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Moody’s states the obvious

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Illinois

A national credit rating service is calling the emergency bridge funding measure for Illinois colleges and universities a “credit positive” move, but only for the short term.

The $600 million stopgap measure signed into law last week provides $356 million to public universities, $169 million to Monetary Award Program financial aid grants and $74 million to community colleges.

“The measure provides some breathing room, particularly for those with the thinnest liquidity and pressured student markets,” Moody’s said. But it also warned the higher education sector “will continue to confront longer-term funding pressures as the state remains unable to resolve its own severe budget issues and significant pension underfunding.”

Moody’s noted the money amounted to 29 percent or less of the state funding that Illinois’ largest public universities received in the 2015 budget year.

We need a real budget. Period.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 3:15 pm

Comments

I really expect the next rating down grade memo I read to be something of the effect of:

“We don’t [expletive] understand what they’re doing or why [expletive] they’re doing it. We’d say general revenue bonds are good to go, but even their supreme court says they don’t owe money unless it’s been appropriated in spite of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. So we’ve down graded them. Not that they care.”

Comment by Anon Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 3:25 pm
The 600 mil is nothing more than a few months of life support for higher education. I believe it was done solely to take the immediate pressuer off of both the Dems and Rauner to produce a real solution.

Comment by South Illinoisian Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 3:48 pm
==Moody’s noted the money amounted to 29 percent or less of the state funding that Illinois’ largest public universities received in the 2015 budget year.==

That’s what Rauner calls #Winning.

Comment by Wensicia Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 3:55 pm
A number of people at the state universities are calling the recent higher ed money a 71% cut to higher ed, not a 29% appropriation. And until there is a real FY 2016 budget for higher ed - I guess they are accurate in their description.

Comment by Joe M Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 4:01 pm
Until there’s a budget, we need folks to keep on stating the obvious.

Comment by AC Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 4:09 pm
The portion that is coming to my local institution - eventually - is enough for 3 payroll payments. That’s 6 weeks, folks. And I heard today that the smart money is saying that is it for this year. There will not be any more money coming for FY 2016 - which means layoffs starting in July.

I am reminded of the scene from The History of The World, Part 1: https://youtu.be/Yjy7v7AMdaM

Seems about right.

Comment by Mr. Smith Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 4:17 pm
Moody’s is right about this being a stopgap. State schools can’t run like this, though some have more cushion than others.

Moody’s and U of I’s IGPA were also right last year ==that even fully reversing the income tax cut that took effect Jan. 1 would close “only about half” the gap projected for the next several years.==

We are in deep, and the pain will not end with the budget or even with the tax increase. Everyone is about to share the burden of decades of $ mismanagement.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 4:24 pm
= We are in deep, and the pain will not end with the budget or even with the tax increase. Everyone is about to share the burden of decades of $ mismanagement. =

And by “everyone” you mean everyone but our job making / job taking / all-profit-taking divinely annointed overlords, right?

Comment by James Knell Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 4:32 pm
Your table is ready, MJM.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 4:34 pm
“credit positive”
they used that gibberish with junk home mortgage bonds. Who pay any attention to these mutes. btw check the real distribution or don’t
just rush to market pronto

Comment by Annonin' Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 4:40 pm
–Everyone is about to share the burden of decades of $ mismanagement.–

LOL, you’ll go to extraordinary lengths to avoid addressing what is happening right now.

This is the first year without a budget. Never happened before. That has nothing to do with what happened “decades” before.

Neither does the projected tripling of the bill backlog since January 2015.

The governor’s publicly and repeatedly expressed choice not to engage on a budget until pre-conditions are met has nothing to do with what happened “decades” ago.

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 6:52 pm