21 June 2009
They've Gone Home...
06/26/09 10:09 Filed in: Politics
After all of the newspaper articles, rallies, and speeches discussing the need to proceed with a proper budget for developmental disabilities services in Illinois, the legislators ended their special session on Wednesday of this week and went home essentially having accomplished nothing. The best that can be said for the process at this point is that, after all of this wrangling about how services were simply going to end, Governor Pat Quinn was quoted as finally saying “I’m not going to preside over that kind of wholesale slash and burn of human services” in the Springfield Journal Register on Thursday.
Illinois is no stranger to budget struggles. For more of the past several years than I care to remember we've ended the state's fiscal year with no budget, and the legislature going into special session in order to rectify that. Each year this results in confusion and uncertainty for service providers who operate with little to no margin for that uncertainty. This unfortunately means that this recurring poker game played in Springfield every year is played with the lives of our most vulnerable citizens as chips in the pot.
Illinois is no stranger to budget struggles. For more of the past several years than I care to remember we've ended the state's fiscal year with no budget, and the legislature going into special session in order to rectify that. Each year this results in confusion and uncertainty for service providers who operate with little to no margin for that uncertainty. This unfortunately means that this recurring poker game played in Springfield every year is played with the lives of our most vulnerable citizens as chips in the pot.
