Page 13 - 2Q2017 Reporter
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Understanding the Impact of No Budget that any individual or department actually receives
The State of Illinois is continuing into its third money. That authority is also supplied by continuing
year without a budget. Basic State functions have appropriations, statutory transfers, federal law and
not received an appropriation that has passed both court orders. Why then are organizations, like school
Houses and been signed by the Governor since the districts that have a full appropriation, struggling? This
July 1st preceding the current Governor, Governor is the real crux of the problem, and highlights that we,
Rauner, taking office. This situation has, over time, in fact, need a budget less than we need a way to pay
devolved into a situation where the Democrat Speaker for a budget.
of the House and President of the Senate have The second question is, then, what do we do
continued to blame the Governor, while the Governor in order to get a budget. There are three possible
has continued to blame them. From the outside solutions to this, putting aside the political difficulties
looking in, it is easy to think that everyone is very right now. One possibility is to drastically cut spending
much to blame. and eliminate the vast majority of the services that the
The impact of this lack of budget has been State currently offers like building roads, operating
different depending on which group one asks, prisons and providing schools. A second possibility
and certainly a variety of social service providers, is to dramatically increase the amount of Revenue
universities, school districts and local governments through income or sales taxes to pay for the current
have been varyingly affected. Only State funded spending level. The third, and most widely popular
schools have received their full budget for the past between both Democrats and Republicans, is some
two years. The way of coping with the lack of budget mixture of decreasing spending and increasing
has been two-fold. Some groups, like social service revenue.
providers and state employees, have conducted This, in turn, brings us to the third and most
successful lawsuits against the State to receive terrifying question, what happens if we don’t get a
court ordered payments. Other organizations, like budget this year. The short answer is that everything
road builders and universities, have been able to get gets worse. It does not only get worse for the people
partial, stop-gap budgets that have at least allowed that have children in school, who rely on public
them to keep their doors open. Some organizations, transportation or those who use social services. It
like vendors to the State and grantees that operate gets worse for everyone, and the reason is that every
under funding from the Government, have not day that goes by with a disconnect between what we
received anything and have shut their doors. The are spending and what we are bringing in deepens the
State Board of Education recently indicated that there debt of the State. As each day passes the amount that
are at least 10 school districts that will shut their doors revenues will need to increase grows greater and the
this July if they do not receive the backlog of funding relative benefit that the people of the State will receive
due from the State. from those increases grows smaller. The longer we
This reality raises three important questions. The continue without a budget the more we can expect
first question is basic, what does it mean that the state a terrible day of reckoning when the budget finally is
does not have a budget. Simply put, it means the passed, and sooner or later it will be.
State does not have spending authority. All a budget Disclaimer: At the time of this printing budget
does is grant spending authority; it does not mean negotiations are underway.
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Second Quarter 2017 IllInoIs RepoRteR
