 But it's not so clear-cut for the state-subsidized groups that serve
low-income families, the developmentally disabled, seniors and more.
With the state budget two weeks late in being approved, employees
have already been laid off. Rented space has been vacated. Some
programs have been canceled. That can't be reversed overnight.
"It's unrealistic for the state to expect that social services
are this light switch -- just turn on and off at will," said Jay
Tcath, senior vice president of the Jewish Federation of Illinois.
And the compromise budget still includes a multibillion-dollar
deficit. That means in January, if Quinn doesn't get the income tax
increase he initially sought, there will be more cuts.
The result is more uncertainty for groups trying to figure out
what services they can offer over the next 12 months.
"If the state gives us a five-month budget, then we still can't
do an entire annual budget unless in some cases we make a hard
decision to close a program. Then we won't get that money at all,"
said Barbara Castellan, CEO of Gads Hill Center in Chicago, which
provides day care and preschool for children of low-income working
families.
When Quinn and the General Assembly couldn't agree on how to
close an $11.6 billion deficit by their original May 31 deadline,
lawmakers sent him a "50 percent" budget, a spending plan that
covered just bare-bones expenses and which Quinn vetoed.
But when officials couldn't meet the July 1 date for the start of
the budget year, service providers said the Quinn administration
told them they had to sign contracts at the reduced levels to get
any money at all.
So the providers set their budgets, reduced their staffs, and cut
or delayed programs.
A Rantoul-based military school for high school dropouts will
start a month late. Nurses conducting tobacco education programs in
Knox County were sent home. A housing program in the southeastern
Illinois town of Olney shut down.
On Wednesday, state officials finally came up with a new state
budget. It requires borrowing billions of dollars to cover expenses
and delaying billions of dollars in payments the state owes to
businesses. It cuts spending, although not as deeply as the earlier
version of the budget, and give Quinn broad authority to decide
which programs get hit.
The budget, which Quinn signed Wednesday, promises cuts of 13
percent instead of 50 percent in grants to service providers. But
that's an average -- he could end up giving some programs full
funding and slashing others more deeply.
And the governor and legislators warn that the new budget is far
from solid. Quinn could order more cuts at the end of the year.
[to top of second column] |
So additional money now will be nice, but no one will rush to spend
it, said Janet Hasz, executive director of the Supportive Housing
Providers Association, whose members run programs to shelter the
homeless and mentally ill, those with chronic physical illnesses or
substance-abuse problems.
"Providers are going to feel cautious about expanding their
programs at this point," Hasz said. "They will be wanting to put
some of that aside, thinking that they're going to get further
cuts."
Quinn said new contracts will be going out to providers soon.
"Those will be a lot better contracts than originally anticipated
based on the first budget of the General Assembly, which was going
to cut them in half," Quinn said Thursday in Chicago. "That was a
pretty scary prospect, and that's why I spoke out against that."
But agencies getting the money still don't know how much more
they'll get, or when, or what restrictions will be on it.
The type of funding matters, said Castellan of Gads Hill. A
provider can't shut down one service and transfer funding to another
to keep it going a full year, because often the money comes from
different funds with different rules.
When programs shut down -- programs that lawmakers created in
state law, the Jewish Federation's Tcath points out -- clients are
left to find other options. A senior who no longer has a health
worker to help her in her home has to go to a nursing home, costing
six times more, said Keith Kelleher, president of SEIU Healthcare,
which represents home health care workers.
That will strain other state-supported services, from hospitals
to jail cells, critics say.
"If we don't fund these agencies at the level they need to be
funded, it's going to be a drain on other state resources, and we'll
be worse off in six months than we are now," said Sen. Brad
Burzynski, a Rochelle Republican.
[Associated Press;
BY JOHN O'CONNOR]
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
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