Springfield – On May 20, the Illinois House announced plans to return to Springfield on Monday, May 24, with lawmakers scheduled to work through Wednesday, May 26, to pass a Fiscal Year 2011 Budget. State Senator Dale Righter(R-Mattoon) said that the Illinois Senate will reconvene on Wednesday, May 26, at 4 pm to consider the budget proposal.
Senator Righter explained that the General Assembly has until midnight on May 31 to approve a budget by a simple majority vote. If a budget isn’t accepted by then, a super majority vote will be required before the budget can be approved.
Also this week, Illinois Auditor General William Holland recently released an audit of former Governor Rod Blagojevich’s last year in office, which revealed a litany of problems related to the way his administration hired legal help.
Last week I shared with you my plan addressing the current situation with the Illinois budget and what must be done with our broken Medicaid system. Unfortunately, after a busy week of session, little talk on either of those issues has been heard throughout the Statehouse.
I’ve also drafted legislation that seeks to reform another broken system in Illinois—workers’ compensation. Senate Bill 3931 puts an emphasis on speeding up compensation payments to those who are truly injured and deserving of payments and weeding out the workers’ compensation cases that don’t belong in the system. The measure contains four main points to ensure that the state is using funds properly and paying in a timely manner.
First, Senate Bill 3931 defines “injury” as an injury that has arisen out of and in the course of employment, and requires the accident at the workplace to have been prevailing factor in causing both the resulting medical condition and disability.
Secondly, using the American Medical Association’s objective medical standards, a physician must provide medical evidence that a worker’s injury is permanent partial disability or a total disability. This is a crucial part in ensuring that the workers who are truly deserving of the compensation are paid in a timely manner.
Tuesday, April 20, Governor Quinn released a new budget proposal which he stated contained over $2 billion in spending reductions for Fiscal Year 2011. You may have heard about some of the items included in this proposal from the media. Oftentimes listening to different reports in the media about the state’s finances can be confusing with commentators putting their own spin on the realities of the situation.
My goal is to allow you to view the facts. Towards that goal, I have prepared a few charts and graphs that are easy to follow and lay out the specifics of Governor Quinn’s proposal. Click here to view a line-item listing of the proposal; click here to view a graph that provides the ratio of borrowing, taxes and budget cuts included in the Governor’s Fiscal Year 2011 plan.
Now that you’ve seen what the Governor is proposing; I’d like to share my view of how Illinois should deal with the fiscal challenges we face, which starts with a few easy to understand and common-sense principles.
First, no new spending programs. Our troubles, to a great extent, have been driven by state leaders’ unwillingness to identify what the state’s priorities should be, and set others that taxpayers cannot afford aside.
Second, stop using one-time revenues to pay for ongoing budget demands. Doing just that has been another yearly tactic used by Governor’s Blagojevich, Quinn and their party’s majority in the General Assembly. Whether it be raiding special funds, pension funds or massive borrowing, this practice is irresponsible.
Third, reign in the out of control and unsustainable rate of growth in Medicaid. Addressing the outrageous growth of Medicaid is essential to balancing the entire budget. The education funding crisis the Governor has proclaimed and seeks to resolve with a $3 billion tax increase is largely driven by a Medicaid budget that has grown at twice the rate of the remainder of the budget for the last eight years. Over time that has served to “crowd out” other areas of spending and now endangers education funding. Click here to view a chart that outlines what has been spent on education funding verses Illinois Medicaid liability growth. For years my Senate Republican colleagues and I have proposed legislation that would help reign in Medicaid growth but each of these measures has been blocked by the majority in the General Assembly. Click here to view a listing of legislation that seeks to make the changes necessary to Medicaid which are crucial in any long term solution to Springfield’s budget issues.
Finally, freeze non-essential spending, and cut or eliminate spending where possible. A sincere, line-by-line scrutiny of the budget is necessary. Even in those areas where spending must occur increases must be avoided or strictly limited. This is a fiscal discipline that has been absent in recent years.
Lastly, I’ve prepared another Two Minute Drill video. Give me two minutes of your time, and I’ll deliver what you need to know about how the state is spending your money.
