Distributed via Email: July 15, 2015
ONE-MONTH BUDGET GOES TO GOVERNOR
The Illinois State Senate concurred in a House amendment Wednesday that will provide for a one-month operating budget for essential state programs and will pay many state workers for their work in July. The House of Representatives approved the measure last week (see the last Alliance Legislative Report) and now SB 2040 will head to Governor BruceRauner. The governor has indicated that he would veto the temporary budget proposal. In both chambers, the vote on SB 2040 was along partisan lines. The state is going into the third week of the new fiscal year without a budget in place as the General Assembly and governor have not been able to agree on a spending and revenue plan.
The Senate also voted to override the governor’s veto on five appropriation bills that make up part of a Fiscal Year 2016 state budget. Democrats in the House and Senate sent a full state budget to the governor in May but it would spend nearly $4 billion more than estimated available revenues. The budget was contained in over a dozen separate appropriations bills. The House must now act on the override motions but members adjourned without taking action Wednesday.
Also in the Senate, a bill was defeated to place all counties under the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) and set the increase for extensions at 0% for two years. SB 316 also requires the state to contribute $197 million to the Chicago teachers’ pension fund in FY 2016 and to pay to the system the normal pension costs into the future. The bill, defeated on a vote of 32-0-22, also establishes the General State Aid Committee to propose a revised school funding formula. The bill needed 36 votes for passage.
As per the weekly July usual, the governor and the Speaker of the House continued with the tiresome act of taking verbal jabs at each other via news conference or press spokesman.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to return to the Capitol next Tuesday; the Senate adjourned “until the call of the president.”
This legislative report was written and edited by the lobbyists of the Illinois Association of School Boards to provide information to the members of the organizations that comprise the Statewide School Management Alliance.
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Bill Text/Status: Illinois General Assembly www.ilga.gov
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