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Last updated 8:51 am CT February 09, 2010.
Quinn Signs Budget Bill
The budget plan Quinn signed Wednesday night is built around borrowing money and leaving bills unpaid. It does not include a tax increase.
Lawmakers said repeatedly Wednesday it's not the budget plan they'd hoped for, but it's the one they needed to pass to avoid in--on senator's words--"a meltdown."
There is good news. The 50 percent cuts social service agencies were facing won't be as drastic. But there will still be some cuts.
"It will be up to the governor to administer exactly where and to what extent that tightening is going to occur, but you've got money that you can work with in trying to keep the impact on seniors and children, and working men and women as minimal as possible," said Rep. John Bradley, (D)-Marion.
The plan calls for the Quinn administration to cut $1.1 billion out of state operations and $1.5 billion out of grants to social service providers.
That's just a fraction of the cuts Quinn had said he'd be forced to make under the plan lawmakers sent him in May. However, they aren't enough to eliminate the deficit, so they'll sell $3.5 billion dollars in bonds to pay the pension fund and $3.2 billion in payments to state contractors will be delayed.
Critics of those two provisions say that's just digging the state deeper into a financial hole.
"I've railed against that for a long time and certainly I believe it was wrong again this year, and certainly it's not going in the right direction," said Sen. David Luechtefeld, (R)-Okawville. "It's going to be worse next year. Can you imagine what next year's budget is going to be like?"
The plan also requires lawmakers to take twelve unpaid furlough days. They say they don't mind because the governor may ask state workers to do the same as he trims billions from state operations.
The governor has signed the bill Wednesday night. Pay checks are expected to go out to state workers almost immediately. It'll take longer for money to get to social services agencies as the governor decides exactly which programs he wants to fund and at what levels.
By Dana Jay
djay@wsiltv.com
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