 The state government has borrowed about $1.17 million this fiscal
year from money that Illinois taxpayers designate on their tax
returns for charitable use, The News-Gazette in Champaign reported.
Lawmakers signed off on the plan to help deal with a
multibillion-dollar state budget deficit.
Kelly Kraft, spokeswoman for the state Office of Management and
Budget, said she expects the state to repay the money within a few
months. By law, the money has to be returned, with interest, within
18 months, she said.
But officials from some of the charities say taxpayers are being
fooled.
"My concern is that the taxpayers don't know that they're
donating to charities that don't even get their money. It just seems
really inappropriate to use charities to pull money in, and then
pull that money out to pay for bills," said Stephanie Record,
executive director of the Crisis Nursery of Champaign County. "This
is crazy."
Record, whose organization is owed $7,000, said crisis nurseries
around the state were assured when they took steps to receive the
money in 2009 that the state's government couldn't take the money to
help address its budget deficit.
The so-called tax checkoffs provide an easy way for people to
donate money, Kraft said.
In a normal year, it takes about six months for the money to make
its way to agencies that are supposed to get it.
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But the Eastern Illinois Foodbank has yet to receive any money
donated with tax forms for 2009 or 2010, said Tracy Smith, executive
director of Feeding Illinois. That organization runs a group of food
banks, including the Eastern Illinois Foodbank
If the money is paid back sometime soon, Smith said she can live
with that.
"But we would have a real problem if we went around asking our
donors to give money to this tax fund and we never saw this money,"
she said.
Melaney Arnold, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public
Health, which controls funds for seven designated recipients, said
the money will eventually make its way to food banks, crisis
nurseries and other causes designated by the donors.
"It may not necessarily be tomorrow, but they will be used for
those intended purposes," she said.
State Rep. Patricia Bellock, R-Hinsdale, co-chairs the Commission
on Government Forecasting and Accountability. She said she doesn't
know the details of the tax checkoff borrowing but plans to look
into it.
[Associated Press]
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