New Budget

Brothers and Sisters,

As you most likely know by now, last night the General Assembly passed—and Gov. Quinn signed—a new state budget. This means that virtually all state employees will be paid in full and on time. Consequently, Council 31’s lawsuit to compel the state to issue paychecks will not be pursued any further at this time.

While it is too early to say at this point exactly what the budget will mean for AFSCME members in state government, there is no doubt that it is an irresponsible budget that puts the state deep in debt and leaves it potentially vulnerable to mid-year funding shortfalls. At the end of the day, the sad fact was that too many legislators refused to honestly confront the state’s dire fiscal straits and raise the revenues urgently needed to fix the problem.

Legislators said in floor debate that this budget includes sufficient appropriation authority to maintain state operations at last year’s level and avert layoffs of state employees. But unfortunately, we cannot rely on those assurances for several reasons:
*No one can make a convincing case that this budget is balanced. Estimates of the potential shortfall are as high as $2 billion. Moreover, it is predicated on borrowing over $3 billion in “pension notes” with no plan at all for how that money will be paid back next year. In fact, just this morning the Wall Street bond-rating agency, Moody’s, announced it will review and possibly downgrade the state’s credit rating.
*So-called “grant” lines are only funded at 50% of last year’s levels—with an additional $3+ billion in “lump sum” spending authority given to the Governor to bring those lines up to an average of 86%. Although most of these “grants” go to nonprofit community human service agencies, there are also thousands of state employees who are paid out of grant lines. Depending on how Quinn chooses to allocate the “lump sum” dollars, those lines could be cut by as much as 50%.
*Even as debate on this budget plan was getting underway, Governor Quinn refused to commit that if it passed he would not lay off state employees or even to agree that he would reduce the number of potential layoffs from the 2,600 figure he had previously announced.
*Gov. Quinn already announced that given the potential funding shortfalls in this budget, he intends to ask AFSCME to reopen our contract and accept furlough days and/or a wage freeze for the coming year.

For all of these reasons, AFSCME opposed passage of this budget. We said—and continue to believe—that the only real solution to the state’s budget problems is enactment of a tax increase based on the blueprint set forth in HB174. It is the height of irresponsibility for legislators to refuse to act on that legislation when there is such widespread consensus that the budget as enacted is unsustainable. Senate President John Cullerton made clear in the floor debate that he does not believe this budget can meet the needs of the State of Illinois and he pledged to bring the Senate back into session in early January with its first order of business being to vote (once again) on the revenue-raising plan embodied in HB 174.

It will be absolutely essential that our union continue to do everything that we can to build support among legislators—especially in the House—for passage of this measure.

For now, given legislators’ statements that this budget does fully fund state operations, AFSCME is calling on Gov. Quinn to rescind the scheduled layoffs and halt any further layoffs. If it turns out that the budget as enacted cannot meet the state’s needs and instead threatens to result in cutbacks in services and layoffs of employees, the General Assembly should come back in Special Session or in the November Veto Session and pass the needed tax increase to prevent such cutbacks.

Later today we will be sending you a bulletin to distribute to your members with a report on the budget outcome—and next steps in our campaign for new revenues.

Nothing was more indicative of the crucial role that AFSCME will play in that battle than the “Send-Off” events that our Union organized on Monday of this week. We targeted 40 legislators—and ended up with effective actions at about 33 legislative offices. Given that there was only a week to put these events together, on the whole, local unions did an outstanding job. There really is no other organization in this state that has the geographic reach, the grassroots involvement and the capable local leadership to pull off so many successful gatherings. The events got terrific press coverage in many media markets—much of it presenting clear information on the harm that budget cuts would cause and positive statements about the need for a tax increase. That is just hugely significant given the current political climate. Whether or not the legislator was in his or her office, you can be very sure that they were keenly aware of your presence there and the message you were sending.

Most of you deserve high praise for your intensive organizing efforts to make these events a success. Local 1866, Local 29, Local 46 and Local 632—all of whom turned out over 100 folks—are particularly to be congratulated. However, it was disappointing to see that some locals did not make an effort to participate in these events at all. There will be many battles in the difficult days ahead, and it is important that each local carry its weight. To that end, staff representatives will be working with you to increase your mobilization capacity.

Finally, one piece of good news amidst all of the gloom. Earlier this week, Gov. Quinn announced that he is withdrawing his proposal to close down IYC Pere Marquette. This victory—like so many others we’ve achieved—is the result of the intensive grassroots efforts of AFSCME members, combined with the top-notch lobbying, policy and communications work of Council 31 staff. We’d like to say that’s an unbeatable combination—but we can’t count on never being beaten. What we can count on is that if we all continue to work together in unity and solidarity—using every resource at our disposal—we have the best possible chance of prevailing.

Sincerely,
Henry Bayer, Executive Director
Roberta Lynch, Deputy Director