Social Service Advocates Warn Of Dire Consequences Of State Budget Stalemate
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Social service groups said the situation is getting dire – and even deadly – as state funding remains stalled due to the budget standoff between Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic lawmakers.
Nancy Maruyama, executive director of education and community outreach for SIDS Illinois, had the direst pronouncement, saying some victims of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome might have been saved if her group's program to educate parents about safe ways to put their babies to bed hadn't suffered cuts.
"The majority of the death reports that I receive from the medical examiner's office, those babies are in unsafe sleep situations, and if we had been able to get out there and do this education, it's really possible that these deaths could have been prevented," she said. "How many babies have to die before something is done about this situation?"
Officials with Voices For Illinois Children, a nonpartisan child advocacy group, said domestic violence programs have had most of their money frozen amid the budget stalemate, and some groups have been forced to shut down.
Shallie Pittman, a youth development associate, said after-school teen reach programs for up to 15,000 kids have been affected.
"Due to the cuts, programs have been forced to close their doors, and turn kids away, leaving our most at-risk youth vulnerable to risky behavior, and academic failure," she said.
Voices For Illinois Children policy analyst Lisa Christensen Gee said programs to help battered women across the state also have been cutting staff, or shutting down, because of a lack of funding, even though the governor has signed legislation allowing the state to spend more than $5 billion in federal funds that had been held up by the lack of a state spending plan for the current fiscal year.
"Despite the federal pass-through bill, domestic violence services in our state still have 91 percent of their money not available to them," she said.
Asked who they blame for the budget impasse, the advocates pointed the finger at both Rauner and Democrats in the General Assembly.