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* I went through our post from yesterday and pulled out the extra asks for you to see here…
* Sen. Mike Simmons: “(M)ore funding is still needed to help historically underserved communities grappling with the continuing HIV and AIDS crisis and for Black-led community organizations to help with this issue.”
* SEIU Healthcare: “The proposed budget’s lack of investment in the home care workers who make it possible for seniors to stay in their homes may force some to forgo needed care or be forced into nursing homes.”
* AARP Illinois: “We must also expand access to services to achieve equity in home and community-based care across the Community Care Program and Home Services Program, increase funding for case management and adult day service programs, pass a tax credit to support Illinois’ 1.5 million unpaid family caregivers, and raise the monthly grant level for the [Aid to the Aged, Blind and Disabled] program.”
* Illinois Partners for Human Service: “While increased state and federal dollars have been directed to our sector over the past two years, very little of this funding has addressed the systemic challenges facing the health and human services workforce. We appreciate the Governor’s acknowledgement of these structural issues, but we are far from where we need to be. More work - and investment - is needed to rectify the consequences of twenty years of disinvestment in the health and human service sector in our state.”
* IARF: “We now ask the General Assembly to build on this proposed budget and advance our legislation to increase the wage rate for Direct Support Professionals by $4 an hour to help address the workforce crisis Gov. Pritzker discussed today, as well as legislation increasing targeted crisis mental health service rates.”
* Illinois Education Association: “IEA has introduced Senate Bill 1749 that would allow vision and dental coverage for our retired members.”
* Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights: “In addition to at least $53 million for the Immigrant Services Line Item, ICIRR members and our coalition partners are committed to ensuring that a state Child Tax Credit and healthcare for all Illinoisans regardless of immigration status are included in the final budget.”
* Illinois Association for Behavioral Health: “While we appreciate an incremental increase in the proposed budget, we will advocate vigorously to align spending with the speech’s ambitious sentiments.”
* Chicago Coalition for the Homeless: “We encourage the legislature to work with the Governor’s office to include an increase in TANF to 50% of FPL to provide additional funds to pay off debt, to save, and to make the necessary purchases for their families.”
* Illinois Shelter Alliance: “Our request for $61 million in Emergency and Transitional Housing Program funding was originally outlined in a letter sent to Governor Pritzker in December.” [The governor proposed $55 million.]
Thoughts?
…Adding… Capitol News Illinois has some more…
While he celebrated his efforts, Rep. Will Davis, D-Homewood, said the state needs to invest $200 million more in the funding formula to address the Black community’s lack of resources and disproportionate impact, particularly in education. […]
State Sen. Cristina Pacione-Zayas, D-Chicago, agreed.
“We are fully aware that if we only do a $350 million increase annually, we’re not going to reach adequacy by 2027,” she said. “I think that’s very well-established. So we will definitely be deep in those negotiations to see how much more we can add on top of that.” […]
The Latino Caucus, for example, will be seeking a major expansion of Medicaid coverage to undocumented immigrant adults – those not currently covered by laws passed in the last few years aimed at coverage of undocumented youth and seniors. Details on that plan – including cost – will be introduced at a later date, caucus members said Wednesday.
…Adding… The governor had this to say earlier today when asked about the push to increase Evidence-Based Funding…
Maybe we should go back to Greg Bishop’s suggestion that we raise taxes? Was that your suggestion? [Laughter] No.
The truth is that everybody here has been pretty, I’m talking about the General Assembly and the members from throughout the state, is being prudent about putting more money into our K-12 system. I want to point out it’s not just 350 million in EBF. We also, you heard me yesterday talk about an additional $86 million for what are called categoricals, transportation, special education, and $70 million more per year for a program to bring in new teachers. We need to improve our teacher pipeline, and there are 170 school districts that account for 80% of the shortfall in teachers. So the teacher vacancies, 80% of them are in 170 out of our roughly 850 districts. And that’s where we’re putting our dollars, so that we can bring in and let those districts decide how they want to attract those new teachers because they know better than we do what will work in their districts. A rural district is very different than an urban district. So, just to give you an idea that’s you know, I’ve said was $506 million. There actually are hundreds of millions more in various aspects of K-12 education. But yeah, we’ve got to continue to fund our education system.
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 1:22 pm
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These are all worthy causes and their advocates are doing yeomen’s work speaking up for them. But state funds are limited. Some of these advocates will be disappointed, and some worthy causes will not be funded.
Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Comment by Arsenal Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 1:36 pm
Wow. That’s a whole lotta really specific stuff for Comptroller Mendoza to oppose. She’ll probably need a weekly column in the Champaign News-Gazette.
Comment by Huge Gesture Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 1:39 pm
A budget is a weight and measure to priorities in a monetary way.
These programs, it can be “how can you not support this”, but the reality is one can support any or all of this, but the support by funding is the end game measure.
I type all that because of this;
Not all of this, maybe not any of this , will find dollars. But, what is happening is, for me, making me aware of needs, “priorities”, wants. It never hurts to ask, but how that ask generates monetary support is the politics and governing meshing.
I’ll be very intrigued how any of these turn out, come May.
Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 1:44 pm
I can think of one big pressure and that is the AFSCME (and other) union contracts currently being negotiated. The budget did not include any funding for any COLA increases for employees.
Comment by Demoralized Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 1:56 pm
There are a couple rate increase bills for substance abuse and mental health treatment providers. Hard to argue those providers can’t get an increase if they are going to recruit and retain staff to run the programs the Gov talked about yesterday.
Comment by Give Me A Break Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 2:11 pm
Pollyanna here, I agree, wee need more, but the education upgrade is a great way to start. We need equal education throughout the state. Living in DuPage, I saw the great education opportunities my children/grandchildren received. OTOH, I still have a granddaughter in a Chicago Magnet school (which is at least 50% Hispanic) and compared to my neighbbor’s child who was a year older? She wasn’t a year behind him, she was learning about a semester extra! That’s what all need.
Yes, it’s important to support all, but you gotta start somewhere and education, keeping college kids here instead of other states means they usually stay in the state when they are interning and settlingin after college which increases the tax base…and their parents are more likely to stay cuz…grandkids, we don’t give them up easily.
Comment by Union Thug Gramma Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 2:43 pm
Ahem. The $1B ish the GRF owes to other funds? Beyond pensions, OPEB?
Comment by Anyone Remember Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 3:04 pm
== Thoughts? ==
Everybody pushes their agenda and wants more money. A lot of the requests are for good reasons / programs. But there are (almost) always more wants than revenue.
Unless those same groups want to enact a specific funding source for their goal, or want to get behind a tax system that will generate more revenue, they will have to accept there is limited revenue available, and the proposed budget is the Governor’s vision of where the revenue should be spent.
Having watched State government for over 50 years, I’ll just make the observation that the few times the State did change taxation to generate a surplus by plan, it only took a couple of years to create new permanent programs that consumed all the planned excess … and even more. There will always be more wants than resources …
Comment by RNUG Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 3:08 pm
“… the State did change taxation to generate a surplus … .”
The tremendous influence of the national economic tides can’t be discounted. Remember 1991 session, work on the FY 1992 budget progressed, FY 1991 revenues exceeded FY 1990’s for the first 8 months, and then fell through the floor in March & April of 1991 (income tax filing season).
As much as a I like to bash Pat Quinn, he took over in the aftermath of the Mortgage Crisis, which devastated Chicago.
Always thought since 1994 (except for 2010, first post Mortgage Crisis election, where Bill Brady lost $400 K and paid little, if any taxes), Illinois Gubernatorial Elections are more or less in synch with national elections. Beginning to see a budgetary / fiscal linkage to national trends that can overwhelm Illinois decisions.
Comment by Anyone Remember Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 3:58 pm
* Illinois Education Association: “IEA has introduced Senate Bill 1749 that would allow vision and ===dental coverage for our retired members.”===
Make it pay promptly without state-caused delays.
Comment by DuPage Thursday, Feb 16, 23 @ 5:08 pm