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Munger Warns Budget Inaction Will Bring Greater Hardship

Mike Miletich
/
WGLT

With just over a week left before the start of the 2017 Fiscal Year, Illinois' Comptroller is warning that hardships caused by the state's budget impasse will grow significantly without further action in Springfield.

While court orders, consent decrees and statutory authorization of some payments will continue, Munger said that $23 billion in existing spending for schools, 911 call centers, domestic violence shelters, federally-funded social and human services and higher education will stop next month without new legislation.

Munger said businesses and organizations that have signed contracts and provided services to the state this year face the very real possibility of having to go to Court to be paid in the absence of a stopgap budget.

"These are the ramifications of not passing a budget for the next fiscal year, but it doesn't end there. The state has a moral and legal obligation to clean up the mess it created during this current year by not passing a budget," said Munger.

Speaking at a news conference on the campus of Illinois State University, Munger highlighted four budget bills that were passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor that will sunset in the new fiscal year. The legislation authorized spending that included:

  • $13.7 billion for K-12 education
  • $3.1 billion that funded local governments, 911 call centers, domestic violence shelters, lottery winners and other programs and services
  • $5.4 billion in federal spending including Low Income Energy Assistance Program, child nutrition programs, HIV prevention and home-delivered meals for seniors
  • $600 million for colleges, universities (including $20.9 million for ISU) and MAP grants

Compounding Illinois' challenges, Munger noted businesses that have provided goods and services to the state in good faith in the current fiscal year will continue to go unpaid without legislation in Springfield. Typically, unpaid vendors would go before the Court of Claims to compel payment, but without an appropriation that Court is not an option. As a result, the state faces the possibility of a wave of costly lawsuits. 
After a year without a budget put in place, Munger said there are now small bipartisan working groups that are trying to find common ground on the reforms Governor Rauner is asking for with some of the spending requested on both sides. Munger said there is a lot of progress being made in those groups, but there needs to be a will to put it into new legislation and get it passed before July 1.

Munger said the only excuse for delaying the budget is putting the political positions in front of and above the needs of the state.

"There's a lot of discussion that if we don't get a budget it's because our election is coming up in the fall. And people are worried. Honestly, that is a terrible reason; putting politics before the people of the state, the people who fund the very existence of our government," said Munger.

Mike joined GLT's staff as a student reporter in February of 2016 having worked previously as a reporter at Illinois State University's student radio station, 103.3 WZND. He acted as a director for the WZND newsroom for two years. Mike was also seen as a reporter, producer, and anchor at TV-10 News. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism in May of 2017 before starting his post-graduate career with the Public Affairs Reporting Masters Program at University of Illinois Springfield.
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