State $32 million behind in paying utility bills for prisons

In the town of Chester — where Drew Peterson now spends his days at the maximum security Menard Correctional Center — the mayor’s patience over the budget impasse has run very thin.

Mayor Tom Page, a former warden of the prison, is in constant talks about cutting off the prison’s water supply as the utility bill backlog creeps over $1 million. Those bills — $1.36 million for its water, sewer and natural gas — haven’t been paid since September.

In the southern Illinois town of about 8,400 people, hardware stores are struggling, prison food vendors are drowning in debt and the town is constantly transferring money just to make ends meet: “$1.3 million may not be much to some larger cities, but to a small community like Chester, it’s a killer,” Page said.

“I don’t have a date burnt or etched on my desk as to when I’m going to turn them off, but I can tell you that without some movement of some kind, I can only be patient for so long,” Page said of the prisons’ water supply.

Numbers provided to the Sun-Times show the state owes more than $32.3 million to providers for all 43 of the state’s prisons, centers and work camp centers for water and sewer services, gas and electricity.

“Chester is a very nice little community. The city is starving for a little attention in terms of getting paid,” Page said. “We’ve spent money out of our pockets for utilities and I just don’t think it’s unreasonable to get paid for what we’ve got coming.”

Page is urging lawmakers to pass a stopgap budget, and he doesn’t care whose bill it is.

“I’m supporting just whatever it takes to get the vendors paid, whether it be a Republican or Democrat bill. Whatever it takes to get us some money is what I’m supporting,” Page said.

In southwest suburban Crest Hill at the Stateville Correctional Center, while basic services for prisoners are still being provided for its more than 3,400 inmates, the prison owes operators a whopping $4.3 million in bills, according to the state’s Department of Corrections. The prison, however, has received $243,000 in emergency appropriation payments for its water and sewer services.

At Stateville, the cities of Crest Hill and Joliet have been footing the bill for water and sewer services. Constellation Energy and Northern Illinois Gas has been providing gas for the prison and Commonwealth Edison and Constellation Energy are providing the electricity.

That backlog doesn’t include food vendors, some of which are mom and pop vendors struggling to produce food for the prisons. Those vendors haven’t been paid in months.

It’s up to those vendors whether or not to continue providing services for the state’s prisons, but it’s also a great contract to have when the state is running.

“We have been working with them month to month. They’ve been very patient with us. They’ve worked with us and continue to work with us. We are thankful for that. But they obviously want their money,” Illinois Department of Corrections spokeswoman Nicole Wilson said.

Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin has been sounding the alarm about the prison backlog for months. He said he’s concerned vendors will drop their services.

“Those that are supplying food at some point, if they’re not going to get paid, and they continue to supply the state a product but aren’t getting paid for it, it is a concern. It is a legitimate concern,” Durkin said, adding no stopgap budget by July could cause some dangerous conditions in the state’s prisons.

“These individuals are in this desperate situation, and they’re being deprived of their liberty because they’ve been convicted of crimes. … Any disruption of services — even the lights – could cause a very difficult chain of events, which I don’t believe the public would care to hear about. It’s just a reality, and it is a concern for the administration.”

The stopgap budget that Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Republican leaders have been touting since May 31 would provide appropriations to pay for vendors’ past dues, and it’s one Durkin is pushing before a true panic sets in on July 1.

“We’ve got some time, a little time, not a lot, to put this to rest,” Durkin said.