Jul 15, 2009 8:08 pm US/Central
State Legislature Approves Budget Built On Debt
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CBS) ―
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Gov. Pat Quinn is calling for a hike in Illinois income taxes for families making more than $56,000 a year.
CBS
Illinois lawmakers have sent the governor a new state budget built around borrowing money and leaving bills unpaid.
The House and Senate approved the spending plan Wednesday night after brief debate. Gov. Pat Quinn supports the budget and could sign it into law soon.
Supporters of the budget said it was the only way to end the stalemate in Springfield and keep government running.
But critics said the plan will just dig the state deeper into its financial hole.
Gov. Quinn abandoned his insistence last week that the General Assembly had to raise the state income tax. The stage was finally set for this budget compromise deal.
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, as with so many legislative compromises put together in the state capitol, no one is completely happy with the budget proposal before them.
That includes House Minority Leader Tom Cross, who said he would reluctantly agree to a deal.
"You gotta get out of here because 55,000 people need to be paid, other state workers, and people that rely on state services, the family with a child that has autism needs to know they can continue to get services, so that is why we're doing things maybe we normally wouldn't do," Cross said.
Among those "abnormal accounting" things is borrowing $3.5 billion for state pension funds. And the state won't pay about $3 billion in old bills. That means the state would be cutting human services providers by about 14 percent from the funds they received last year – far less than the catastrophic reductions many were facing.
"We were looking at a 75 percent cut at the Haymarket Center," said Anthony Cole, vice president of the Haymarket Addiction Treatment Center. "So if we come down to only about 15 percent, we will have a significant relief. We obviously wish it was 100 percent full funding, but it's much better than a 75 percent cut."
"Even given the fact that it's not the budget we would all like, we are going to fund the human service providers at 86 percent, which, in this economy, may not be all that bad," said Skokie Rep. Lou Lang. "It's bad for them. It's bad for the people that need the services, but I believe we've done all we can to get that number as high as it could be."
And there's one more thing important to many in Springfield. About 6,000 state workers who were supposed to be paid Tuesday will finally get their checks Friday, if Quinn approves the budget.
The next round of paychecks is due to go out next Wednesday to thousands more state employees including the state police.
The budget was supposed to be in place by July 1, but has been held up by disagreements over how to close a historic $11.6 billion deficit.
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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