* This Daily Herald editorial comically misidentifies Illinois Department of Revenue Director David Harris as House Majority Leader Greg Harris. The reason it’s so funny is because former Rep. David Harris represented Arlington Heights in the House, and that’s where the paper is based…

House Majority Leader Greg Harris told lawmakers in a letter last week that state government collected 38 percent more from taxpayers in April than it did a year ago. We shudder a little to think about what Gov. J.B. Pritzker might have proposed if he had known before his February budget address that Illinois would collect $4 billion from taxpayers in April, instead of the $2.5 billion or so that was expected.

But with the tax windfall in hand now, the state has a perfect opportunity to focus on the much-troubled control side of Pritzker’s budget rather than the robust spending side. And the chief target of that attention must be the governor’s ill-advised proposal to take a so-called “holiday” from making required pension payments. The surplus announced last week will more than cover the $800 million Pritzker was planning to get by avoiding the pension payments, and that must be the first priority for its use. […]

The governor, who Harris reportedly said leans toward using the surplus to avoid the pension holiday […]

The $1.5 billion tax surplus eliminates any need to succumb to that temptation and leaves hundreds of millions for another systemic issue facing the state — its $650 million backlog of late bill payments.

Just to be sure, I checked with Leader Harris and he said he sent no such letter.

People make mistakes. No biggie. But editorials are supposedly written or at least approved by an editorial board. That would be multiple people.

And there are more problems with this editorial than getting a name wrong.

1) Director Harris didn’t “reportedly” say anything. He said the governor was recommending that the state use the increased revenue projections from Fiscal Year 2020 to pay the full statutory pension payment. I mean, it’s right here in black and, um, tan (or whatever color my website is).

2) The editorial board is apparently confused about the $800 million number. That’s the additional projected revenue increase for next fiscal year. Pritzker was planning to skip $900 million or so in pension payments, which is higher than the revenue spike, not lower, so something else will have to be cut or more revenues will have to be found.

3) A “$650 million backlog of late bill payments” would be great. The actual backlog is currently $5.9 billion. That’s lower than expected, but still high. Instead, the unexpected $1.5 billion April spike will be used to “address most of the $1.6 billion shortfall in the enacted FY19 budget.”

Maybe if the paper hadn’t closed its Statehouse bureau it would have somebody to call before writing stuff like this. Or maybe they could just use the Google. Or Bing. Whatever floats your boat.