* Subscribers know more details, but Gatehouse picked up my story on a working document that’s being discussed by House Democratic appropriations chairpersons…
Gov. Pat Quinn, the Illinois Gaming Board and other state agencies want the legislature to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to the state budget when the General Assembly returns later this month for its annual veto session.
The chairs of the five House appropriations received a document — first reported in Capitol Fax, a political newsletter and blog — laying out dozens of requests.
Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, chairwoman of the appropriations committee that allocates money for human services, said the list simply lays out potential options. Whatever additional spending is eventually approved will have to be offset, however, to remain within the $33.2 billion spending cap approved by the House earlier this year. The same cap was adopted by the Senate, by default, when it approved the House budget.
“This is a moving target. There are a lot of things on the table,” Feigenholtz said. “We have a great deal of pressure from a variety of agencies that got cut.”
Kelly Kraft, a spokeswoman for the governor’s budget office, described the requests as “a mix of discussions, draft calculations and requests.”
Keep in mind that while the list totals $700 million, the General Assembly won’t go above its spending limit. Some things will have to be cut even if all of the governor’s vetoes are upheld. Gatehouse didn’t go into the cut details. Subscribe for the full list, but here is their shorter one…
$17.2 million for the Monetary Award Program (grants to college students)
$35 million for a backlog in estate tax refunds
$49 million for the Illinois Gaming Board, requested if the governor signs the pending gambling bill
$89 million to restore school transportation reimbursements
$36 million for the Department of Corrections
$10 million for indigent burials
$75 million for the transition of people with mental health and developmental disabilities out of state institutions to community-based facilities
Not all of those requests were made by the governor. The restoration of funding for indigent burials, for instance, was made by the funeral directors’ association. The school transportation reimbursements were vetoed by the governor and some want that veto overturned.
* In other news, Gov. Pat Quinn said yesterday that US Sen. Mark Kirk’s report on the state debt situation was exaggerated…
Quinn said the state is making progress in cutting its unpaid bills.
“I think (Kirk) probably exaggerated some of the numbers. We have whittled down the bills we have to pay, we still have a long way to go. You know if it’s just woe is me and a doomsayer - I don’t think that’s particularly helpful,” Quinn told reporters Wednesday at an unrelated news conference.
* Roundup…
* Deal struck on Medicaid asset transfers: The agreement, approved unanimously by the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, deals with the practice of “gifting” assets to relatives and other people. The new rules, which take effect Jan. 1, make Illinois one of the last states to implement the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.
* Group preps for Oct. 24 JDC hearing: Ideally, the group wants to see 2,000 people attend the hearing.
* William Gorman and Ruth Burgess Thompson: Closing 2 centers is sensible
* Pressure builds to fund county school post
* Bad move by Quinn on IPA boss: Juracek is the fox in the electricity hen house, with a record of dragging consumers behind her ComEd pickup truck. Her role as a ComEd employee in the 2006 power auction would have cost Illinois consumers about $1 billion until federal regulators forced a refund. The Illinois Power Agency was born directly because of that rip-off, in which ComEd’s parent company, Exelon Corp., won 97 percent of ComEd’s 41-month contracts. The price was $70.14 per megawatt hour, although an Argonne National Lab and University of Illinois study found that the cost to supply electricity in the region was from $20 to $28 per megawatt hour.
- Aldyth - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 7:13 am:
Woe is us. Doom, I say.
How about dealing with reality, governor. You may think it’s okay to not pay your bills for months at a time, but us civilians don’t.
- Bill - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 7:26 am:
It is the same old story. Cut, cut, cut!!!Oh wait, don’t cut mine.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 8:30 am:
That’s a lot of money for the rural bus routes. Should that really be a state expense?
This is from a former country bus rider.
- Ahoy - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 9:50 am:
Quinn could have came out with the current dollar amount of unpaid bills. That would have been a specific contradiction and proved Kirk exaggerated on the unpaid bills.
- Bitterman - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 10:03 am:
“I think (Kirk) probably exaggerated some of the numbers. We have whittled down the bills we have to pay, we still have a long way to go. You know if it’s just woe is me and a doomsayer - I don’t think that’s particularly helpful,” Quinn told reporters Wednesday”…as he tuned his fiddle and ignored the smoke filling the room….
- Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 10:25 am:
If we assume Kirk gilded his lily, we can assume Quinn is gilding his own.
You can average the two gloomy forecasts and see that the State is massively underwater and the way forward is not getting better.
In our society no one is willing to take action unless there is a crisis. It is hard to believe that the current fiscal crisis is not significant enough to provoke action.
- Chicago Cynic - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 10:40 am:
Is Kirk preparing to run for Governor? Seems like he’s a bit out of his Federal domain.
- Ghost - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 11:15 am:
If I recall correctly Rich has reported that money coming into the State has exceeded the predicted amounts. If that true, then it woul dbe reaosnable for the GA to up to the cap and appropriate the money. If they want to appropriate it all to bills that is their prerrogative, but it should be accounted for either to support some of the under appropriations or cut programs, or directed at bills in a porcess pen to public scrutiny.
- 47th Ward - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 12:10 pm:
LincolnLounger, Kirk is free to comment on anything he wants. I just find it disappointing that he simply gave a decent description of the problem without offering any solution. We have enough GOP state Senators doing that, we don’t need Kirk piling on unless he’s offering some way to help the situation.
Did Kirk have a press conference to explain why he voted against the jobs bill? Isn’t that a more appropriate topic this week, explaining to unemployed Illinoisans why he opposes a jobs bill that economists estimate would increase national GDP by 2% next year? We know he didn’t like the plan in the Senate, but maybe he could tell us what he intends to do to help turn the national economy around.
But yes, Kirk sees the problems very clearly. We’ll keep waiting to hear his solutions.
- Cook County Commoner - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 12:25 pm:
I think Senator Kirk had a responsibilty as a US Senator to highlight Illinois’ fiscal woes on behalf of US taxpayers. States cannot declare bankruptcy, so, sooner or later, Illinois will put its hand out for fderal relief, as will California and several other states approaching fiscal meltdown. Insofar as suggesting solutions, why should Sen Kirk waste his time and ink? Our state legislative gang won’t even deprive themselves of the ability to hand out free college tuition to friends and family, as the cost of college escalates beyond affordability for most. By issuing his report, Sen Kirk at least insulated himself from election time bleating when his six years run of why didn’t you warn us?
- Ahoy - Thursday, Oct 13, 11 @ 3:43 pm:
– think Senator Kirk had a responsibilty as a US Senator to highlight Illinois’ fiscal woes–
Because we need more people doing that? Because maybe somewhere there might be a person living under a rock who doesn’t realize our fiscal situation?
We don’t need anymorereports explaining where we are, we know this, we need solutions.