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Note to Quinn agencies: There is no extra money

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Illinois

* 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

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 12:09 pm

Comments

So many “must have” programs that generations before us lived without. What will we ever do?

Comment by Bond_Player Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 12:27 pm
If there are going to be real cuts, previous percentages might be the only way to do it, politically. There’s no real way to enact big cuts without hitting education and human services very hard.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 12:47 pm
Let’s see: IBHE requests $7.6 billion, House Approps Committee only has $6.8 billion to spend, that’s what, an $800 million difference?

The schools are going to need a lot of bake sales to cover the difference.

Comment by 47th Ward Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 1:02 pm
DHS frontline staff has been hit hard by retirements and no hiring replacements, so workloads are impossibly large. My office used to have many more workers, and now we’re facing much larger workloads. This is why I’m glad to be in a union at this time, so that we have some recourse in a very tough situation.

Comment by Grandson of Man Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 1:02 pm
OK, I have a question for some of you insiders who know the agency people–

Most of us understand that money spent on prevention and maintenance can save a much greater amount of money later (think roof repair, for instance). But households, when there is no money available, are just not able to have this work done even though they would like to, and know it would be a good investment. Here is my question: When someone such as Saddler says, “These are areas where if you invest a dollar now, you prevent, say, $13 or $17 of expenses in the future,” does she truly not understand that there is NO money available to spend right now?. Does she say this knowing full well that she is whistling in the wind? Or does she really believe that money is there, somewhere, if she presses hard enough and makes enough sense in her argument?

I don’t mean to pick on her, specifically. I am just using her quote as an example of what we hear over and over and over again from the agencies. Do they not know we are beyond broke?

Comment by Responsa Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 1:17 pm
Substance use disorder treatment and prevention will be reduced to almost $0 state general revenue dollars. These reductions are from funds that have been in the states budget since the late 1980’s - so these are not “more money”. The savings that Ms Sadler ref. to are the research studies in savings for every dollar spent in treatment of addictions the reduced health care, social, criminal justice savings are -

Comment by sadie Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 1:31 pm
@Responsa -

Take the money out of the Corrections budget. Or, more simply, move the line item for substance abuse treatment to the corrections budget, since its clearly related to reducing crime.

Its not true that we have “no money”. Wedo have to cut, but there is a sane argument to be made that it makes no sense to cut substance abuse treatment while — for example — maintaining payments to wealthy school districts for special education or wealthy communities for police and parks.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 1:34 pm
YDD, I was just asking a general question. I am not disputing the logic of the argument Saddler is making or the need for which she is advocating. I am merely trying to point out that every agency is making what they believe to be sane arguments and advocating for the needs they think are most important. But not everybody’s going to get what they want or deserve. There’s not enough money to do that. So, who’s making the tough allocation calls as to which agencies get cut and/or their money moved to another agency? Do we just keep changing the budget line that the expense goes on and think that will solve the problem?

Comment by Responsa Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 1:53 pm
SB626 is a good start. Kudos to Senator Lauzen. After we do this there still is a lot of low hanging rotten fruit that can be chopped. Get rid of townships, drainage districts, ect.

Comment by Palatine Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 2:13 pm
The problem is that Springfield is operating like there is no shortage. We in the field are seeing and hearing of 15% across the board cuts to budgets and no staff hired to replace those that retire. Yet we watch as at least 25 new positions have been filled in Sangamon County in the last month. We are having to fight to get seasonal workers yet sites near Springfield are hiring in multiples of 10.

Comment by Irish Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 2:39 pm
Irish,

There is no shortage in revenue, that’s for sure. And Bond_Player’s point is one I’ve often tried to ask on this board. Why are all these new programs necessary? Why are there 2500-5000 new laws passed by the GA every year?

My axiom, one that I formerly said was a Democrats’ flaw, but now open up to include Republicans is:

“No good intention goes unfunded.”

The corollary:

“No bright idea is not inshrined in law.”

Comment by Cincinnatus Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 2:49 pm
“DHS frontline staff has been hit hard by retirements and no hiring replacements”. That’s a problem, but where is the regular discussion of what happens to the direct service workers who are part of the local community based human service providers (mental health centers, day program, workshops, drug/alcohol, residential programs) doing the bulk of the actual hands on person to person work? When their agency does not get paid, they get hit fast. In small communities they are often one of the larger employers. The discussion seems to always wander to state worker union rights and pensions, which are serious funding issues. However the people in the non-profit world far outnumber the state workers with far fewer benefits and lower salaries. They will be directly hit and on the unemployment roles after serious cuts become reality. And the people they serve? They do not go away because of a funding cut. They pop up in another part of the system.

Comment by zatoichi Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 2:52 pm
Rich, your advice also applies to the various advocates and constituencies that appear in front of the committees. Listen, everyone, we are playing a less than zero sum game. Any add-backs anywhere require larger cuts elsewhere.

Of course these are cuts most people don’t want to have to make (C, I don’t know where you stand on that question). That’s not why they are being made. Of course some of them are going to have negative long term, and maybe short term consequences. The people making them know that. That’s why some of us have been saying for a long time now “There’s real pain coming!”

Dog, your sanity comment is true in my opinion, but it’s not reality. The legislators representing those wealthier communities would have to vote for those cuts for their constituents in order to free up money for other programs. Not all government funding can be need-based or there will never be enough votes to pass things unless only poorer areas have legislators. It’s hard enough now.

Comment by steve schnorf Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 3:30 pm
Geez, Cinci, take a breath, man. The GA does not pass “2500-5000 new laws” every year. There were 1555 public acts signed during the two years of the last GA, 1056 during the two years of the 95th GA, and 1113 during the two years of the 94th GA. Were some of those unnecessary? Undoubtedly, depending on who’s asked. But the numbers are nowhere near your claim.

Comment by TwoFeetThick Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 3:42 pm
I found Representative Davis’ quoted comment to ISBE to be fascinating, he is informing ISBE that his Committee (Illinois House Elementary & Secondary Education Appropriation Committee) plans on cutting ISBE’s budget based on Governor Quinn’s proposed budget by $800 million dollars, which equates to a 10.5% reduction. Let us all stop for a minute and recall how we got here.

The House has estimated a $33.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2012 based on its revenue estimates, and the House set aside $23.8 billion to fund state agencies and services. Governor Quinn has a $26.9 billion spending fund for state agencies and services in his budget based on his office’s analysis of revenue estimates. The House codified these things in House Resolution 110 and House Resolution 156.

So now does the House Elementary & Secondary Education Appropriation Committee plan on going through the ISBE budget line by line and cutting $800 million by amending HB 2106 which is formally the ISBE budget bill? Somehow I really doubt that this is going to happen. What is likely to happen is that a shell bill will be gutted and replaced with a lump sum budget reflecting the House’s revenue estimates and ISBE, the Governor, and the Senate will be told to deal with it. The baby will then be split and ISBE will be required to make the cuts without the House members, members of the Senate, or Governor’s office ever getting their hands dirty.

Comment by Rod Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 3:45 pm
Oh, sorry TwoFeetThick, it’s only 750 a year, along with countless thousands of pages of supporting regulations, rules and procedures. The question remains, are they necessary to have the society work?

Steve, here’s where I stand on spending, I would give everyone in Illinois a bazillion dollars if we had 10 bazillion to spread around. Unfortunately, we don’t. It is almost like the GA and our so-called elected leaders thing that we must win the future by making sure the failed policies of the past continue to fail well into the future

Comment by Cincinnatus Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 3:54 pm
- I would give everyone in Illinois a bazillion dollars if we had 10 bazillion to spread around. -

That’s some true Illinois Dem math…

Comment by Small Town Liberal Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 4:01 pm
I’m beginning to think that the Brady 10% across the board cut wasn’t so crazy after all. The agencies and advocates seem to just ignore the revenue estimates and push for whatever their perceived needs are. It seems like nothing will ever get done. Reis doesn’t want his bus money cut. Rose doesn’t want health care costs cut. These are guys who voted against the tax increase. Can’t anyone down there count?

Comment by Bill Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 5:32 pm
The empowered committee approach, rather than having designated budgeteers, seems like a reality-check exercise for the rank and file. I get the sense no one expects the experiment to actually work for crafting a budget. It should, however, give everyone a sense for daunting task ahead.

It’s been clear for some time that incremental program changes are no longer going to get it done. Real cuts will in fact mean real pain, and real consequences. Anyone who thinks it’ll be easy is mistaken. This year and possibly many to come will be different than the previous 20 years. It really is time to start thinking about the role of government at every level. And that seems to be where we lack a consensus.

Comment by Budget Watcher Wednesday, Apr 13, 11 @ 6:28 pm