Comptroller says 'time for new programs is over'
State Comptroller Leslie Munger of Lincolnshire scrolled down a computer screen shortly after taking office to look at each of the state's more than 800 accounts.
Picked by Gov. Bruce Rauner to replace the late Judy Baar Topinka weeks after Munger lost a race for Illinois House, she had to quickly understand the state's complicated financial situation because her signature goes on the checks.
“I see a fish and wildlife fund. OK, that had a certain amount of money in it. I see a salmon fund,” Munger said during an interview last week in her Capitol office in Springfield. “Salmon fund? Isn't salmon a fish? Why do we have to have a separate fund for salmon? Do we have some big salmon industry here in Illinois that needs special funds? What is that about?”
The freshman Republican officeholder doesn't necessarily think those accounts aren't worthy of spending, but she wants to update the state's ancient accounting systems to save time and money.
More immediately, the former Helene Curtis executive is the person in charge of managing the cash flow of a state that, as of the interview, was $8 billion behind on its bills.
“The time for nibbling around the edges is gone,” said Munger, who was sworn in Jan. 12. “The time for new programs is over.”
The statement helps support the spending cuts Rauner has proposed, which have caught heat from advocates for causes across the state and which Democratic Senate President John Cullerton has called “unconscionable.”
A state comptroller doesn't make budget policy, but she can manage who gets paid in what order.
Munger sought to downplay her perceived clash with Rauner over fair-share union fees. Rauner wants to allow state workers who don't join a union to avoid those fees and wanted Munger to collect them in an account while his order worked its way through the federal court system.
She wouldn't do it, but said it wasn't because she disagreed with him on the idea. Munger says the law doesn't allow her to establish an account like that on her own.
“I could have gone outside the bounds of my office. Then this would end up in court,” she said. “Then the first official thing I would have done is operate outside the bounds of my office.”
The same goes for the state's most immediate cash crunch, the one that could leave some state prisons without the authority to spend enough to make payroll soon.
Munger says she won't seek a court order to make payroll on her own. Rauner and lawmakers have to approve additional spending and find the money to do it. After she gets the OK from the Department of Corrections to cut a payroll check, then she can do it.
“We would not get involved,” Munger said. “Otherwise, we would spend all of our time getting involved in court orders because nothing's getting paid.”
House Speaker Michael Madigan late Monday introduced a plan that could plug that budget hole, but lawmakers still have to approve.
Making payroll can be tough for other reasons, she said, because of those old accounting systems. She said the state has more than 263 different accounting systems, which require a lot of time and energy to update and manage.
Munger said some are written in computer code COBOL, which she learned in business school in the early 1980s.
“Do all these punch cards, and feed it into the big computer that took up the size of a room, and hope you got a smiley face at the end of your program,” she said. “And if you did, you passed.”
• The Associated Press contributed to this story.