We are 11 months – eleven months – into this fiscal year and Illinois is no closer to having a FY16 budget than it was on July 1, 2015. Furthermore, we are one month from the deadline for an FY17 budget that is nowhere in sight either.
The latest round of negotiations between the Governor and legislators culminated Tuesday night in yet another failure. No budget—stopgap or full-year—was passed.
Instead of setting aside differences and agendas to pass a budget that adequately funds the services and programs that children and working families depend on, everyone involved has left these critical services in a continued state of uncertainty and unpredictably. Again.
The failure to reach an agreement on a responsible budget that includes sustainable revenue means that child care centers serving the children of tens of thousands of low-income, working parents will once again stop receiving funding. Home visiting programs reaching thousands of expectant parents, infants and toddlers will remain unfunded for a second year, with many programs unable to continue operating.
The lack of any appropriation for children birth to age 5 in our state’s Preschool for All program and K-12 system means schools will not have any funding for the fall unless something changes. The foundation of higher education will continue to crumble, leaving thousands of university and community college students without MAP grants and impacting the early childhood education future workforce. Teen REACH, homeless prevention, and domestic violence services will all go without funding again. The list goes on.
Prolonging the fiscal impasse will only deepen and extend the pain to children, families and communities - and the domino effect on the state’s economy will be felt for years to come. We have seen vulnerable children and families bear the brunt of our state’s budget problems before, but never at a time when the service-delivery infrastructure is already incredibly fragile and on the very edge of collapse. Many social services providers in Illinois have not been paid since July 1, but have continued to provide services in good faith. There is a bill before Governor Rauner that would provide emergency stopgap funds to help keep these providers afloat while we await a complete budget, and we urge him to sign SB2038 immediately.
We elect our leaders to represent the interests and needs of all residents of Illinois. We do not elect them to wait for the next primary…the next election…the next school year…
By failing to pass a budget for FY16 and FY17, our elected leaders have shown a lack of political courage while children and families pay the price. Legislators have indicated that they will work through June to find a compromise. We call on the governor and General Assembly, regardless of political affiliation, to live up to their commitment and responsibilities and immediately pass a budget that adequately reflects and fully funds our state’s needs and long-held priorities.
Illinois Action for Children
Ounce of Prevention Fund
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:11 am:
Dear Ounce,
With respect,
@RonSandack: I’m frustrated 2, but taking steps towards reforming IL more important than short term budget stalemate. - Ron Sandack, 9/28/15
Also, the Governor has a stopgap bill with significant majorities passing it… that hasn’t been signed.
Something to consider.
Respectfully,
Oswego Willy
- Aristophanes - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:11 am:
If only there was someone in their group who had influence over Governor Rauner.
- Huh? - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:12 am:
Mrs. Rainer has the most direct and closest access of anyone in the State. What has she done to change the mind and attitude of the governor?
- Saluki Matt - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:13 am:
I’ve wondered to what extent the governor’s relationship with his wife has become strained given the tragedy social service organizations are going through.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:16 am:
the number one problem facing the state of Illinois is the fact that we have no budget. The reason there is no budget, is because Gov. Rauner is insisting on a “turn around agenda” full of non budget items before a budget with cuts and new revenue can be reached. Gov. Rauner has stated that new revenue is needed, but he wants to get his turn around agenda and then blame the Dems for a tax increase.
- Honeybear - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:16 am:
Diana,
If you’re serious, publically move back to one of your many houses and give up your 100k staffer.
Alternatively, resign your position from Ounce.
Those are the only two ways you WILL EVER GET AN “OUNCE” OF RESPECT from those who will not condone your perfidy.
Stop with the dog whistles.
You vouched for him. OWN IT one way or the other.
“No Social Agenda”
My God, the perfidy and gall.
- Gruntled University Employee - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:16 am:
==We call on the governor and General Assembly, regardless of political affiliation, to live up to their commitment and responsibilities and immediately pass a budget that adequately reflects and fully funds our state’s needs and long-held priorities.==
And they will…Just as soon as your husband gets his way and destroys collective bargaining.
- Norseman - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:17 am:
I have a great message for their leader to deliver: “Darling, sign SB2038 now!
- Wensicia - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:18 am:
For Rauner, campaignin’ comes before governin’. Does Mrs. Rauner support this, or is her personal opinion off limits?
- @MisterJayEm - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:19 am:
“Instead of setting aside differences and agendas to pass a budget that adequately funds the services and programs that children and working families depend on, everyone involved has left these critical services in a continued state of uncertainty and unpredictably. Again.”
https://capitolfax.com/2016/04/12/rauner-points-finger-at-dems-demands-turnaround-agenda/
– MrJM
- Formerly Known as Frenchie M - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:20 am:
This is the most scripted absurdity I’ve read in a while.
Diana: you said Rauner has no social agenda. You smiled and said it on television even.
Now it’s clear he has a social agenda. Either you lied or he lied. Doesn’t matter. More than likely it’s both of you.
You don’t like the impasse? You don’t like it? Then do something about it. Don’t just write a garbage press release and offer it up to the abyss.
- Cubs in '16 - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:20 am:
This may sound cynical but this press release sounds about as genuine as the one from “The Seven” calling for Rauner to return to the bargaining table with AFSCME. All for show.
- Two ounce - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:23 am:
The next press release should be that they asked Diana to leave.
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:24 am:
HBO - “Dad’s Home State” - Season 2, Episode 34
Bruce continues to tour downstate, upset it’s to hot for his Carhartt. Diana edits a work letter, decides to hit send anyway. Diana’s State Employee leaves SB2038 near one of the auto-pens. Lance tweets links to Colorado marijuana retail shops to Rep. Lang, “ck” sends emails about the best small Illinois towns no one has heard of, Goldberg writes a letter to Forrest Claypool. Comedy, 61 minutes.
- East Central Illinois - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:26 am:
Mrs. Rauner, with all due respect, do you ever talk to your husband? Ever?
- Skeptic - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:28 am:
“We do not elect them to wait for the next primary…the next election…the next school year…” Well, if it works for Mitch McConnell…
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:28 am:
“What if I wrote a check to Ounce for $10 million and we call it square until the a Fall?” - Fake Bruce Rauner
- Shanks - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:28 am:
Maybe you should start talking your husband? I think that would be a great start, the “turnaround agenda” is not working.
- Chicago 20 - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:32 am:
Shakin’ up Springfield.
Shakin’ up the Ounce of Prevention Fund.
Drivin’ ‘em all crazy.
- Keyrock - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:33 am:
OW - did you write the Ounce’s press release?
My guess is no, or the First Lady’s name would have been signed at the bottom (as it should have been).
- Alfred E. - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:36 am:
Dear Diana,
If Donald Trump, Bruce and other members of the billionaire boys club weren’t so tight with their dollars, your organization wouldn’t need as large of a taxpayer bailout.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/opinion/tightwad-trump-explodes.html
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:36 am:
===… did you write the Ounce’s press release?===
HBO has a “no compete” clause in the “DHS” deal so I couldn’t.
When you honor signed contracts, you keep your word.
- No Use For A Name - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:37 am:
They aren’t exactly incorrect. Most reasonable people understand that neither Rauner nor Madigan can implement a budget on their own right now, and that this state has been suffering from a failure to make difficult financial choices and reforms for a few years. Owing sizable debts while kicking the can for years eventually makes things worse.
- 5th Generation Chicagoan - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:38 am:
In all honesty, given their wealth - and Mrs. Rauner’s front row seat to the social services devastation - why haven’t they made a generous contribution to any one of a hundred organizations? It seems like the governor is systemically destroying a state-run safety net - wouldn’t that seem by implication that they expect the private sector to fund one? Or are children and the disabled expected to fend for themselves?
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:40 am:
- No Use For A Name -
The Sandack Tweet make clear…
Rauner is choosing to inflict pain.
The Governor could always sign SB2038…
Lots of choices being made by Governor Rauner. Lots.
- Keyrock - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:41 am:
5th generation - haven’t you ever read Dickens? It seems to be the working model for some. (Only slight snark.)
- Honeybear - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:43 am:
Ounce of Prevention Board,
Respectfully, either you are okay with what is happening to social services or you are not.
Since you are one of the Ball/Gala social service institutions, I am going to make the assumption that despite the IOU from the state that you are doing fine with the private donations. Otherwise you would have ousted your CEO a while back.
So let’s stop the perfidy. You stand to gain control when all the others have gone down. That’s quite a “venture capitalist” way of doing social services. I can only think that this was your purpose all along by retaining your CEO.
Prove me wrong. We all “care” here in the social services. Behaviors not attitudes is what I’m looking for.
I know this is strong but I’m livid at the perceived perfidy.
- Groundhog Day - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:44 am:
Honeybear +1
- 47th Ward - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:51 am:
===There is a bill before Governor Rauner that would provide emergency stopgap funds to help keep these providers afloat while we await a complete budget, and we urge him to sign SB2038 immediately.===
Too bad they don’t have any connections in the Governor’s office. If only they had someone that the Governor leaned on for advice from time to time. Oh well, Ounce of Prevention is just like the rest of us chumps now, unfunded and unloved.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:53 am:
–So let’s stop the perfidy. You stand to gain control when all the others have gone down.–
That’s the plan after the “necessary shakeout” from “squeezing the beast.”
Three weeks now, a bipartisan, emergency $600 million appropriation for social services remains gathering dust on the governor’s desk.
- Honeybear - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:53 am:
I also want to say that Diana Rauner IS an amazing leader and competent in every way. In another time and day I would have followed her into the maw of hell. I have heard her speak. She is incredible. But that’s not my point.
This isn’t personal, this is about acting ethically and morally in the face of perfidy and perfidious action.
She has all the money she needs to survive.
She has 7 homes.
I cannot say that for all the families ruined financially by her husband whom she vouched for. The destruction of our social services is permanent in many cases.
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 11:55 am:
Maybe the next time Bruce puts $5 million into whatever political fund he decides, or “gives” Proft access to $2,3,5 million, maybe, just maybe Bruce should wire Ounce a couple million…
You could make an argument that the Ad the President of Ounce did for Bruce has cost Ounce, so far, over $7 million…
Food for thought.
- John Reynolds - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 12:19 pm:
I’m guessing things are kinda frosty during the wine and cheese parties out on the back deck in Winnetka these days!
- PENSIONS ARE OFF LIMITS - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 12:34 pm:
Your concerns have been noted and quickly disregarded.
- Ghost - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 12:45 pm:
the problem with that tepid commentary is it applies no real pressure. you are all equally to blame aint gonna move the ball.
what would be useful, pick a budget, madigans or rauners or a hybrid, and say why you support it. push an actual solution not just laments and hand wringing
- Old Guy - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 12:45 pm:
Mrs. Rauner and the spouses and partners of members of the GA should adopt the strategy of the women of Athens in the 411 B.C. play, Lysistrata, by Aristaphones. Then we might see some progress in reaching vital agreements.
- Anon221 - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 1:04 pm:
When very wealthy people say they are going to get involved in a program, an issue, or an office, and do so as a “volunteer”, one has to wonder- do they really have any skin in the game???
The President of Ounce doesn’t take a salary.
The current Governor of Illinois doesn’t take a salary.
What are the real consequences for either of them if they are “fired”???
http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-diana-rauner-met-20141228-story.html
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 1:14 pm:
Another episode of House of Carhartts.
- Anon221 - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 1:18 pm:
From the Trib article I posted previously:
Diana Rauner’s own words:
“I have never really understood this idea … that the size of one’s wallet indicates their empathy. The reality is this is the world that I spend my time in and I spend all of my day thinking about the education and well-being of young children in poverty and their families. I’m thinking about this all the time,” she said. “I’m incredibly lucky to be able to live a great life and live exactly the way I want to. And the way I want to work, the way I want to live, is to work 65 hours a week on the service of poor children and their families, so that’s what I do.”
******
And what about the thousands and thousands of lives in Illinois, families that have children, grandparents that are being forced to make irreversible decisions on where they are going to have to live their final years????
Life is not a bubble of PreK (or younger)through age seventeen. Life is interconnected and messy. It’s time to get your hands dirty.
- burbanite - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 1:18 pm:
And the Governor continues to campaign… no time to sign any bills when there is campaignin to do!
- Honeybear - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 1:29 pm:
Keyrock- “please sir, may I have some more?”
- Honeybear - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 1:34 pm:
Keyrock-
“Here you see me utterly incapable of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Bruce Rauner (Harold Skimpole) what it concedes to the butterflies!” (Chpt. VI, p. 58)
Bleakhouse
“I am but a child” Skimpole
- Chicago 20 - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 2:59 pm:
Diana -
Just write a check.
- Honeybear - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 3:27 pm:
“I have never really understood this idea … that the size of one’s wallet indicates their empathy.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/
http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2015/01/06/brain-scans-show-rich-people-display-less-empathy/
http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-studies-show-how-wealth-warps-your-soul
There ya go, a few articles to browse so that you can “understand”.
- Honeybear - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 3:38 pm:
Okay, let’s talk about privilege for a sec. I get that I am very privileged. I acknowledge my privilege and work with it literally every day so that it 1)DOESN’T EFFECT ANYONE ELSE ADVERSELY!
2) I am not blind or callous to suffering and need. 3) Give each person I meet and work with “inherent worth and dignity”. This last one is the most important to me. It’s a religious edict. I live that part of my faith.
I’m not here to judge the works of Mrs. Rauner. I know she works very hard. But I’m going to call her on her privilege which blinds her to the suffering caused by her husband, who she vouched for. She might not be callous, but she is blind to what he’s doing. And if she knows what he’s doing then she is cowardly. Which is the worse thing I can think about a person. I hope I’m wrong. I hope she is just blind from privilege.
- Keyrock - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 4:13 pm:
Thanks, Honeybear.
There are many more quotes from Dickens. And, sadly, too many more seem to be in our future in Illinois.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 4:17 pm:
== Lots of choices being made by Governor Rauner. Lots. ==
Every decision has its consequences. Thanks, Brucie.
- DuPage Dave - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 7:09 pm:
The Rauner family good cop bad cop act has finally been shown to be what it is. Mrs. Rauner can’t pretend that she’s helpless in the face of her husband’s policies. No other leader of a not-for-profit in Illinois has access to the individual who vetoed the FY2016 budget and chose to let all this hit the fan.
I’m sure she works hard and does her best to help the Ounce, but nothing she does can undo the damage done by her spouse.
One wonders when she made those commercials in 2014 (i.e., “no social agenda” “I’ve been a good Democrat all my life”) if she knew what Mr. Rauner had in store??
- Capitol View - Thursday, Jun 2, 16 @ 7:48 pm:
The Governor’s problems: (1) CEOs do not power share with other branches of administration as they run their show. (2) You were elected to lead and participate in policy discussions on a broad range of issues — if it was just the Rauner Business Agenda, that would be called a referendum, not an election.
I think the last few days of session showed that the Governor’s learning curve on how to govern is improving. But he is still too focused on impacts on the next election rather than governing in the four years leading up to that election. Did he take any Poli Sci courses in college? Any Public Administration? Or Public Budgeting?
I would suggest that he call in Charlie Wheeler or even Ron Michaelson for a confidential discussion on governing and the example of perhaps the best governing Governor in the past 70 years, Dick Ogilvie.
Good luck, Governor. And good luck to all of us.
- Formerly Known As... - Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 3:11 am:
The most important thing is ending this impasse with mutual compromise sooner than later. There are middle of the road options available, as covered here many times.
Many of the remaining providers cannot survive another year like the previous one. Get this done.
- Formerly Known As... - Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 3:14 am:
==Just write a check.==
And how much will Speaker Madigan’s check be for?
The Rauners and Madigans both are wealthy and well insulated from the consequences of this crisis. They are at the center of this impasse, but they are not relying on these providers to survive.
- wordslinger - Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 6:34 am:
–The most important thing is ending this impasse with mutual compromise sooner than later. There are middle of the road options available, as covered here many times.–
Three weeks ago, the GA passed a bipartisan, compromise $600 million emergency appropriation for social services.
The governor won’t sign it. He made it another hostage.
What’s your usual mantra — “no…no….no….no….”
Who does that apply to here?