1. True or False? The Illinois General Assembly is on vacation.

2. True or False? The Illinois General Assembly missed the deadline to pass a budget.

3. True or False? The state government is ignoring the problem.

The answer is "False" to all of the above statements, although you might not believe it by looking at the cartoons and commentaries in the local newspapers.

Several crucial budget votes in the House failed. I voted no on both measures because we were given two non-choices:

1. Borrow the money for our entire pension payment of $3.7 billion or
2. Cut our General Revenue Fund spending by $3.7 billion, which would mean severe reductions to education, day care, substance abuse, mental illness and other services for our most vulnerable citizens.

Talk about black or white choices. The answer is in the grey area in between. I was not ready to support the leaders' proposal at this time. While it was suggested by the leaders that we adjourn by May 7, I felt we hadn't reached the best possible solution by that date and would not go along with the plan. The Senate had passed a budget and an emergency budget act giving great flexibility to the Governor, but the House did not. So we went home for the weekend.

Since then I have continually been on the phone or meeting with colleagues, budget staff, the Governor's office and others to try to identify cuts and/or revenues and support for actions that will help relieve the pressures of our $13 billion budget hole. This week, I drafted two amendments to budget legislation.

I am working hard to identify efficiencies and policy changes that will save money so the state can maintain its crucial services. We are looking at about a dozen ideas such as:

• cutting our spending back to 2007 levels
• requiring all State of Illinois government retirees to pay a portion of their healthcare insurance
• cutting salaries and pensions for those on boards and commissions
• further audits to weed out Medicaid fraud
• reviewing and/or freezing all contracts

Many of these changes are quite controversial, but we will try to garner support so we don't have to borrow, skip pension payments or cut essential services.

We have made great strides in pension reform, ethics, campaign finance and procurement reform this past session. I have taken tough votes to save every single dollar to provide essential services. I voted against the sales tax holiday. I voted against the tuition waivers for General Assembly scholarships. I voted against the free rides for seniors. These add up to hundreds of millions of dollars in total.

If we can't agree on a budget by May 31, when we usually adjourn, a super-majority vote is required to pass a budget. We actually have until the start of the new fiscal year (June 30) to put a new budget in place. However, there is great pressure on the majority party to adjourn by May 31 with a finalized budget so that votes by the minority party are not needed to finalize crucial budget votes. Furthermore, we don't need to incur further expenses simply by our inability to agree.

While there is no agreement on an income tax increase, there are some proposals to help fill the revenue gap:

• Tax amnesty program: $250 million expected to be raised
• Increase in cigarette tax: $320 million
• Securitize the tobacco settlement income: $1.2 billion
• Intrafund borrowing in the state: $1 to 3 billion

• Last year, we cut $2.5 billion out of state spending.
• Our number of government employees is the lowest per capita of any state.
• Our state income tax is the lowest of any state that has an income tax.
• General Assembly members will be taking 12 furlough days for the second year, equivalent to about a 5% reduction in annual pay.
• Property taxes do not go to the state. Our revenues come from sales tax and income tax, which are very susceptible to swings in the economy, and have plummeted in the worst recession since the Great Depression.
• Only half of our budget ($27 billion) is in the General Revenue Fund that we control (the other half has a federal match requirement).
• We have a $13 billion budget shortfall, which includes $6 billion of invoices from vendors that we can't pay on time.
• To cut our way out of this hole means we would have to cut our spending in half.

As always, I welcome your input and ideas. I have been vigilant in taking your suggestions and following up with legislation or other actions to streamline government to save dollars. For example:

• I passed legislation that greatly diminished Medicaid paperwork by creating permanent identification cards and electronic eligibility.
• I am working on policies that diminish printing by departments and focus on intradepartmental savings.
• I am urging that very small checks be consolidated to minimize administrative costs.
• I've called for faster turnarounds of tax receipt deposits so the cash is available to give to vendors.

Despite all these efforts, we are still billions short, but we still need to institute changes to whittle down any further borrowing or debt. It's that simple. Wish us luck.

email: karen@repkarenmay.org

phone: (847) 433-9100

web: http://www.repkarenmay.org