Blago’s Annual Address Scheduled

January 28th, 2008 at 11:05am Aaron Chambers

Gov. Blagojevich has scheduled his annual combined State of the State/Budget Address for Feb. 20.

I hear our increasingly reclusive governor will deliver his address from a couch in the basement of his Chicago bungalow. There’s no word yet on whether press or the public will be allowed in to watch.

Just kidding. The governor will deliver his address in the Illinois House to a joint session of the General Assembly, as is traditional.

Over the next couple weeks, we’ll look at some of the challenges facing Illinois, fiscal and otherwise. For starters, here’s some background on bill pressure from a recent report by Comptroller Dan Hynes:

Through the first half of fiscal year 2008, the
state’s cash flow position continued to deteriorate.
At the end of December, the backlog of
unpaid bills in the Comptroller’s Office stood
at $1.720 billion although the office began the
year holding no bills. This time last year
payables totaled $1.336 billion. Just as significantly,
the delay in paying bills was 34 business
days as of December 31st, compared to
only 22 days at this time last year. Both the
backlog volume and the number of days
delayed represent record levels for the midpoint
of the fiscal year.

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