What Now for the State Without a Spending Plan?

Madeleine Doubek

What now?

That’s $37 billion question for Illinois, the state with no spending plan. Hanging in the balance are the lives tens of thousands of school kids from Cairo to Chicago, from Charleston to Quincy. Right there with them are college students, professors, teachers, landlords, bar and pizza shop owners in a dozen college towns, not to mention every vulnerable, disabled, elderly, abused or mentally ill resident and the tens of thousands of residents who care for them. And soon the state will have no money or authority to pay the prison guards or the food service providers at the state’s prisons.

Most Illinoisans continue to go to work, mow the lawn and take the kids to the pool, still too oblivious to the fact that Illinois has not had a budget for more than a year of the first one-and-a half years of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s first, four-year term. Many taxpayers in Illinois are oblivious to the fact that without a budget, because of court orders, Illinois continues to spend taxpayers’ money as if we had a 5 percent income tax rate, when it actually is 3.75 percent, driving up Illinois’ debt at an exponential rate. Illinois is projected to have about $10 billion in debt at the start of the next fiscal year in a few weeks and it still has the worst pension debt in the nation at at least $111 billion.

Again, now what? What now after lawmakers adjourned May 31 in a colossal collapse, failing to agree to a budget or school funding?

Key lawmakers who serve on budgeting committees say Rauner’s last-gasp call for a stopgap budget with no reform items attached to it is about the best that can be hoped for and accomplished at this point.

The good news is that members of the four caucuses and the governor’s office began meeting to work toward that goal Monday and are scheduled to meet three more times this week.

Sen. Pam Althoff, a McHenry Republican who serves on a budget committee, said members of the group recognize that a full, one-year budget that is balanced in an election year is “not possible” but that the best effort would be to develop a stopgap budget that actually would provide a full year’s worth of K-12 school funding and a six-month budget for colleges, universities, social service providers and the state agencies that aren’t covered already by court orders like the Department of Corrections.

She and a few other budget expert lawmakers from both sides of the aisle seem to agree that the lack of state aid for schools is the key motivation to get some sort of spending plan approved despite the election-fueled power war between Rauner and Democrats led by House Speaker Mike Madigan.

State Rep. David Harris, an Arlington Heights Republican who works on the budget, said, “Both sides recognize something’s got to get done for schools.”

Both he and Democratic state Rep. Elaine Nekritz of Northbrook, who has served on pension working group committees, shot down the notion that enough rank-and-file lawmakers would simply revolt and push their leaders to complete a full budget in an election year.

Harris recently sided with Democrats in voting to override Rauner’s veto of a bill to extend the required payment life of Chicago’s police and fire pensions.

“You’re not going to have a revolt,” he said. “You’re not going to get that in large numbers on an issue like the budget.”

Especially in an election year when all 118 House members are up for election and most do or will rely on campaign funding and manpower from Rauner and their legislative leaders.

Madigan rammed a budget through the House last month in a matter of hours that was $7 billion out of balance, but a stopgap plan offered by Rauner wasn’t afforded the same strong arm, of course, because Rauner’s party is in the minority in the House and Senate. Still, Nekritz said, she believes Madigan eventually will allow for a temporary budget to be heard and approved.

“I could imagine that with the governor announcing a stopgap measure without any turnaround agenda, the Speaker supporting that,” she said. Madigan has said repeatedly for months he would work with Rauner on a budget and a budget only. She said she did not believe lawmakers would only approve a K-12 budget and leave the rest to politics. “I think members are tired of having human services and higher education bear the brunt of this.”

Several lawmakers also are wondering why Rauner doesn’t just quickly sign SB 2038, a $700 million appropriation bill that would fund several human service agencies that have not received any Band-Aid funding yet. The bill doesn’t drive up debt, instead, pulling funds from a special commitment to human services fund and it passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Rauner technically has until July 18 to act on the bill, but his stopgap approach would also fund social services, higher education and other key agencies. Furthermore, a memo from the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget notes there are problems with the language in it.

For instance, a senior help line could not be funded, nor could IT infrastructure in the healthcare and family services department or a billing program in human services. An HIV/AIDS program cold not purchase supplies, lab testing or pay insurance premiums for clients, according to the memo.

“Senate Bill 2038 has been put forward as a stop gap measure to fund some state programs currently not funded due to lack of appropriation authority,” the budget memo states. “The language contained in section 996 would prohibit some agencies from funding some of the very programs that this bill purports to fund. By prohibiting the use of funds for operational expenditures, some of the programs, which are operational in nature, would not be able to be funded.”

So a short-term bridge budget to get Illinois through the end of the year might be the best option, though it still leaves us spending more than the state is collecting from taxpayers.

“I hate to be that frank,” Harris said, “but it’s better than nothing.”

“It seems the most likely path to success right now,” said Nekritz. “It’s better than nothing. At least we have some control over the spending more than we do if we have nothing.”

Even a Band-Aid on a gushing wound is better than none at all.

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