Did Illinois Brown-Nose the Teacher?

March 4th, 2008 at 07:54am Aaron Chambers

State officials every couple years find new and creative ways to put off paying public pension debt, causing a greater financial burden for future taxpayers.

At any given time, the state’s backlog of unpaid bills tops more than $1 billion, causing doctors and other health care providers to wait months for reimbursement from the state when they care for Medicaid patients.

For the last five years, the governor and lawmakers postured over the details of a capital construction plan, failing to ever implement a new one necessary for road and school construction.

That governor, Rod Blagojevich, is as likely to fill out top-tier positions in his administration with political hacks as opposed to professionals with meaningful, relevant experience.

That same governor has no qualms with putting the full force of this taxpayer-paid staff behind his latest feel-good, politically charged initiative, yet he seldom puts even a fraction of this emphasis behind follow-through and completion of such projects.

Yet the Pew Center on the States awarded Illinois a perfectly acceptable “C” grade in a report covering how well the 50 states manage their money, people, information and infrastructure. A summary of the group’s report, showing how Illinois compares to other states, is here.

A detailed look at Illinois is here.

The Blagojevich administration has been troubled from the start, and the consequences for Illinois government have been serious. The administration began with high hopes: Blagojevich’s election victory in 2002, bringing his party control over all three branches and replacing a Republican regime tainted by corruption, generated widespread interest in bringing the state’s shaky management into good shape. But intraparty battles have continually stymied progress. Political disagreements have been delaying a new infrastructure-spending plan for years, to cite just one example, and the state may soon lose federal matching funds intended for roads and bridges.

Then, the report cuts the governor some slack:

It can’t be easy to manage a state such as Illinois, with huge outstanding bills and troubled revenue streams. But when the state’s leaders are effectively stuck in the mud, the difficult becomes all but impossible. Last year, the governor proposed a major expansion of health care supported by a gross receipts tax on business. The House rejected the plan 107-0. “We weren’t even talking about coming to some resolution,” says state Senator Christine Radagno. Months later, the legislature passed its own budget, Blagojevich vetoed about $500 million of it to make room for his health care expansion and the whole mess wound up in the courts.

Still, as the Post-Dispatch notes, this state’s grade fell:

Illinois fell from a C+ to a C, ranking it among the bottom nine states. Researchers blamed a dysfunctional relationship between Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the state Legislature.

“The Blagojevich administration has been troubled from the start, and the consequences for Illinois government have been serious,” the report says.

The administration’s response:

Blagojevich’s office released a statement saying the report didn’t acknowledge Illinois’ success at improving efficiency while reducing debt and budget deficits.

“Unfortunately, the Pew Center chose to focus on politics instead of fiscal facts,” the statement said. “The report does not accurately reflect the progress we’ve made.”

That’s classic Blagojevich.

First of all, this administration is notorious for skewing financial figures. Rather than stating the amount of new money the state sends to schools each, for instance, this administration prefers to state the sum of all the increases occurring since Blagojevich took office in 2003. Obviously, that’s a much bigger, more dramatic, number.

Oh, and when the state ran the biggest deficit in the nation, Blagojevich — who happened to be campaigning for re-election at the time, in 2006 — insisted that simply wasn’t possible. The “fiscal facts” in Illinois are sad indeed.

Second of all, as I already alluded to above, this administration also is notorious for putting politics before policy. And that’s not to say they even do well at that. Look no further than today’s headlines.

Illinois should be thrilled with its passing grade. I’m wondering how it did so well.

Entry Filed under: Illinois Budget, Rod Blagojevich, Illinois finance, Illinois politics