Rep. Greg Harris • 13th District
Springfield Update • February 25, 2011
Human Service Cuts and House Budget Process
As you may know, the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget attempted late last week to impose $208 million in cuts to existing Human Service programs, effective immediately. I, along with many of my colleagues, went into high gear to try to negate what we saw as incredibly bad public policy, bad for our communities, devastating to public health and a driver of much higher costs in law enforcement, prisons and a drain on already tenuous hospital emergency department resources. This was a bi-partisan reaction to elimination of substance abuse and mental health programs for all non-Medicaid eligible citizens in Illinois which would have almost immediately released 55,000 persons with untreated addiction and mental illness onto our neighborhood streets. Also, programs which supported families with children with disabilities were in line to be axed.
I wish to compliment my colleagues from all across the State and both sides of the aisle for putting aside any possible politics and working on this issue. Yesterday the Governor’s Office announced those cuts would be “ameliorated”. What that will mean in reality, we will continue to monitor and I will continue to make my voice heard to protect our neighborhoods, our families with disabled kids and substance abuse/mental health needs.
Last week, the Governor introduced his proposed budget for FY2012. Instead of holding spending even, there were substantial increases proposed, and there were assumptions made about available revenues which are not supported by existing sources, which runs contrary to the spirit of the Budgeting for Outcomes law, and continues us down the path of living beyond our means.
It is the intention of the General Assembly to craft a budget from scratch, living within our means and counting only on real revenues. There is a will to no longer engage in any of the ‘wishful thinking’ or accounting maneuvers that have helped get us into this fiscal crisis. The State Budget will start in the House, meaning that our processes will largely define the shape of what the sources of revenue will realistically be, and how those funds will be divided and spent.
The first step in the process will be the determination of what revenues can realistically be expected from authorized sources. (Unlike the Governor’s proposed budget, we will not be counting on any revenues that as yet have not been approved. I will detail the difference in those approaches at the end of this narrative). The process for determination of available revenues will be by presentation of expert witnesses and budget authorities in the Committee on Revenue. This Committee will have to approve HR110, the FY12 House Revenue Estimates, for all categories of state revenue. You can see the Resolution with placeholder amounts here: http://ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=110&GAID=11&DocTypeID=HR&LegId=60366&SessionID=84&GA=97
Once the Resolution is passed out of Committee, it will be debated on the House Floor and will have to receive a majority vote. This will be the basis of funds available for expenditure. Should additional revenues or borrowing sources be enacted into law, these will be added to the funds available for appropriation at that time.
The next step will be approval of a resolution that will allocate a percentage of available state source revenues to each of the Appropriation Committees. The average of the most recent distributions by Approp area is as follows*:
Elementary/Secondary Education 28.941%
General Services 5.060%
Higher Education 8.766%
Human Services 50.143%
Public Safety 7.090%
[*Pension, Debt Service and Group Insurance lump sums are not included in these percentages]
This is NOT guaranteed to be the FY12 allocation but is provided as useful information. Once the allocation has been made to each Approp Committee, the Committee will have to approve appropriation and spending authority for each agency, department and program under its control only up to available monies. Each major agency will have its own appropriation bill. Each bill will have to be approved by majority vote of the members of the Approp Committee and then will have to be approved by majority vote on the House floor.
As you can see, this will be a very different process than in previous years and will involve a huge amount of decision making authority vested in Approp Committee members, as opposed to the more familiar “budgeteer” process.
The Senate will have its own process as well, and there may end up being Conference Committees to resolve legislative differences. The budgets approved by majority vote of the legislative branch must still be presented to the executive branch for approval or veto. If there is a veto, the legislative branch will have to decide whether to accept or override the veto of the Governor. As you can see, massive amounts of negotiation and consensus building will have to be involved….especially considering that the expense needs will FAR exceed the available revenues to fund them. Major cuts and eliminations can be expected.
My assignment in the budget process is as Vice Chairman of the Appropriations Public Safety Committee (Chair is Luis Arroyo of Chicago, Minority Spokesperson is David Reis of Olney) and the major areas where we will be making decisions are these:
State Police
Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity
Department of Transportation
Capital Budget Appropriations
Capital Development Board
Juvenile Justice
Corrections
Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority
Illinois Sports Authority
Military Affairs
Prisoner Review Board
Violence Prevention Authority
Workers Compensation Commission
Labor
Emergency Management Authority
Power Authority
Judicial Inquiry Board
(among others)
As always, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions on these Agencies, Departments and the funds they oversee. You can contact me at greg@gregharris.org or call in Chicago at 773 348 3434 or Springfield 217 782 3835.
Here are comparative summaries of the budget plan as proposed by the Governor, which assume certain revenues and his proposed borrowing plan, which have not been approved by the legislature, and a summary of the effect on the plan if those as yet unapproved numbers were ‘backed out’,
Governor’s Plan (in millions) FY11 FY12
Base Revenue 30,555 33,267
Adjustments
Decouple Fed Deprec* 80 570
Cut CIT Refund Fund* 159
Borrowing* 4,000 1,450
Short Term Debt 1,300
POB Proceeds 3,680
Tobacco Securitization 1,250
Revenue Subtotal 40,865 35,446
[*denotes revenues or borrowing not yet enacted into law]
Expenditures 34,982 35,382
Surplus/ (Deficit) 5,883 64
Previous Year Balance (6,314) (431)
Current Year Balance (431) (367)
No Borrowing but Approve Revenue Changes
Surplus/ (Deficit) 1,981 (983)
Previous Year Balance (6,314) (4,333)
Current Year Balance (4,333) (5,316)
No Borrowing or Revenue Changes
Surplus/ (Deficit) 1,901 (1,712)
Previous Year Balance (6,314) (4,413)
Current Year Balance (4,413) (6,125)
The “Current Year Balance” reflects unpaid bills being carried forward. In an average budget year that number has been $500-600 million. (Thanks to John Lowder and the House Budget Staff for providing these numbers).