With the General Assembly still scratching for a solution to the state’s fiscal crisis, legislative leaders sent rank-and-file lawmakers home Wednesday for several days because they had all but run out of non-budgetary matters to consider.
The legislature had been scheduled to finish its spring session Friday. But with leaders still trying to reach an agreement on plugging a budget hole of more than $1.2 billion, the vast majority of House and Senate members have been all but twiddling their thumbs while collecting per diem stipends for their time in Springfield.
“We’ve got our work done for the year, other than the budget,” said Senate President James “Pate” Philip (R-Wood Dale). “There’s no sense in wasting taxpayers’ money and having us down here in session.”
Philip and the other leaders have been banging their heads together in budget negotiations for weeks now, emerging from the latest session Wednesday with no agreement. Gov. George Ryan has presented a menu of revenue-producing options that total $3 billion–potentially about twice the amount of the budget gap–for lawmakers to pick and choose.
They range from increasing the state sales tax by a penny to imposing a tax on cable television and increasing the tax on cigarettes. The governor’s options–none of which he endorsed–also include giving each riverboat casino more gambling positions and raising taxes on the most lucrative boats.
The ideas are so free-flowing at this point that the horse-racing industry now is pushing for slot machines at racetracks if riverboats get to add gambling positions. Philip acknowledged that the idea has been bandied about and didn’t reject it outright.
But Ryan and the leaders cannot agree that they should raise taxes or on how to spread around cuts that would be necessary to put together a balanced spending plan. Budget negotiators from each party in both chambers are supposed to begin meeting Thursday to take another stab at finding common ground.
Before leaving Wednesday, House members approved a measure that would expand the state’s DNA database to include convicted felons. The bill, which returns to the Senate for consideration, would require all convicted felons to submit genetic material to the Illinois State Police. Currently, convicted sex offenders are required to register their DNA with police.
In addition, House members sent Ryan a bill that would repeal the law barring students from using cellular telephones in public schools. The legislation would leave it up to school boards to decide if and how students could use cell phones at school.
