a whopping 37 percent. There is no single set of policy actions that will unilaterally reverse this trend. It requires us to make the hard choices to get our financial house in order such that we have predictability in our funding for higher education. Attaining stability in our system is the precursor to consideration of other changes in the structure and number of state institutions.
TOPIC: Gov. Rauner
QUESTION: Please list three of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s principles, or decisions he has made, with which you agree. Also please list three of the governor’s principles, or decisions he has made, with which you disagree.
ANSWER:In 2014, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s in part campaigned and gained support for his message that Illinois must do something about the decades of financial mismanagement. I agree with the premise of this message. And yet, I do not agree with the tactics and approaches he has taken to address our financial situation, pushing his personal agenda and holding the state hostage in the process. It is the Governor’s job stay at the table until a budget is reached. Gov. Rauner reneged on this most fundamental responsibility. He created even deeper debt during the budget impasse and plunged us even closer to financial insolvency. He precipitated in the dismantling of critical social services during the budget impasse from which we, and especially our most vulnerable citizens, continue to suffer. Lastly, he drastically cut support for higher education funding which has driven young people out of Illinois and has resulted in many students leaving college entirely.
I agree and support the Governor’s approval of HB 40 that makes sure abortions remain legal and available in Illinois even if the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade. The legislation also lets women covered by Medicaid or state-employee insurance to use their coverage to pay for abortions. I also agree with his commitment to early childhood education and funding. As an McCormick Foundation Executive Foundation Fellow in Early Childhood policy, I know the critical importance of positive early childhood experiences and learning to a child’s ability to reach her full potential. I believe Gov. Rauner shares this belief and commitment as well at least in principle.
