Are we there yet? Breaking down Illinois’ budget battle
As legislative leaders attempt to play games long seen in Springfield, Rauner remains resolute on breaking the status quo.
As mixed messages about Illinois’ state budget continue to flow out of Springfield, it’s sometimes hard to know where things stand. With blame being thrown around between the two parties, as well as between the governor and the legislature, it’s worth noting what has and hasn’t happened to move Illinois’ budget forward in an honest manner.
The Illinois General Assembly passed 27 bills comprising the state budget for fiscal year 2016. Altogether, this budget contained a deficit of nearly $4 billion.
From June 17 to June 24, the General Assembly sent the budget bills to Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desk. On June 24, Rauner signed the education appropriations bill, guaranteeing that Illinois students and teachers will not be made pawns in this ongoing saga.
On June 25, the governor predictably vetoed 19 of the budget bills given to him by the General Assembly. As the governor has said all along, he had no plans to sign into law another unbalanced budget that would continue Illinois’ downward spiral into financial crisis. Since taking office, Rauner has held firm on the position that he will not consider approving budget deficits and the tax increases they require unless he saw proof – in the way of true structural reforms to the way Illinois operates –that the doomed status quo would not continue.
While both House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton released statements indicating their own seriousness about getting a budget passed, it’s not clear they are moving the process along in a straightforward way. Madigan described the situation as the governor “disrupting the lives of many, many middle-class families,” adding, “[t]he House acted in May to avoid any disruption of a wide range of core programs and services.”
But Madigan and Cullerton have still yet to send a handful of budget bills to the governor, without any explanation.
Specifically, Senate bills 788 and 2038 were never sent to the governor.
In its current form, SB 788 is the major piece of Medicaid legislation that would reduce Medicaid reimbursement rates for many health-care providers by 2.25 percent, while changing the assessment amounts paid by hospitals to the state in lieu of a rate reduction. SB 2038 would appropriate $63 million to make back-payments to employees whose wages were not fully paid after a court ruling determined they were entitled to them in 2011.
By holding back portions of the budget that have made it through most of the legislative process, it appears Madigan and Cullerton are still playing games. These bills could be amended and pushed out of the General Assembly at a moment’s notice, which means no one knows what they may contain by the time they hit the governor’s desk.
The retention of these bills creates another question mark about Madigan and Cullerton’s plans. At least the governor has made his intentions clear from the beginning.
If the House speaker and Senate president are going to claim their desire is to avoid disruption to the state, they should stop sending mixed signals and engage in the honest budgeting process that Illinoisans want and deserve.