Monique Garcia Contact Reporter Chicago Tribune
Thwarted by lawmakers in his efforts to dramatically cut state spending, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has turned to a workaround, using an obscure rule-making process to repeatedly tighten eligibility requirements for numerous social service programs for children, the elderly and the disabled.
The tactic is another front in his ongoing battle with Democrats who control the General Assembly, turning a normally staid legislative panel responsible for drafting rules and procedures into a bickering partisan body that has difficulty finding common ground.
Now as Rauner continues to try to force additional cuts, his latest plan would make it more difficult for people to try to get state services restored once they lose them. Critics say it amounts to a one-two punch: First, thousands of people lose home care or help paying for food and electricity; then they face a harder time proving they really need the help.
Democrats and social service groups sharply criticize the end run, saying Rauner is governing by rule and abusing his administrative power to push through changes without proper vetting.
“In the years that I have served, I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen such a single-minded dedication from a governor to try to balance the budget on the backs of seniors, people with disabilities and children,” said Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago. “It’s a question of are you using your executive authority to circumvent things that should be done legislatively?”
Supporters counter that Rauner is simply taking advantage of one of the very few options he has to reduce spending when roughly 90 percent of the budget is going out the door during the lengthy impasse via court order or existing law. The situation is putting Illinois on track to spend billions more than it’s taking in.
“This may be shocking to the system and the protocol and the feel and jibe of what has been, I get that, but we are truly in new circumstances, these are unventured territories,” said Rep. Ron Sandack of Downers Grove, Republican co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, the panel that’s responsible for overseeing the minutiae of putting a law in place.
“There is only so much that the administration can control, and the few things they can are really difficult topics, it’s not fun,” he added.
At the center of the fight is the state’s subsidized child care program, which helps low-income families pay for day care so parents can work or go to school. Rauner first targeted the program for cuts when he proposed his budget shortly after taking office. But Democrats roundly rejected his spending plan, sending him their own version that he largely vetoed.
On July 1, the start of the new budget year, Rauner put in place so-called emergency rules to immediately raise child care copays and sharply limit who qualifies. His administration also set new income limits for the elderly who receive help at home with cooking, cleaning, bathing and dressing.
The changes, as well as additional cuts to services for the elderly, are estimated to save as much as $151 million — a relative drop in the bucket compared with overall spending that’s expected to reach at least $37 billion because of various court orders and laws. The state expects to take in about $32 billion. Rauner wants lawmakers to approve his pro-business, union-weakening changes before talking about a tax increase to bring in more money, but Democrats are opposed to the Republican governor’s agenda.
Under the standard process, legislators approve a law that lays out the measure’s broad strokes, but it is up to a bipartisan panel to oversee the creation of regulations that guide the various agencies under the governor’s control. Agencies cannot unilaterally make changes to those procedures without a public hearing process overseen by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules.
An exception occurs when a state agency files emergency rules, which the administration can develop on its own and put in place immediately. The rules last for 150 days or until permanent changes are made. The process is supposed to be used only if there’s a threat to the public interest, safety or welfare.
Critics argue that the changes in child care and other social service rules don’t meet that requirement, saying Rauner was simply looking for a way to force changes he knew lawmakers wouldn’t sign off on. Democrats on the rules panel sought to overturn the child care changes, but that effort failed when Republicans voted to keep them in place.
The party-line vote was considered unprecedented on the panel, which is divided equally among Democratic and Republican lawmakers, underlining the deep partisan divide that has permeated state government.
“I hope that (vote) was an anomaly. It’s important that the rule-making process be fair, and that the legislative committee serves as a check on the executive branch,” said Sen. Don Harmon of Oak Park, the Democratic co-chairman. “I’m hoping there was a genuine misunderstanding of what constitutes an emergency related to that last round of rules, and that there will be a closer adherence to the statute as further rules are considered.
“I think there is room for us to work together to make better sense of our fiscal situation, but the adversarial approach has not proved to be very successful,” Harmon added.
A subsequent effort to roll back the changes failed in the House when Democrats couldn’t wrangle all 71 of their members needed to push through the legislation. Advocates have since turned their attention to picking up Republican votes, and while some in the GOP have said they don’t like the child care cuts, it remains to be seen whether they’ll go against Rauner. Either way, no action is expected on the matter until the House returns to Springfield in late October.
For his part, Rauner counters that the lack of a complete budget is emergency enough to try to reduce spending.
“With no budget in place and the majority party refusing to pass a single reform to grow our economy, the state of Illinois is most certainly in a state of fiscal emergency,” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said. “Illinois is facing a $4 billion deficit, and the administration is trying to responsibly manage the state’s finances amid statutorily required payments and various court orders and consent decrees.”
Despite the outcry, it’s hardly unusual for governors to test the reach of their executive powers through rule changes. Even if the efforts aren’t successful, they can help score political points among supporters who back the changes.
Rauner’s predecessor, Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, used the emergency rule-making process to try to regulate petroleum coke following pressure from community groups on Chicago’s Southeast Side, where Indiana refineries stored the byproduct in heaping piles. The effort was rejected by the Pollution Control Board, which ruled that the state failed to prove an imminent threat to public health and safety.
In 2005, Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich filed emergency rules requiring all pharmacists in Illinois to quickly dispense birth control and emergency contraception pills. The state appellate court ruled in 2012 that the state cannot force pharmacists to provide emergency contraceptives if they have religious objections.
Meanwhile, as he tries to trim the budget, Rauner has sought another change from the federal government to tighten qualifications for a variety of services for the elderly and disabled, including adult day care, personal assistants, homemakers, meal delivery and in-home therapy. Under current law, applicants must need a high level of care that would otherwise be provided in a nursing home or other supported living facility.
To determine whether someone is eligible for services, and to what level, an assessment is used to arrive at what’s known as the Determination of Need score. That score is calculated using a variety of factors, including how much help is needed with day-to-day tasks like eating, grooming, travel, housework and preparing meals. The higher the score, the greater the need.
The current minimal threshold is a score of 29, which Rauner wants to raise to 37. Advocates say that would leave 10,000 people with disabilities and 24,000 seniors without assistance. They argue that it would drive up costs as those kicked off the rolls turn to emergency rooms or nursing homes for help.
In a rare agreement, Democrats and Republicans sent Rauner legislation to block the change. Rauner aides did not respond to a question asking what the governor will do with the bill. But advocates expect him to veto it, and it’s unclear whether the uneasy truce would withstand an effort to override him.
Further compounding a possible loss in services is another Rauner rule change that would make it more difficult to appeal a cutoff of home services for the disabled and elderly, as well as other programs such as food stamps for families and assistance paying rent and utility bills. Under new rules Rauner has proposed, the burden of proof is no longer on the state to make its case why services should be stopped; instead it is up to recipients to prove they need the help.
Critics say the deck is being stacked against the poor because patients won’t have the same access to their case files as the state, and there will be fewer hearing locations with stricter rules about showing up in person. Advocates also note that many people who rely on services have developmental disabilities and can’t be expected to fully understand the appeals process on their own.
Many doubt it’s a coincidence that the tougher appeal rules emerged at the same time the administration is trying to cut eligibility.
“If you decide to change the DON score, 10,000 people will want to appeal, and life will be easier if you make it more difficult to appeal,” said Amber Smock, director of advocacy for Access Living, a disabled rights group. “There is no good reason to do this, and with the emphasis in recent years on best practices and better outcomes and showing that programs actually work, it seems very strange to reduce services with no justification other than budgetary considerations.”
But Republicans say the state has operated for far too long without an emphasis on the bottom line, saying Rauner is making tough but necessary choices during uncertain times.
“We are on autopilot,” Sandack said. “For those who have made much to do about the rules process, I would ask have they been around for a budget impasse that’s lasted this long? The state has no appropriation authority and the ability to manage what amounts to pennies in the overall budget. If that’s not an emergency, I don’t know what would ever qualify.”
Twitter @moniquegarcia