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ILLINOIS
OWES $3.5M IN PAST-DUE UTILITY BILLS
Illinois Policy Institute/Brendan
Bakala
The state
government owes the City Water, Light and Power of Springfield $3.5
million on past-due utility bills for state offices. The past-due
utility bills are just one part of Illinois’ more than $14.3 billion
bill backlog.
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 State employees may soon be working in the dark if Illinois doesn’t pay the
nearly $3.5 million it owes in past-due utility bills. The state began falling
behind in utility payments owed to Springfield-area City Water, Light and Power,
or CWLP, for state offices in March.
The state’s massive utility bill is just one of the many invoices sitting in the
state’s more than $14.3 billion bill backlog. In addition to the utility bills,
Illinois owes billions to thousands of different vendors ranging from insurers
to service providers.
And though the state is currently millions behind on its Springfield utility
bills, it was even worse in 2016. Back then, the state owed about $12 million to
CWLP, and received a letter from the utility provider telling the state to pay
up or CWLP would turn the lights out by July, according to The State
Journal-Register. Eventually, lawmakers agreed to a limited spending plan, which
paid the state’s unpaid utility bills.
Moody’s Investors Service, a prominent credit rating agency, predicted in August
2016 that the state’s bill backlog would hit $14 billion by summer 2017, and
Illinois’ politicians have proved Moody’s right. Illinois’ massive bill backlog
has grown rapidly in recent months. The state currently owes more than $14.3
billion to vendors for services already rendered, up more than $3 billion since
the end of 2016 when the backlog was $11 billion.
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And CWLP isn’t the only vendor getting stiffed. Service providers
wait, on average, a year to be paid. Many agencies have had to close
down, waiting for payments from the state. But stiffing service
providers is nothing new for Springfield, as Illinois politicians
have been doing it since 2002.
Moody’s warned in March 2017 that if Illinois’ budget impasse
continued and the state did not start paying its bills, Illinois
would risk more credit downgrades. This could result in the Land of
Lincoln becoming the country’s first junk-rated state. Illinois
already has the worst state credit rating in the nation, and
dropping to a junk level would make it even more expensive for the
state to borrow money. Taxpayers would likely have to pay higher
interest rates than what Illinois pays even now, gobbling up money
that could otherwise be spent on human services or core government
programs.
Lawmakers need to enact real spending reforms to balance the books,
steer clear of junk status and develop policies to tackle Illinois’
long-term debts. And rather than work in the dark, lawmakers should
probably pay the electric bill.
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