Dire scenarios for IL in second year without budget

As Illinois faces a battle over the state’s budget, Gov. Bruce Rauner (R-IL) says he is now advocating a stopgap funding measure and a school funding bill.

“Because I would like that General Assembly session to be as productive as possible”, Rauner said.

Rauner vetoed the out-of-balance plan Democrats sent him past year, and Democrats failed to send him a spending proposal before leaving Springfield at the end of May because of divisions between House and Senate members.

Chicago Public Schools gets a big chunk of that money. Some of the mayors joined Rauner at his news conference Monday morning. One that would increase Rockford Public Schools’ funding by $18 million.

Rauner said his office has reached out to Cullerton and Madigan to arrange a meeting with the four legislative leaders on Tuesday before the General Assembly returns to Springfield Wednesday for the first time since lawmakers adjourned May 31 without passing a budget. The governor has insisted on cost-cutting changes in law to boost business, freeze property taxes, curb union influence and adopt political term limits and fairer ways to draw legislative districts.

Before getting the emergency money, higher education institutions had been without funding since last July 1, prompting layoffs and, in the case of Chicago State University, the possibility of closing altogether. He indicated that he was willing to work with State Senate President John Cullerton’s (D-District 6) version of pension reform, which would allow workers to voluntarily change their pension benefits.

Allowing CPS to declare bankruptcy if the Mayor or city council deemed it necessary to reorganize school contracts and debts could protect teachers’ jobs and prevent the need for massive tax hikes on homeowners in Chicago.

Rauner said it was good that Emanuel acknowledged “that the city needs to step up and start to deal with their own problems”, but claimed the plan was simply “kicking the can down the road”. “Taxpayers, teachers and students of the city of Chicago are exhausted of bailing out the rest of the state and the rest of the taxpayers”.

If there’s no spending authority, Munger said, the only recourse for social service agencies, utilities and other state vendors awaiting payment will be to sue the state.

Rauner added that the stopgap bills would spend money the state is already taking in, and not add to the bill backlog.

The governor said yesterday that legislators are close to an agreement on a spending plan and an education funding bill.