Quinn’s Budget Cuts Are Tip of the Iceberg

by Amanda Griffin-Johnson Yesterday, Quinn unveiled and signed the Illinois state budget for fiscal year 2011 in which he claims to cut $1.4 billion when compared to the FY2010 budget. He outlined only $509 million in specific appropriation cuts, with the remaining $891 million categorized under vague “emergency budget act reserves.” But let’s focus on this year’s...

by Amanda Griffin-Johnson

Yesterday, Quinn unveiled and signed the Illinois state budget for fiscal year 2011 in which he claims to cut $1.4 billion when compared to the FY2010 budget. He outlined only $509 million in specific appropriation cuts, with the remaining $891 million categorized under vague “emergency budget act reserves.”

But let’s focus on this year’s budget. Governor Quinn cut only $155,166,630 from the $26+ billion spending plan (HB0859) approved by the General Assembly for fiscal year 2011. About $86 million of the cuts come from reductions in operational expenses for higher education institutions. But these reductions are just the tip of the spending cuts that will be necessary to improve Illinois’s dire fiscal condition. The state ended the fiscal year with $4.5 billion in unpaid bills and there is still no clear plan for how the state will pay the required $3.7 billion pension obligation this year. To learn more about how to balance Illinois’s budget without borrowing or a tax hike, check out the Institute’s Budget Solutions 2011.