Civic Federation Opposes Rauner's 'Insufficiently Detailed' Budget
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A budget watchdog group has criticized Gov. Bruce Rauner's spending plan for this year as being underfunded and unrealistic.
A report by the Civic Federation said Rauner's budget for Fiscal Year 2017 has a deficit of at least $3.5 billion, and Civic Federation president Laurence Msall said he believes the shortfall is even larger, because it doesn't fully account for the cost of state services.
The group said the Rauner administration's budget plan "presents an insufficiently detailed plan for closing the gap."
"The Civic Federation cannot support a plan that does not provide the State of Illinois with a detailed and sustainable path to reduce and alleviate its ongoing financial crisis," Msall said.
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Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said the governor inherited years of fiscal mismanagement, and Msall agreed. Kelly said Rauner would prefer if lawmakers approve structural reforms and a balanced budget, but Msall said the governor's so-called Turnaround Agenda – which includes limits on labor unions' collective bargaining rights and pensions, reductions in state employee health insurance costs, and other pro-business changes in state law – might not be enough.
"Many of those things have attraction to a wide audience, including … many of the members of the Civic Federation. However, there is no identified cost savings from those proposals that has been provided in specificity, so it is difficult to see how even those proposals would close the budget deficit," Msall said.
He said, even if the governor's Turnaround Agenda were to close the $3.5 billion budget gap, the state's massive backlog of unpaid bills would continue to grow.
"That's what's driving the state's very low credit rating, is the fact that it doesn't have a long-term plan to pay down its bills, to meet its pension obligations, and to continue to provide core services," he said.
On Monday, Gov. Bruce Rauner said he's hopeful of reaching an agreement that has left the state without a spending plan since the start of the current fiscal year last July.
"I'm cautiously optimistic. I want to commend the bipartisan negotiations that are going on for members of the General Assembly," he said.
The next fiscal year starts July 1, but lawmakers have yet to reach an agreement on a budget for the current year.
