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Comptroller Susana Mendoza told a crowd at The City Club of
Chicago that Illinois has cut its backlog of unpaid bills from
$16.7 billion in 2017 to just a fraction of that today.
“We now have a working accounts-payable that falls between $2
and $3 billion,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza, however, failed to say just how the state paid those
bills.
Numbers show Illinois’ five-and-a-half billion dollar 2017 tax
increase helped, as did the flow of billions in coronavirus
relief from Washington D.C.
Mendoza says the lack of debt has earned Illinois better credit
ratings and a better reputation on Wall Street.
She also bragged about Illinois’ rainy day fund.
“It’s about $1.039 billion as compared to the less than $60,000
that I inherited,” Mendoza said. “[But] even a billion-dollars
sound like a lot, but that’s a week’s worth of reserves.”
By comparison, Wisconsin’s rainy day fund is nearly four
billion-dollars.
Pew earlier this summer said states as a whole saw their rainy
day funds drop, but all but one had something in the bank.
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