The Capitol Fax Blog » Budget roundup

Wednesday, Feb 15, 2006

Here are a few excerpts from today’s budget preview stories.

Â· The Tribune’s story, “Election-year plan of plenty,” has several details.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich will unveil a $55.3 billion campaign year budget Wednesday highlighted by a broad-based social agenda that includes early learning programs and health care for kids while keeping his promise not to raise state income or sales taxes. […]

With something for nearly every constituency, the Blagojevich spending plan would pump a $400 million increase into prekindergarten programs through high school, including money to launch the nation’s first universal preschool for children as young as 3.

Blagojevich would pay to train 100 new Illinois State Police cadets, relocate the state’s Sexually Violent Persons program from Joliet to a new, larger facility in Downstate Rushville and partially open a long-vacant new prison in northwestern Illinois. For the first time in 6 years, the budget also would increase rates for child-care providers.

The governor also will propose $15 million to launch a 5-year, $100 million plan to provide funds for regenerative stem cell research, according to budget documents obtained by the Tribune.

Â· The Sun-Times writes about the pension proposal.

Gov. Blagojevich today will suggest diverting cash from the future sale of Illinois’ disputed 10th casino license to reduce the $38 billion shortfall facing the state’s public pension systems. […]

“I don’t think the idea even dignifies a response,” said Rep. Mark Beaubien (R-Wauconda), the House Republican’s lead budget negotiator. “That’s so classic Blagojevich: ‘When we sell the 10th license, we’ll give the money to pensions.’ In the year 2010? 2011? 2012? When? It’s pandering, that’s what it is.”

The Daily Herald takes my Capitol Fax story from yesterday and advances it an interesting notch.

Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich today will ask lawmakers to sell the stateâ€™s college loan portfolio to fetch as much as $500 million to pay for $1,000 college tax credits to parents of freshmen and sophomores at state schools.

The contract to sell the student loans, which would keep the same terms, could go to a firm with ties to the chairman of Blagojevichâ€™s 2002 governor campaign. […]

McNeil confirmed the contract to sell the loans could go to Scott Balice Strategies, which has served as the tollwayâ€™s financial consultant. The firm is a â€œstrategic partnerâ€ and has shared office space with lobbying outfit Wilhelm and Conlon. David Wilhelm was Blagojevichâ€™s 2002 campaign chairman but has said he stopped lobbying a couple of years ago. Scott Balice has given $15,500 to Blagojevichâ€™s campaign fund since 2000.

Use this as a budget address open thread. Live-blog if you can. I want commenters to get some practice doing this because I might have a big announcement in the coming days.

- posted by Rich Miller

15 Comments

- southernilrepub - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 8:34 am:
Where is my tax break from the State of IL for my indebitedness for my two degrees? Again a thanks goes to Blago for three years of missing the boat on higher education!

- Anonymous - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 9:57 am:
Rich is running for governor!

- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 10:00 am:
Not.

- donchicago48 - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 10:01 am:
One can safely assume that Governor Blagojevich will highlight an election year budget that is long on new gimmick spending, and short on solutions to the worsening fiscal crisis. As many astute observers have noted previously, Illinois has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
So let’s ask some general questions about how the new budget addresses these problems.
1. Does the budget reduce bloated state workforce costs?
2. Does the new budget propose broad budget spending cuts?
3. Does the new budget address runaway Medicaid costs?
4. Does the new budget call for sale or lease of existing state capital assets?
5. Does the new budget promote competitive state service delivery?
6. Does the new budget reduce spending on programs that perform poorly?
7. Does the new budget create any incentives for innovative savings in state departments?
8. Does the new budget reduce needless duplication and overlap of services?
9. Does the new budget utilize new technology to cut overhead?

- donchicago48 - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 10:12 am:
In a July 2002 report entitled “Show Me the Money - Budget Cutting Strategies For Cash-Strapped States”, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Manhattan Institute For Policy Research offer a variety of strategies for balancing and reforming budgets.

Here is one example of Web technology utilization from the report:

TEN WAYS E-GOVERNMENT CAN SAVE STATES MONEY
1 Reduced workforce costs
2 Higher employee productivity
3 Reduced paper costs
4 Reduced processing costs
5 Better supply chain management
6 Better prices on goods and services
7 More efficient markets
8 Reduced travel and training costs
9 Reduced fraud and abuse
10 Lower building and property costs

- Budget Watcher - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 3:08 pm:
Rich,

The current fiscal year budget (FY06) assumed the federal government would approve a hospital assessment program that would generate $470 million per year for Illinois hospitals and $130 million for the state. To date, this plan is unapproved and given the Governor’s Washington bashing, is very possibly not going to be approved. This would cripple many hospitals who are barely surviving now and would further slow payment cycles to Medicaid providers, since a portion of the state money was earmarked for Medicaid providers.

With the focus on the upcoming budget, we sometimes forget the underlying assumptions that may not occur.

- Anon - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 5:01 pm:
I wonder why there is only 1 - $300,000 experimental resurfacing project in a 9 county IDOT District that is within Sen. Dahl’s and Rep. Mautino’s area during FY 2007.

- NIEVA - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 6:28 pm:
Did I understand correctly that the riverboat license money would go to pensions? And it was how much,a hundred million or so. Well lets do a little math. If we sell this license and gain a hundred mill. we will only need to sell somewhere between three and four hundred more to pay off the pension debt.I think this is a great idea. A boat on every pothole in Chicago. A fleet of riverboats that could crusie the great lakes. The guv sure can come up with some great ideas!!!!!!!!!!

- Curious - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 6:59 pm:
Some basic questions.

Does the introduced budget depend upon receipts from the sale of the student loan portfolio?

How much is the budget predicated on the productivity of John Filan’s two most valued employees (Chargeback Charlie and Fundsweep Freddy)? Are their targets identified?

The balances of the special funds - is there any separation between federal and state funds, their balances, and how those balances compare to January 2003?

Are there any “rosy scenarios” in this proposal?

I would like to see these questions, and others, discussed in detail - here if necessary.

- anonymous - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 7:34 pm:
One again, smoke and mirrors. Let’s see, 4 proposals to fund pensions that don’t produce any concrete cash because the casino license in limbo; hoping teachers will work longer is no guarantee that they will (I taught, I know); surplus property is usually junk that won’t generate much, and aren’t held that often and the fourth proposal, looking for new source of revenue is something we should have been doing all along, it’s nothing new. This sounds like a high school term paper, using anything to flesh out the meager content. Governor, we aren’t that dumb!

Taking credit for 13,000 less state employees, when he knows that 11,000 retired during his predecessor’s watch.

Filling those vacancies with his sweet young 20 somethings entourage, fresh out of business school, who haven’t got a clue about state government or the State Constitution.

Cradle to the grave coverage for everyone, everywhere.

Telling us we have a balanced budget but no information how it got that way.

Giveaways to everyone but the older middle class, who pay the freight, and state employees who are still behind others in similar jobs in private industry when it comes to cost of living.

“Ignore that man behind the curtain.” It’s the Land of Oz, kiddies.

- Mike's Used Sports Section - Wednesday, Feb 15, 06 @ 11:45 pm:
This is not a case of pay to play. Everyone knows that 15,000 is not enough to win business - that’s just a courtesy donation really.

- Anonymous - Thursday, Feb 16, 06 @ 2:48 am:
Speaking of confusing budgets, how come our IL tax booklets only show the general revenue budget of over $28B, not the entire $50B+? Where does the other half of the budget money come from and where does it go?

Anyone notice the slide that said pre-K would cost about $3.8B to fully implement? We could pay for all pre-K without more debt by increasing state income taxes to about 4.5% or raising state sales taxes to about 7.5%, or some combination of the two. Of course, forcing a state pension crisis might be much better for the public in the long run.

- vole - Thursday, Feb 16, 06 @ 7:43 am:
Would someone please inform me of which of the dedicated funds that Rod wants to rob? He seems to justify robbing the special interests to pay for his progressive programs to help the poor and middle class. But do these special interests include those of us who wish to see OSLAD funds continue to pay for open lands, preservation, parks and recreation, staffing of the Nature Preserves Commission, etc? Hmmm…we bad special interests. Can someone direct me to a source that spits out the details on these funds?

- Peoria Gridrion - Thursday, Feb 16, 06 @ 8:19 am:
Does anywone know when the actual budget document will be available for review?

- Fedupw/thisguy - Thursday, Feb 16, 06 @ 5:20 pm:
Would someone please explain how Rod can justify giving millions of dollars in tax breaks for the multi-million dollar film biz when we can’t properly fund education?

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