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ILLINOIS
DOES HAVE A BUDGET, AND IT’S NO LAUGHING MATTER
Illinois Policy Institute
Due to existing law, Illinois already pays
90 percent of what it would if there were an appropriations agreement,
meaning Illinois already operates with a de facto budget
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 “We need a budget.”
This is a common refrain in some Illinois political circles.
It suggests that state spending has ground to a halt in the absence of an
appropriations plan for a full fiscal year, passed by the General Assembly and
signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact is that Illinois will spend a record amount of money in fiscal year
2017. Through a mix of autopilot spending, court orders, consent decrees and
appropriations, state government spending for fiscal year 2017 is nearly $40
billion – a new high for Illinois.
This jumble of spending – the allocation and expenditure of public funds – is
the state’s de facto budget.
Even if the standard for “having a budget” is a plan passed by the legislature
and signed by the governor that appropriates funding, Illinois has had one in
place for the first half of fiscal year 2017.
A series of appropriations bills known as the “stopgap” were all passed through
the usual lawmaking process, and they’ve helped to skyrocket the state’s
spending to unprecedented levels. More stopgap spending would only worsen the
balance sheets.
There are also laws on the books authorizing continuing appropriations – such as
the one House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton steered
through the General Assembly in 2014 to keep the legislature’s funding and
lawmakers’ pay flowing even in the absence of specified budget appropriations.
Payments for government-worker pensions and government-worker salaries have also
continued throughout 2015-2016’s budget gridlock.
For better or worse, Illinois has a budget – even if it is one in which 90
percent of spending flows without lawmakers deliberately allocating it, and
without regard to the state’s finances.
Now, it is true that Illinois doesn’t
have a responsible budget. The state is consistently spending beyond its means,
and the debt is rising.
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It’s not for want of trying on the governor’s part. Earlier in 2016,
after trying to pass a compromise reform budget in 2015 to no avail,
Rauner asked the General Assembly for the freedom to reduce certain
state spending (since legislators refused to do so), but the
legislature failed to act on his proposal.
Cullerton stuck the governor’s Unbalanced Budget Response Act in the
assignments committee where it died without a hearing. And Madigan
then spent much of the remainder of the year pushing bills that
would obligate the state to spend even more money.
The proponents of the status quo rail against the deficit even as
they make no move to fix the budget process. That Illinois has a de
facto, permanent budget speaks to the power exerted by special
interests over the years to guarantee the flow of taxpayer dollars
to government activities.
But not everyone is on the autopilot gravy train. For any program or
entity that hasn’t been able to secure its own permanent stream of
government funding, being left with little or nothing over the past
two years has been a rude awakening.
So when you hear someone say, “Illinois needs a budget,” there’s a
good chance he or she really means: “I didn’t get the funding I
wanted.” And that’s largely due to the priorities of Illinois’
political class, which puts government and government workers ahead
of everything else.
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