Today marks day two of Fiscal Year 2010 and, with no state budget in place, nonprofit agencies across the state are in turmoil. As we noted yesterday, Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed the dreaded "50 percent budget." And with no spending plan in place, neither Quinn nor Comptroller Dan Hynes are willing to go out on a limb and guarantee that agencies will eventually be reimbursed for the services they continue to provide. That uncertainty has left many cash-strapped social service proiders with no choice but to begin issuing pink slips:
- The Occupational Development Center, a Bloomington program that provides job training for the developmentally disabled, was forced to end services this week.
- The Association for Individual Development in Aurora cut 80 jobs and "told 1,100 clients with developmental and mental health disabilities that they would lose services."
- Layoffs at the H Group, an addiction counseling center in West Frankfort, will result in 1,000 fewer people being served this year, according to estimates from administrators.
- More than a third of the 33 employees at Urbana's A Woman's Fund have been laid off.
- Thirty-one of the 210 staffers at the Mental Health Center of Champaign County were terminated yesterday.
- In the Chicago area, staff cuts went into effect at Between Friends, which means the organization will be able to provide counseling for 3,000 fewer domestic violence survivors this year.
- UPDATE: Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities, an agency that treats non-violent convicts with addiction problems, has laid off 50 workers and furloughed 150 other employees for two weeks.
As the Heartland Alliance pointed out on its blog yesterday, this first wave of cuts is just "the tip of the iceberg" as officials from every corner of the state grapple with their uncertain future.
When budget negotiations have broken down in the past, the services had run largely uninterrupted, thanks to "contingency contracts" issued by the governor. What's different this year, the Daily Herald notes, is that the state instead notified the agencies that their contracts would be terminated immediately, leaving some providers feeling like political pawns. More from the Herald article:
"We're feeling whiplash," said the Rev. Dan Schwick, assistant to the president [of Lutheran Social Services]. "It's very much up in the air at this moment." [...]
"We're very uncomfortable being caught in the middle of a political struggle," Schwick said. "It's clear to us the maneuvering is not about public policy, it's about political power games."
SouthtownStar columnist Phil Kadner summed it up well yesterday:
The governor says he's right. Legislators say they're right.
All I know is the most defenseless people in this state are being hurt.
Seems to me that makes everyone wrong.
Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 16:35
Since this mess feels so much like the way Springfield has been operating for the past few years, I look to who is still there in a leadership role? Blago is gone and we have a new governor. Emil Jones is no longer senate prez. The Republicans have less power than ever.
The constant across the "insane" years is Madigan. All it takes is one guy to play chicken, and it forces everyone else into the game. That guy, seems to me, is Michael Madigan.
So, when it comes to being wrong, I would say there is one really wrong guy, who can play chicken with the best. That is our speaker. He is elected by the state reps. Time to hold them accountable for what they have wrought.