© 2024 WNIJ and WNIU
Northern Public Radio
801 N 1st St.
DeKalb, IL 60115
815-753-9000
Northern Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Budget Deadline Nears With Little Visible Progress

Illinois Public Radio

By the end of this month, Illinois legislators are supposed to be finished with their work. That includes passing a new budget. And lawmakers are complaining that Gov. Bruce Rauner isn’t helping them move that process forward.

Credit Carl Nelson/WNIJ
Gov. Bruce Rauner

Rauner has spent a lot of time since he was sworn in traveling the state selling what he calls his "Turnaround" agenda, with statements like:

"You know we've got a mess on our hands, we've got a financial crisis. But we're going to get through it. We're going to restructure the government."

In the eyes of Democrats like Rep. Mike Zalewski of Riverside, Rauner has been doing too much of that. The House has voted on ideas from Rauner's wish list, like creating local right-to-work zones, and came up far short of the 60 votes needed for it to pass.

"Down here, it's the art of the possible," Zalewski said, "and you can only get 60 and 30 on certain things. And when you can't get 60 and you can't get 30, you move along."

Move along and focus on the budget.

Democrats appear to be going their own way in crafting a spending plan. Though lawmakers are hesitant to be up front about specifics, a proposal in the works would keep funding mostly level with this year's. It would cut back in many areas, but funding for education from pre-kindergarten through high school would see an increase.

"You know what the governor's been saying, that he hasn't really been working on a budget," Senate President John Cullerton said Wednesday. "He never gave us a balanced budget, when governors normally do.

“So we don't have a balanced budget from the governor,” he continued, “and he's saying he has some other agenda that doesn't relate to the budget. In the meantime, somebody's got to go forward with a budget, so that's what we're trying to do."

It's not that Rauner hasn't introduced any budget; he did, back in February. But that budget, according to Cullerton, isn't balanced. 

Cullerton has said from the onset that Rauner's plan didn't add up because it relies on pension savings that were unattainable – and a Supreme Court decision invalidating a law that would have reduced workers' benefits adds to the budget imbalance. Otherwise, Rauner's proposed budget relied on cuts. Lots and lots and lots of them.

Credit ilga.gov
Rep. Mike Zawleski, D-Riverside; Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, D-Aurora; Senate Pres. John Cullerton, D-Chicago; State Rep. Kenneth Dunkin, D-Chicago; State Rep. Ron Sandack, R-Downers Grove; Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lamont

Those cut proposals have prompted frequent rallies at the Capitol as well as hearing after hearing with testimony about the consequences of chopping programs -- from Amtrak, to funding for the state board of elections, to a subsidy that helps low-income parents afford daycare, to cuts to universities that House Higher Education Appropriations Chair Ken Dunkin, a Democrat, says he won't stand for. 

"To reduce them by 31 and a half percent is unconscionable. And I'm not going to be a part of discounting, devaluating, our respective institutions that we are so -- or should be -- proud of," Dunkin said. He says universities will be cut no more than 10 percent.

Democrats have more than enough votes in the House and Senate to pass a budget on their own.

But part of the reason Rauner's budget proposed so many cuts in the first place was because, Illinois doesn't have the money. Thanks to legislators' pre-election jitters, and Rauner's post-election insistence, a 2011 tax hike rolled back at the start of this year. That means the budget year that begins in July will be the first in years when extra billions won't be coming into state coffers.

While Democrats say a revenue hike is needed, they insist they won't do it without the GOP.

That sets up a scenario where Democrats send Rauner a budget without deep cuts or any tax increase, basically leaving Rauner to sign or slash.

That could put both parties in a political pickle. Democrats may look like the out-of-control spenders their critics paint them to be; Rauner could look like the cutthroat, out-of-touch millionaire.

Will it be that Democrats throw the governor a hot potato, or will they play into his hands, making it easy on Rauner to throw down the gauntlet?

"What I think will happen with the budget is, we'll pass one," Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, D- Aurora, said. "And people need to realize that we just give directives to the governor on how to spend the money. It's up to him to write the checks. And he can take our advice, or he can ignore us.”

That'll leave things "in a big mess," Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno says. "The fact of the matter is, if they do that, the governor will manage it and that will hurt the very constituents they're talking about wanting to help. So it's very incongruous. I think it's very cynical. They need to get to the table and have a very serious discussion about reforms."

And then, she says, Republicans will have a serious discussion about raising taxes that could stave off cuts.

But that's only after Rauner's pro-business, anti-union agenda advances.

Remember Democratic Rep. Zalewski, saying it's time for the governor to leave all the Turnaround talk behind and focus on the budget?

It's the opposite for Rauner. He wrote in an opinion piece – published late Wednesday by The State Journal-Register in Springfield -- that he wants legislators to focus on things like imposing term limits and reforming what he calls "anti-growth policies."

Republican Rep. Ron Sandack of Downers Grove says Democrats are stymying the process.

"The people of the state of Illinois have spoken and they wanted change,” Sandack said. “They want structural reformation. And that means some things that are going to upset the status quo."

While Republican legislators are still greatly outnumbered in the General Assembly, they don't have just the governor's office now. In Rauner, they have a deep-pocketed Republican governor who's got a huge campaign fund he's been up front saying he'll use to advance his position.

In the just-published commentary, Gov. Rauner writes that, if legislators aren't willing to "reform how we do business," they won't be finished this month. He says they should prepare for a "very long extra session."

Amanda Vinicky moved to Chicago Tonight on WTTW-TV PBS in 2017.
Related Stories