 The federal Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit
Reduction, commonly referred to as the supercommittee, failed to
reach an agreement last month on how to slice up to $1.5 trillion in
spending from the national budget over the next decade. Without this
agreement, automatic cuts of $1.2 trillion will be triggered."For
states, the name of the game is uncertainty," said Jeff Hurley, a
policy analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, a
bipartisan organization that provides research and technical
assistance to all of the state legislatures.
Illinois received $23 billion in federal aid in fiscal 2010,
according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. That
translates into a little more than $1,800 per capita in Illinois,
which is slightly less than the national average of about $2,000 per
capita.
State-federal programs as a whole would see a reduction of 8.8
percent in fiscal 2013 under the current scenario, Hurley said.
The most costly and widely used federal programs, like Medicaid
and Social Security, are exempt from any automatic cuts, leaving
programs such as education, homeless assistance, food shelters, home
weatherization and substance abuse on the cutting board.
"These areas are going to get hit that much harder due to the
exemptions," Hurley said.
Another program eligible for cuts from Congress is Head Start,
which gives education, health and nutritional assistance to
pre-kindergarten students from low-income families. The various Head
Start organizations in Illinois received $402 million in federal aid
to serve 42,000 participants in fiscal 2010.
Project Now is a Community Action Agency that serves Rock Island,
Henry and Mercer counties. It has a budget of about $15 million in
federal funding and administers weatherizing and homeless services
along with a Head Start program that serves 360 children annually.
"There's not a lot of wiggle room with most of these programs as
far as cuts you can endure," said Maureen Hart, executive director
of Project Now.
Hart said that if the federal funding is cut, the number of
children served would be reduced.
"You've got to have the people to provide the service; that's
your main cost. So when you're dealing with significant cuts and you
don't have the staffing to carry out the program, it results in
fewer people being served," she said.
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There's very little that Illinois state government can do in
regard to the cuts. Only $15 billion of the $23 billion in federal
aid the state received in fiscal 2010 went through the General
Assembly. Congress earmarked the overwhelming majority of that $15
billion for specific programs like Medicaid.
"We don't have a lot of leverage or latitude of how we move
things around. They have to be spent in a way the federal government
has said," said state Rep. David Harris, R-Arlington Heights.
The remaining $10 billion in federal aid was distributed through
grants to local governments or organizations like Project Now.
Harris, who helps prepare state budgets for the Illinois House
Republicans, said that with the state facing an increased pension
system payment of $1 billion next year and swelling health care
costs, those facing cuts shouldn't look for Illinois to make up the
difference in any reduction to federal spending.
"There's going to be such pressures on (the budget) this coming
year that we're not going to have any excess. If the feds cut, I
don't see us having any excess to make up any reductions," Harris
said.
The federal cuts don't start until 2013, six months after the
state's next budget has been enacted.
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By ANDREW THOMASON]
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