Providing Illinois social services with critical funding—and offering a way to pay for it—was part of a proposal introduced during the week by legislative Republican leaders. Leader Radogno and Leader Durkin appealed to Democrat legislative leaders to work with them in a bipartisan manner to end the budget impasse and do what is best for Illinois residents
As part of the Republican leaders’ legislation (Senate Bill 3418), approximately $1.3 billion would support:
• Seniors in the Community Care Program;
• Veterans;
• Persons with mental health and developmental disabilities;
• Homeless youth, homeless vets and homeless-prevention programs, in general;
• Programs like Adult Redeploy that are critical to criminal justice reform efforts;
• Addiction treatment, sexual assault services and prevention; and
• The Special Olympics
Republican leaders said that comprehensive pension reform is one way to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in savings. Gov. Rauner has put forward a number of immediate changes to the pension systems that would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in savings for Fiscal Year 2017, changes that are not subject to court challenge and savings that can be banked immediately. These are items like dealing with salary spiking and capping pension subsidies for salaries over $180,000 – and stabilizing the actuarial projections.
In addition to these options, Republican leaders once again called on Senate President Cullerton to submit his pension reform plan. Republicans noted that the Cullerton’s proposal, combined with the immediate changes form the Governor’s budget, would generate enough revenue to fund the state’s social services, now and in the future.