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Another start of a fiscal year; another stalemate on the State budget and another round of special session days with no end in sight.
The Illinois General Assembly reconvened this week to continue discussing the ongoing budget/fiscal crisis. In a very rare move, the Governor addressed a joint session of the General Assembly on Tuesday for about 10 minutes to announce that he would make significant further cuts in the budget and vowed to veto a budget sent to him that either “decimates the social safety net of the state” or is a partial budget. The situation became more uncertain as the Senate voted down TWICE the legislation to give the authority to borrow $2.2 billion to make the full pension obligation payment and to use the funds that had been designated for the pension payment to avert cuts in critical human services. Key Senators, led by Senator James Meeks, voted No or Present on the pension proposal in an effort to force a showdown on a broader budget fix including an income tax increase. The General Assembly will return to the Capitol at some point- likely after the 4th of July holiday.
There was NO action this week on Senate Bill 268 which includes the rewrite of the Real Estate License Act, agreed language to enact limited provisions to give municipalities a priority lien for clean-up costs on abandoned property, a change to the Predatory Lending Database counseling program to add Kane, Will and Peoria counties (now only applicable in Cook County) and language requested by the community banking lobby to make changes to ensure the continued viability of “banker’s banks”.
The Senate did concur this week with the House amendments to Senate Bill 265, which marks final action on this legislation. You may recall that this bill adds language related to an earlier approved bill that authorized the sweep of funds from various dedicated funds (SB 1433). The new language approved on SB 265 this week states that if the Director of the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget determines that any such sweep either jeopardizes federal funding based on a written communication from a federal official or violates a court order, then the Director may order the State Treasurer and State Comptroller to transfer the money back to that special fund.
Enjoy this holiday weekend with family and friends to celebrate our country and our government! As Sir Winston Churchill so wisely observed:
“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
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