* One of the very real problems with the way the House is doing the new state budget is that the five appropriations committees have been allotted the same percentage of total state dollars that their agencies always get. So, unless one approp committee agrees to give up some of its allotment (no chance), then cuts to things like human services cannot be mitigated by deeper cuts elsewhere.

Some who testified to a Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday pleaded with members to avoid cutting more from human services than the governor has already proposed…

Michelle Saddler, secretary of the Department of Human Services, said she hopes an alternative can be found to cutting the budget beyond Quinn’s numbers. “We have some very difficult cuts in the budget as we’re all dealing with this issue of fiscal realities. We know that there’s not enough money. We know that the governor had to make very painful decisions, and we’re seeing that in the introduced budget.” Saddler said more than 13 programs have already been eliminated since the governor’s proposal in February.

In terms of the impact moving forward, she said the worst of the cuts under the governor’s budget are in the divisions of alcoholism and substance abuse, and in the areas of community health and disease prevention. She said those programs lessen future costs for the state and that the governor has expressed to her his openness to alternatives other than the large cuts. “Those are areas where we have relatively small dollar investment but with large payback over time. These are areas where if you invest a dollar now, you prevent, say, $13 or $17 of expenses in the future,” Saddler said. […]

Frank Anselmo, chief executive officer of the Community Behavioral Healthcare Association of Illinois, suggested to lawmakers that they prioritize spending to avoid what he called continued disproportionate cuts to community care. “The governor’s proposed budget for [addiction prevention and treatment programs and mental health programs] is a 43 percent cut within a two year cycle to community care. That’s not shared sacrifice, in fact I’d be happy to share the sacrifice,” Anselmo said, “because we’ve slashed community services to a point where in some communities, we’re not going to have a system at all.” […]

Saddler said her department is already facing bigger cuts under the governor’s budget than some other areas of government, and the legislature should not seek to make those reductions larger. “We should not be looking at any additional cuts to DHS. There’ve been difficult choices, and human services is being cut disproportionately to many other areas.”

Unless they “find” money somehow or move money around from someplace else (and where would that be? Education? Pensions? Public safety?) then this is an extremely difficult situation.

* Nobody is, of course, happy with the coming budget cuts…

Schools across the state may see their school bus money cut in half.

The Illinois State Board of Education asked lawmakers in the state House on Tuesday for more funding, particularly for school transportation.

Gov. Pat Quinn proposed to slash local school budgets by more than $37.5 million for the next fiscal year. The total earmarked for elementary, junior high and high schools still tops $10.7 billion for the 2012 spending plan.

But the proposed cut to school bus budgets went too deep for some.

Less money for buses may mean longer wait times and rides for kids, especially for those in downstate, rural districts, said Rep. David Reis, R-Olney.

“What good is it to have good quality teachers, teaching standards, the best books and the best school rooms, if you won’t even make a commitment to bus the kid to the school,” said Reis, who represents Jasper County, which has the geographically largest school district in the state.

Restoring Quinn’s cuts means finding somewhere else to cut or finding more revenues. Otherwise, the cuts could be even deeper than Quinn proposed, because the House and Senate are both operating under lower spending limits than the governor did.

* This pretty much sums up the situation…

You have to wonder how it is going to end well once the new budget is together for Illinois’ fiscal year that begins July 1. Lawmakers who sit on appropriations committees are not seeing eye-to-eye with the administration.

“Your proposed budget is $7.6 billion,” State Representative Will Davis (D-Homewood) told the Illinois State Board of Education’s chief financial officer, “and I’m told we are working with a dollar figure of 6.8.”

* Related…

* Concerns raised about new health care plan: The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services stated Illinois will save approximately $102 million per year from the new health care contracts. However, Health Alliance representatives are questioning the validity of this figure. “We are concerned about their claims,” said Jocelyn Browning, communications manager for Health Alliance. “We don’t think they have the correct numbers. We are working to try to show what they are claiming is unfounded.”

* Many questions unanswered on state health insurance changes: Poe and Rose both said DHFS might have violated its own bid standards, which required companies that wanted to bid on the HMO contract to have provider networks in place by Jan. 1. “It’s clear they (BlueCross) don’t have it there now,” Poe said.

* Some Illinois Lawmakers Pushing Mandated State Run Health Insurance

* SB 626 Allows One Elementary School District Per High School District

* Emergency dispatchers face money crunch - Emergency service funded by declining number of land telephones