|
ILLINOIS COMPTROLLER:
MOST STATE PAYMENTS WILL STOP JULY 1 WITHOUT BUDGET
Illinois Policy Institute
Illinois’
comptroller is sounding the alarm that if a stopgap spending measure is
not passed, payments for a host of state programs and services will dry
up.
|
 Lawmakers failed to pass a budget for the coming fiscal year. For the current
fiscal year they passed some short-term funding but Comptroller Leslie Munger
said that funding is about to run out.
“Payments will stop when we enter the new fiscal year on July 1 if we do not
take some action in Springfield,” Munger said.
Munger says typically if service providers or vendors don’t get paid, they go to
the Illinois Court of Claims to compel payment.
“But without an appropriation the Court of Claims is not an option. Their only
recourse would be then to sue the state,” Munger said.
Munger said that would result in tax dollars being diverted to pay legal fees
instead of paying bills.
The state’s debt is so high now, Munger said that if raising taxes were the only
answer to the budget crisis, lawmakers would have to increase the income tax
from its current 3.75 percent to 8 percent.
[to top of second column] |
 “We cannot raise taxes enough to get out of the mess without
driving people and businesses further out of our state and honestly
I don’t know anyone on either side of the aisle that would vote to
take our taxes up to 8 percent,” Munger said.
Munger said there needs to be a three-pronged approach of cuts,
tax increases and reforms to grow the economy.
Munger said that if raising taxes were the only answer to the
budget crisis, lawmakers would have to increase the income tax from
its current 3.75 percent to 8 percent.
“There is common ground on a lot of the things we’ve talked about,
that has been put on the table, and if people would stop focusing on
what divides us and focus on where we can agree, I think we can get
a lot of those things done,” Munger said.
Munger said lawmakers need to put the state’s interest ahead of
politics.
The next fiscal year begins July 1.
Click here to respond to the editor about this article
|
