By Blake Haas
BLOOMINGTON – A Central Illinois lawmaker, who is mulling a decision to run for Governor, says Illinois’ new state budget was ‘fatally flawed.”
The budget, which passed on June 1, was initially set to take effect next summer. However, some mistakes in the legislation led to a Senate vote to correct the errors.
According to State Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington), the legislative was a disaster from the beginning.
“First of all, the budget was a disaster this year. We’ve been very critical about the legislative process, the notion that very controversial bills are put in writing in the middle of the night where everyone’s given an hour to read it, and there’s a vote. I mean, that’s kind of been a long-standing criticism, but I think it’s really heightened more recently. And so the budget was an example of this; popped out in the middle of the night.
Definitely, we talked about concepts that were in the budget, but no one had a chance to look at it, no one, literally. It was fatally flawed; they had the date’s all screwed up. And the effect of it was that seventy-five to eighty-five percent of next year’s budget, which starts here in just two weeks, we’re in a fiscal year. That budget was broken so much that it wouldn’t be useful. The people who relied on those dollars would never get them. So it had to get fixed.”
Barickman told WJBC’s Scott Miller when the Governor corrected the legislation; he could have scaled back a bill that provides politicians with a $1,800 a year pay raise.
“The example that I think is on everyone’s mind is that lawmakers again receive a pay raise this year. While taking away that pay raise wouldn’t solve the state’s financial problems, the reality is the people of this state know we’re in dire fiscal condition. We’ve got some short-term relief from the federal stimulus, but the reality is Illinois’ finances are in a precarious position. The Governor could of at least done the simple things of striking things like legislator pay raises and demonstrated to the people of this state that he’s standing up for them.
But, instead, the Governor fixed the budget, he changed the date issues, the technical problems that existed with it. But he didn’t bother to stand up for the people. I do think it’s a missed opportunity for a governor who says, ‘hey, I want to be different, I want to be a reformer, I wanna stand up to the political class.’ Here was yet again another chance for Governor Pritzker to do that, and he caved. He caved to the status quo by doing things like giving lawmakers pay raises when he could of stood up for the people.”
The House must also accept the changes. The state’s new fiscal year begins July 1.
Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].
