Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn continues to warn of dire consequences if lawmakers don't approve an increase in the state income tax, and on Thursday, he'll be in Belleville to make his argument.
In the latest development in the state budget saga, the largest state employee union in Illinois said Tuesday that no amount of concessions by workers can solve the budget problem and lawmakers should raise the income tax.
About 10,000 state employees could lose their jobs unless lawmakers come up with a new budget.
That's the number Gov. Pat Quinn's administration is talking about as officials try to pressure lawmakers to pass an income tax increase to prevent billions of dollars in service cuts.
To highlight these possible cuts, Quinn appeared Tuesday at a Chicago apartment building that allows senior citizens to stay in their homes instead of going to a nursing home. It's one of the services Quinn says will have to be cut without more money.
Speaking at a news conference, Quinn said a budget without the tax increase would cut more than 50 percent of social service funding. The Democrat says that would leave more than 51,000 Illinois senior citizens who receive aid through the Community Care Program without care.
At 3:30 p.m. Thursday, social service groups are scheduled to hold a rally at LINC Inc. at 120 E. A St. in Belleville. LINC, an acronym for Living Independently Now Center, helps people with disabilities live independently. Quinn is scheduled to arrive at the rally at 4 p.m.
"We must put a stop to these devastating cuts," states a LINC notice. "Find out how the devastating cuts in services will affect you, your family and our community."
Quinn and legislative leaders are negotiating over an alternative budget. The governor wants lawmakers to pack their bags and get ready to be back in Springfield next week.
Attempts to reach metro-east legislators Tuesday for comment were not successful.
Illinois government faces its worst budget deficit in history -- at least $11.6 billion.
Quinn proposed closing that gap with a combination of spending cuts, budget maneuvers and tax increases. Lawmakers wouldn't agree to most of his ideas and instead passed a budget that didn't include enough money to cover costs, leaving it to him to decide where to cut spending.
Lawmakers sarcastically described it as a "lights-on" budget -- meaning it would provide enough money for agencies to keep the lights on but nothing more. They said Quinn would have to cut spending by roughly $7 billion.
But Quinn's office said lawmakers left a $9.2 billion hole. That amounts to nearly one-third of all the money that's directly under state government's control and not subject to federal restrictions. The current budget totals $67 billion, according to a report from the General Assembly, but most of that is federal money the state doesn't really control or spending authority for long-term construction projects.
Quinn for the past couple of weeks has been touring Illinois and projecting a doomsday situation if the income tax increase doesn't happen. He's proposed increasing the tax from 3 percent to 4.5 percent.
Nearly 200,000 senior citizens getting help with the cost of medicine would have to be cut loose, and organizations that watch over children in foster care would see their caseloads triple, said Quinn's chief of staff, Jerome Stermer.
He estimated that 100,000 people who provide such services would lose their jobs, and thousands more would be laid off from positions within state government .
"We would be looking at thousands of layoffs" within state government, Stermer said. He claimed state parks, prisons and other facilities could close under the budget proposal.
Henry Bayer, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Tuesday that asking state workers to take unpaid days off or making other concessions would do very little to close a $9 billion deficit.
AFSCME met with Quinn's administration Tuesday to discuss concessions. Bayer says the union told the administration it is working to convince legislators to back Quinn's income tax increase.
Lawmakers left town in May without raising revenue to cover the gap and adopted a budget without enough money to run state government for a full year.
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