Dems, Rauner still at odds; unpaid bills could hit $13.5 billion

Another day, another difference in opinions on how to end a state budget impasse that could lead to $13.5 billion in unpaid bills by next year.

Gov. Bruce Rauner on Wednesday called changes in the state’s workers’ compensation system his new No. 1 priority as he meets with legislative leaders to end a budget impasse.

Democratic leaders continue to focus on the state’s dire budget deficit, while Rauner and Republican leaders are calling for substantive reforms and a balanced budget. The state will run out of spending authority from a stopgap budget by the end of the year.

Rauner on Wednesday said he’s focused on five reforms — property tax relief, changes in workers’ compensation, term limits, education improvements and pension reform.

He said he’s willing to “throw out” one or two of those, although most likely not workers’ comp reform, which he called his top priority.

Democratic leaders have heard this before. In June 2015, Rauner told leaders he needed a property tax freeze, workers’ compensation changes, term limits, fair maps and restrictions on liability lawsuits in order to approve a budget.

“Take everything else off the table, and it’s in exchange for those five real reforms that we’ll negotiate in good faith about a truly balanced, constitutional budget,” Rauner said last year after vetoing a budget that was $4 billion in the red.

On Wednesday, after meeting with the legislative leaders for nearly an hour, Rauner said reforms have to be on the table to send a message to job creators that will ultimately lead to long-term growth for the state.

“I’ve laid out 44 points, and I’ve thrown out a lot of those and just said ‘OK, we can’t do everything in the first year.’ Now we’re in the second year and presumably the third year, which is ridiculous,” Rauner said. “But I’ve got it down to basically five things now from 44, and we can throw out one or two. It has to be significant. … We have to get job creators coming to Illinois, or we’ll never solve any of the problems.”

Wednesday’s meeting marked the second time this week that legislative leaders have met with the governor. This time, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan brought along his “chief negotiator” Rep. Greg Harris. Madigan named Harris “chief negotiator” for House Democrats on Tuesday.

While Republicans leaders talked about the need for reforms and job creation, Democratic leaders focused on the budget deficit.

“The focus has to be on the budget, so we hope that we can get the budget addressed, obviously in the veto session,” Illinois Senate President John Cullerton said.

Madigan repeated his argument that the state has a “successful model” for budgeting.

“The governor and the Legislature have come together on agreements on budgets. If we follow that framework, we can do it again,” Madigan said. “That’s my recommendation to everybody in these meetings.”

Madigan noted he’s giving his advice “based on experience.”

“If someone wishes to refute what I’m saying based upon experience, I’m interested to hear it,” Madigan said. “But the record is pretty clear, seven times we’ve done budget making within a certain framework.”

Harris left the meeting and noted the “stark” figures released by the governor’s budget office: the state will accrue budget deficits ranging from $7.09 billion in fiscal 2018 and $6.5 billion in fiscal 2022. The state’s unpaid bill backlog could also grow from $13.5 billion at the end of fiscal year 2017 to a whopping $47.1 billion by 2022.

“There are a lot of items the governor talked about today and that have been in his agenda,” Harris said. “They do not directly impact the day to day expenses or income of the state. And that’s where we’ve got to look at.”

But Illinois Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno said reforms go hand in hand with reaching a balanced budget.

“We need to focus on a short-term balanced budget but also on those reforms that are going to put us on that path toward sustained growth,” Radogno said. “The only way we get out of this is to grow our tax base by keeping jobs here, and we’re having troubling, I think, connecting those dots.”

Speaking at Ruby Electric in Springfield after the meeting, Rauner said the current workers’ compensation system in Illinois has driven up costs, increased fraud and abuse and has pushed employers out of the state.

“We’ve lost good paying jobs because our workers’ compensation system is not fair. It’s not competitive,” Rauner said. “We need to make this change. It’s the No. 1 regulatory change we need to make to get this done.”

Rauner noted leaders were given some paperwork at the meeting, including bills on term limits and workers compensation, and a report about government consolidation. He also said calling reforms non-essential to the budget is “baloney.”

“Can we please be realistic about what’s going on? We’ll never have a balanced budget if our economy stays growing flat and our government spending keeps going on a rocket ship. It won’t happen,” Rauner said. “This argument that, well it doesn’t impact the budget this year so let’s refuse to talk about it, it is so fundamentally wrong. What we got to do is make structural change for long-term balanced budgets. So that whole line of baloney, we got to get off of.”

The governor also warned that the days ahead won’t be easy: “We have less than 60 days. This lame duck session, this is the time when tough votes can be taken because they’re going to require some tough votes,” Rauner said. “None of these votes are going to be easy. There are special interest groups that won’t like it, but we’ve got to do it.”

Rauner and Cullerton will head to Rome on Thursday to attend the installation of Archbishop Blase Cupich as cardinal. That means another leaders meeting is unlikely to happen until the week of Nov. 28, when legislators will head back to Springfield for another scheduled three veto session days.

Also on Wednesday, the Illinois Senate overturned the governor’s veto of the automatic voter registration bill. That now goes to the Illinois House. The Senate also voted to override Rauner’s veto of a bill that would raise the hourly wage for in-home care workers for the elderly from $13 to $15.