Illinois Will Have $12.8 billion in Unpaid Bills if No Budget by Jan. 1

SPRINGFIELD — If nothing changes, Illinois will enter calendar year 2016 with about $8.5 billion in unpaid bills, the state comptroller said Wednesday.

And that’s not the whole of it.

The $8.5 billion figure only accounts for what the state is now spending to cover costs Illinois must pay to stay right with consent decrees, court orders and current law, Comptroller Leslie Geissler Munger said.

Payments for costs being incurred but not now being made because of the lack of a budget — for instance, higher education and commercial spending — would add another $4.3 billion per year, she said.

There’s nothing terribly mysterious about the cause.

“This is a result spending more money than we are taking in and operating our state without a budget,” the comptroller said.

Illinois’ general fund revenue for fiscal year 2016 (July of 2015 through June of 2016) is expected to be about $4.5 billion less than the previous year, in large part due to the rollback of the 2011 temporary increases in personal and corporate income taxes…

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