CHICAGO – State Comptroller Leslie Munger held a press conference Sunday morning in Chicago to announce that state elected officials will not get their April 30th paychecks until late June, due to state budget crisis.
Munger did not refer to state employees as a part of her delayed-payment plan.
Freelance Chicago journalist Jeff Berkowitz was on hand at the sparsely-attended conference. He reports:
Currently, the backlog for state vendor payments is about two months. Thus, said Comptroller Munger, State lawmakers and state-wide officeholders, whose next paychecks are due to go out on April 30, will probably not receive their checks until late June. If the payment and State revenue situation worsens, as expected over the summer, the checks will be received in the third month, or later, after the due date.
The Comptroller reminded those present that Illinois is in the 10th month of trying to function without an appropriated budget. She said, “As a result, we are paying 90% of the state’s bills under court orders, consent degrees and statutory requirements. Many of those court orders do not have spending caps, which has put the State on track to spend 1.2 billion dollars more than Fiscal Year 2015 while bringing in 5 billion dollars less in revenue [reflecting an additional half year in which the individual tax rate reduction was in effect, as well as the State not yet receiving "Fund Sweeps," in Fiscal Year 2016]. That means the State is on pace to bring on another 6.2 billion dollars in debt this year (the Fiscal Year 2016 deficit), which will worsen the State's fiscal position, exacerbate cash flows and lengthen the state payment delays.” Adding the 2016 deficit to the prior backlog of bills will result in a more than $10 billion bill backlog.
The Comptroller continued, “Without a balanced budget, we have no limits on spending and we are promising spending that we have no means to pay for. This is [hurting] families, social service providers, higher education, municipalities and businesses throughout our state."
Read the rest of Berkowitz press conference coverage HERE.
Madigan has a veto proof majority that blindly follow his marching orders no matter how much misery it causes people and businesses in Illinois. Madigan can pass a tax increase to 12% to balance the budget as the Illinois Constitution requires and pay down the debt accumulated under his leadership. Or Madigan can institute the reforms necessary to turn the economy around and stop the flight of high income earners and job creators leaving Illinois. I applaud Leslie Munger for making those Madigan led legislators share the misery created by Madigan.
I don’t want to delay the lawmakers paychecks, I want to eliminate them along their staff. Illinois has 43,021 elected officials which include 177 state legislators with hundreds of support staff.
This for a group that can’t pass or balance a budget for the past 40 years supporting an unsustainable pension system. They do have time to pass laws like making pumpkin pie the official state pie.
They also have time to raise taxes, pass regulations, and pass UNFUNDED mandates.
Not only should we withhold their pay, we should garnish their wages .
FanTAStic news!!!
I say delay even longer, and start reducing amount of checks by 10% per month until a budget is passed.
I guarantee that would cause democrats to start peeling away from King Mad-again, as so many of the elected officials from Chicago consider their elected office as their “job” and primary source of income.