 Illinois lawmakers and Gov. Pat
Quinn have until May 31 to implement
next year's budget, which begins in July.In the past two years,
the General Assembly has handed Quinn a lump-sum budget. But the
General Assembly is going back to years of the old practice -- a
line-by-line budgeting approach for 2012.
Former state Rep. William Black compared it with house
expenditures: "You can't buy a car with grocery money," he said.
"They're trying to work out the old way of appropriating money:
Here's how much money we have, and here's where we're going to put
what money we have," said Black, a Republican from Danville who
served for over 20 years. "And if they could get that done, it could
start the process of putting Illinois back in a position where maybe
in two or three years -- believe it or not -- maybe we can get
caught up on all of our bills and start to chop away that debt
that's just killing the state."
Within five weeks, both chambers of the General Assembly have to
iron out the final kinks in the state budget and agree on a budget
plan. There are three versions of the budget in discussion --- the
House version with $33.2 billion, the Senate version with $34.3
billion and the governor's office with $33.9 billion.
The state's unpaid bills could balloon to $8 billion by the end
of June, according to state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. The
current budget deficit is $9 billion, according to the Governor's
Office of Management and Budget. And the state's pension system is
unfunded by $75.7 billion, according to a March report by the
Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.
Illinois hasn't had a line-by-line budget since 1999, said state
Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley.
"Gov. (James) Thompson and Gov. (Jim) Edgar had line-by-line
budgets until the recession in 1991, and at that time the first
1,100-page, one-budget bill instead of 40 budget bills were up
here," said Mautino, who's been in the House since 1991. "And it was
basically placed on the representatives' desks a couple of hours
before a time to vote on it, and it was passed, and then after that
there was never a time where you didn't have those very big,
tough-to-decipher budget bills."
The two governors preceding Quinn -- George Ryan and Rod
Blagojevich -- worked with lump-sum budgets that were separated by
state agencies.
"It was only in the last couple of years that we did a lump-sum
budgeting, and that was instigated by the dominant party, the
Democrats, who simply didn't want to make the decisions on where
cuts needed to be made, and gave that job to the governor," said
state Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield. "I believe it is our
constitutional obligation to work hand in hand with the governor in
consummating a budget."
Quinn has said he didn't want to be handed a lump-sum state
budget.
But that may not be his choice. Last year's General Assembly
passed a law that would require the line-by-line budget approach for
the 2012 state budget, Mautino said.
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A Democratic state Senate expert, state Sen. Donne Trotter,
D-Chicago, said they are aware of the cuts that need to be made and
that those cuts would hurt.
"However, we recognize that we also have to look at how we do
business as well," said Trotter, who's been a senator since 1993.
"So we're looking at every corner on how we can reduce, cut and
eliminate."
Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of
Illinois at Springfield, said balancing any budget involves tough
decisions.
"If they get to something that's close to being balanced, which
appropriates all of the money and makes the choices, then this is
going to be the toughest budget that we've done in decades,"
Redfield said. "We'd have to go back to the early Edgar
administration where we're doing really serious cuts and services
and really making hard decisions."
Those tough decisions may bring in bipartisanship for the budget
process, according to Bomke, who has been in office since 1995.
"It is perhaps (being done) a little bit more differently this
year. Part of that could be there are a lot of tough decisions going
to have to be made, and I don't know if the majority party wants to
take full control of making those decisions. They want participation
by the minority party, the Republicans," he said.
In the past 10 years, the General Assembly has been able to pass
a budget before the spring deadline, except when Blagojevich kept
lawmakers in Springfield year-round in 2007, said Bomke.
Trotter said the General Assembly intends to meet the May 31
deadline.
"Constitutionally, we don't have to be through until June 30,
because July 1 is the change of our fiscal year," Trotter said. "So
we do have a month cushion before governmental operations start
crashing, but we don't plan on going that far."
But political expert Redfield said it's more than just meeting
the deadline. Voters would be grading lawmakers' leadership by next
year's election.
"So there's this huge pressure on the Democrats to get it done,"
Redfield said. "And the Republicans have to decide: Are they going
to use their leverage that they have to try to get agreements with
the idea of getting a budget? Or do they want to blow the process
up, ... get more out of the process and make the Democrats look bad?"
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By MARY J. CRISTOBAL]
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