Yesterday, Governor Rauner presented his fourth budget address. Sen Heather Steans summed it up as the "closest to balanced" she'd seen. And while that may in fact be progress, that's a terribly low bar to set at a time when we need our governor to be more focused than ever if we have any hope of avoiding a repeat of the devastating impasse we narrowly escaped just last summer. Many agencies and service providers are still rebuilding after a year of missed and delayed payments, but Gov. Rauner is once again proposing cuts to programs and agencies serving the most vulnerable.

Included in his proposed cuts and reductions is funding for immigrant integration, infant mortality reduction, autism services, migrant worker support, epilepsy services, addiction treatment, and more. Additionally, he continues to ignore the backlog of unpaid bills he built, which is still over $8 billion dollars. In many cases, his agency heads hid bills from the public in order to make the backlog seem smaller than it really was. Those bills are now accruing massive interest payments, which he puts forth no plan to lessen or address.

The budget also relies on several dubious gimmicks. He is relying on significant savings from a pension reform strategy that may not be constitutional and hasn't even advanced as a bill yet. He's also proposing to undermine what he has claimed is his "greatest achievement" - the school funding reform bill we passed (and which he originally vetoed) this past summer. He includes the additional $350 million in K-12 funds the new formula requires, but is also proposing to shift $615 million in pension pickups costs from the state onto local school districts. That wouldn't just wipe out the increase, it would actually put schools deeply in the red. And despite his consistent railing against property taxes, he knows perfectly well that this aspect of his own budget would likely trigger further property tax hikes. 

Yesterday before the address, our budget working group held a briefing on the proposal. I sat down with fellow working group member Rep. Will Guzzardi to share some of what we learned here.

In addition to the budget, this Friday is the deadline to introduce house bills. I'll provide a more extensive list of my bills and some highlights from others in the weeks ahead, but some of the bills I'll be working on include the following:

- L egalization of recreational cannabis for adult use.

- Requiring FOID cards and backgrounds checks for the private sale of firearms. 

- Improving the "statement of economic interest" filed by public officials, to ensure transparency. 

- Allowing for a small donor matching program in Illinois elections, amplifying the voices of average residents who cannot afford massive donations and opening up the system to non-wealthy candidates who cannot self-fund. 

- Putting a cap on the amount of tax incentives the city and state can give to Amazon in exchange for their headquarters. 

- Requiring that the Department of Corrections collect and make public data on the violence within their institutions, and what can be done to reduce it. 

- Legislation to rectify an error in last year's condo bill which created potential privacy issues for residents.

As always feel free to reach out with questions and concerns. We will be planning several coffee shop stops and town halls when we're home from Springfield to ensure that you're updated. We'll also continue doing "e-town halls" from Springfield, similar to the video linked above.

Other organizations have also analyzed the budget. Click here to see the Illinois Environmental Council's analysis, and here for the Aids Foundation of Chicago.