May 31--Illinois Democrats on Tuesday rebuffed a request from Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner for a short-term spending plan to get the state through the November election, saying they'd entertain the idea but not to expect a deal before the midnight end-of-session deadline.
Emerging from a closed-door meeting with the governor, Democratic leaders said they'd dispatched Rauner's proposal to a group of lawmakers who already have spent months negotiating a larger budget deal that has yet to materialize.
The response from House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton was the latest indication that Illinois is poised for another summer of wrangling over the state's finances, this time with a higher-stakes question of whether schools in many parts of the state will open come August.
Rauner's request for a short-term budget came after the governor spent weeks insisting that lawmakers should focus on a long-term financial plan for the state and not get distracted by other ideas. But with Senate Democrats potentially voting on a House-passed plan that spends $7 billion more than the state takes in, Rauner flipped his script and embraced the stopgap idea, which Cullerton first suggested late last week.
The governor's budget director floated a memo that set out a plan to fund the state agencies and operations that are currently being starved of cash during the 11-month impasse, and the Rauner administration wants that plan passed Tuesday.
While Democrats said they'd consider the idea, they made it clear that a vote was not imminent, instead dispatching the matter to a so-called "working group" of lawmakers first formed by Rauner in an earlier attempt to go around Democratic leaders in brokering a larger budget deal. By saying they'll consider the idea, Madigan and Cullerton are in essence using Rauner's own legislative working groups against him.
"This is not something that's going to happen today," Madigan said. "It's going to be sent off to the budget working group ... They'll have a lot of good ideas to fashion a good, solid bill that would be responsive to the governor's request that we give him appropriation authority, spending authority to get the state through the general election."
Republican legislative leaders cast the deal as yet another move in the ongoing chess game between Rauner and Democrats.
"It's all about the blame game, and it's about politics," said Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno of Lemont. "And the problem is, politics is taking the front seat to policy in this state and to the very basic needs that we need to cover. At this point, it's clear we're not going to have a balanced budget. What we're talking about now is something to provide minimal stability to the state could be accomplished by midnight and they're saying no to even that."
The budget "bridge" proposed by Rauner's office is aimed at keeping state government afloat for at least six months, until after the November election when the hope is some lawmakers will be more willing to cast difficult votes without fear of how that might affect their re-election bids.
The administration could not immediately provide an estimate on how much the proposal would spend in total, but the plan calls for emptying the state's rainy day fund to pay for utilities, food and medical services at state prisons, mental health centers and veterans' homes.
It would also tap into $458 million in a specialized fund for human service programs not currently covered by a court order or consent decree, including homeless and domestic violence prevention programs.
Rauner repeated his call that funding for elementary and high schools be put in a separate bill from other spending plans, the idea being to provide assurance that schools will open on time while the political games play out.
Roughly $600 million would come from a higher education fund to prop up public universities and community colleges, which have seen major layoffs and program cuts after going nearly a year without state support. The goal is to provide a lifeline to campuses most at risk, including Chicago State University, Western Illinois University and Eastern Illinois University, with enough funding to open and complete the fall semester.
The plan also relies on the state not repaying $450 million it borrowed from special funds last year to plug another budget hole. That money would be used to keep electric and water service going at key government buildings, and buy salt for roads during the winter.
The proposal comes just days after Rauner and his team started sounding the alarm about a Democrat-led effort to push a resolution to the budget dispute into next year.
When Cullerton floated the idea of a one-month stopgap budget last week, Republican leaders cast it as Democrats "pulling the plug" on negotiations. Rauner's budget director, Tim Nuding, dismissed the idea as "not a viable option at this point."
Rauner's sudden embrace of the idea provided an opening for Cullerton to gloat, and he took it, saying that Rauner had referred to him as "prescient" for having thought of the idea first.
"It's prescient. It makes my comments prescient," Cullerton said, when asked for his thoughts about the Rauner proposal. "P-R-E-S-C-I-E-N-T."
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