By Alex Degman/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – A one-month budget with guaranteed state-employee paychecks for July has won House approval but the change delays its delivery to the governor.
The $2.3 billion plan that Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner opposes was endorsed 71-19. It must return to the Senate for concurrence because of the pay provision. The previous version included just emergency expenses. The Senate doesn’t meet again until next week, and even then, the governor has said multiple times he won’t sign it.
House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie isn’t fazed.
“He has 60 days,” Currie said, responding to a question about procedure once the Senate potentially passes the bill next week. “But I know this governor cares about the workers of the state of Illinois. I know that when he gets a bill that will provide one month funding for personnel services for all of our state employees, he will do the right thing.”
The pay provision responded to House Republicans’ effort to create a state law guaranteeing that state employees get paid regardless of whether there’s spending authority — a move that Democrats mocked as a bank-breaker and buried in parliamentary procedures.
“Voting to spend money the state doesn’t have is the cause of Illinois’ financial crisis,” Governor Rauner spokesman Lance Trover said in an e-mailed statement. “Today, Speaker Madigan and the legislators he controls irresponsibly voted for yet another unbalanced budget plan.”
