Republicans, Democrats fight over credit for budget plan

Illinois House Republicans are pitching an eight-point plan they hope to enact if they take the majority in the next legislative session that they say will put a stop to business as usual.

The goal is to adopt the plan in January as rules for the chamber for the next two years. It would limit the House Speaker's power, and create more transparency and accountability in the annual budget process, Republicans say.

Yet suburban Democrats say several of the budgetary points in the plan sound eerily similar to language they fought to insert in the state's emergency budget act earlier this summer, with little notice and few votes from GOP members.

"I think the fact is, I think they recognize that it's great policy. And great policy makes great politics. The fact that they recognize this in the midst of an election season displays that," state Sen. Dan Kotowski, of Park Ridge, who, along with fellow Democratic Rep. Carol Sente of Vernon Hills, wrote legislation amending the budget language.

As both parties squabble over credit for such ideas in the final stretch before the Nov. 2 election, the fact is that the ball still has to get rolling on reforms, said Lawrence Msall, president of Chicago's nonpartisan Civic Federation.

And while all of the ideas are significant, Msall said, they do not address the state's most urgent problems.

"I think these are long-term process reforms, but don't necessarily address the immediate crisis in the state right now. Working to balance the budget would require much greater transparency and greater commitment, and finding significantly new revenue," he said.

The House Republican plan calls for a public review of the state's budget to be available in the House at least three days before a vote. Currently, the speaker can craft a proposed budget and call it for a vote almost immediately.

The plan also would require monthly hearings of the appropriation committees to track spending, extending the current three-month budget process by nine months. And appropriation committees would have to adopt "performance based budgeting" in which existing programs must be justified and shown to be effective.

Instead of a lump-sum spending plan, budgets, according to the plan, would outline specific line-item spending for the various state programs.

Kotowski's "budgeting for outcomes" plan, inserted into the budget in May, is very similar. That plan requires an appropriations committee of each chamber of the General Assembly to review individual line item appropriations for the total budget and the budget for each state agency.

The governor is then tasked with prioritizing the outcomes most important for each state agency, and measuring progress. Performance and results are supposed to be posted online. A three-year budget state forecast must be developed, including opportunities and threats concerning anticipated revenues and expenditures.

But that hasn't yet begun. And House Republicans have yet to enact their proposed plan, Msall points out.

"It remains to be seen if the spirit of changes are going to be embraced by the leadership or if it will be like many statutes enacted by our legislature and did not have the impact that the sponsors intended."

Refusing to make significant cuts or raise taxes in an election year, lawmakers in June shuttled a budget to Gov. Pat Quinn, giving him the authority to cut where he saw fit.

That paralysis has also extended to the governor's race, as neither Quinn nor Republican state Sen. Bill Brady have outlined a concrete budget plan.

"We have a crisis right now of enormous magnitude," Msall said.