State borrows $1M in tax funds intended for charities

CHAMPAIGN — Illinois has borrowed more than $1 million this year to help cover its own expenses from money taxpayers give to charity.

The state government has borrowed about $1.17 million this fiscal year from money that Illinois taxpayers designate on their tax returns for charitable use, The News-Gazette in Champaign reported.

Lawmakers signed off on the plan to help deal with a multibillion-dollar state budget deficit.

Kelly Kraft, spokeswoman for the state Office of Management and Budget, said she expects the state to repay the money within a few months. By law, the money has to be returned, with interest, within 18 months, she said.

But officials from some of the charities say taxpayers are being fooled.

“My concern is that the taxpayers don’t know that they’re donating to charities that don’t even get their money. It just seems really inappropriate to use charities to pull money in, and then pull that money out to pay for bills,” Stephanie Record, executive director of the Crisis Nursery of Champaign County said. “This is crazy.”

Record, whose organization is owed $7,000, said crisis nurseries around the state were assured when they took steps to receive the money in 2009 that the state’s government couldn’t take the money to help address its budget deficit.

The so-called tax check-offs provide an easy way for people to donate money, Kraft said.

In a normal year, it takes about six months for the money to make its way to agencies that are supposed to get it.

But the Eastern Illinois Foodbank has yet to receive any money donated with tax forms for 2009 or 2010, said Tracy Smith, executive director of Feeding Illinois. That organization runs a group of food banks that include the Eastern Illinois Foodbank.

If the money is paid back sometime soon, Smith said she can live with that.

“But we would have a real problem if we went around asking our donors to give money to this tax fund and we never saw this money,” she said.

Melaney Arnold, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health, which controls funds for seven designated recipients, said the money will eventually make its way to food banks, crisis nurseries and other causes designated by the donors.

“It may not necessarily be tomorrow, but they will be used for those intended purposes,” she said.

State Rep. Patricia Bellock,a Hinsdale Republican, co-chairs the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. She said she doesn’t know the details of the tax-check-off borrowing but plans to look into it.