Senator Tim Bivins says fiscal mismanagement in Illinois has hit a new low with the State Comptroller reporting July 7 that Illinois ended the fiscal year in “the worst fiscal position in its history” and the media reporting that the Governor has handed out pay raises to 35 staff members.

The 45th District Senator says with Illinois in such dire fiscal straits, the time has come for a forensic audit of the state budget.

“A forensic audit of state spending would help identify structural problems and waste in the budget,” Senator Bivins said. “It is a good starting point in a process that is long overdue—getting a grip on Illinois’ out-of-control spending.”

Democrat legislative leaders blocked two Republican proposals this spring calling for a forensic audit of state spending. The House rejected House Resolution 1057 March 25. A similar measure, Senate Resolution 763, has also not been allowed a public hearing or vote.

“It is hard to understand why Democrat leaders are blocking an audit. We need to bring the budget out of the ‘smoke-filled back rooms,’ air it out and provide some long overdue scrutiny. For eight years, very few lawmakers have been allowed input into the budget-making process even though all Illinois residents pay the taxes that fund the budget,” Senator Bivins said. “And now they have even surrendered most of that oversight. For the second year in a row, the budgeteers have sketched out the barest of spending guidelines and thrown the rest into the lap of the Governor.”

Senator Bivins, who handled a budget for 20 years as Lee County Sheriff, says when fiscal trouble hits, the first thing a good fiscal manager will do is freeze hiring and spending. He says the exact opposite is happening in state government, citing as one example the July 7 media headlines about Governor Pat Quinn giving 43 pay hikes averaging 11.4 percent to 35 of his staff members.

On July 1, Governor Quinn announced what he says will amount to approximately $1.4 billion in budget cuts, though Senator Bivins said the cuts are actually in the neighborhood of $155 million—a spending reduction of less than one half of one percent. The Governor said he plans to cut spending in many areas of the budget, including elementary and high school education, higher education, human services, aging, corrections, health, law enforcement, agriculture and natural resources.

Senator Bivins said he supports any plan to scale back state expenditures, but remains skeptical that Governor Quinn has the resolve to make his proposed cuts. In 2009, the Governor promised to cut $1 billion from the state budget, and even produced a list of cuts that he planned to make. Yet most of those budget reductions were never implemented and, in fact, Governor Quinn managed to overspend by $2 billion and increase Illinois’ backlog of bills from $4 billion to $6 billion.

Senator Bivins said other states have used the forensic audit approach with great success, identifying billions of dollars in waste. In 2008, Illinois lawmakers approved a forensic audit of the state’s Medicaid system, which is one of the largest budget expenditures. A report from that audit was released May 11, 2010 (http://www.auditor.illinois.gov/Audit-Reports/Compliance-Agency-List/DHFS/FY09-DHFS-Fin-Comp-digest.pdf).