BY JENNIFER SIMMONS
Managing Editor
ROCHELLE — Rochelle Rotarians were treated to an update about the State of Illinois budget straight from a state representative Tuesday when Tom Demmer visited the club during its weekly meeting.
Demmer was this week’s Rotary guest and following lunch, spoke to club members about the ‘goings on’ in Springfield.
Demmer spent a majority of time discussing the budget.
“In a typical legislative year, the legislature meets January through the end of May and on May 31 of each year we are required to adjorn at midnight on May 31 our regular session for the year. The idea is that during those early months of the year the legislature will pass necessary bills for that year and most importantly pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year for the state which begins on July 1,” Demmer said. “.… here we are on Aug. 1 in the state’s fiscal year 2018.
Now, as you know for several years Illinois has been in the midst of a longstanding budget impasse. We went almost two years without a state budget, without an appropriations bill passed by the legislature,” he added. “During that time, state services still operated, police were still on the road, IDOT facilities were still operating, some organizations still received funding… so the question is, how did that all happen without a budget in place.”

Demmer explained the answer was through a patchwork of court ordered payments, of consent decrees or legal settlements the state had entered into, of federal law that required the state to still administer certain programs, and some appropriations that were passed by legislature.
“We are a state not able to make ourselves as competitive as we should be when people are choosing where they’re going to raise their families, where they’re going to find a job,” he said. “Illinois was not competitive in those areas and we risked putting ourselves at a further slide where it was becoming harder and harder to retain people and jobs in the state of Illinois [if we didn’t pass a budget].”

Demmer further explained that a committee was formed to tackle passing a state budget.
“As we worked in a bipartisan fashion, we appointed negotiators from the house republicans, senate republicans, house democrats and senate democrats…I was the lead house negotiator in pension reform and local government consolidation and one of the two negotiators on the state budget.”
During the close of the special session of negotiators – June 21 through June 30 – hours and hours were spent in direct negotiations.
“[It was] Republicans and democrats sitting across the table working in good faith toward those efforts…. And felt we were making real progress in those categories,” Demmer said. “Unfortunately at the close of that special session, the speaker and the senate president decided to offer legislation on a tax increase and a state budget alone without making any real reforms in the other areas and simply put that up for a vote.”
Demmer voted no on the tax increase and the state budget.

“The bills passed the general assembly, passed the house, passed the senate, and went to the governor. The governor vetoed both those bills, came back to the house and senate and both chambers voted to override,” he explained. “Again, I voted against the override, the same as I did the first time.”
But Demmer believes that work can still be done on the budget.
“It’s still a matter of urgency that I find in the legislature to push for those reforms and say we need to try to make the best of the situation we find ourselves in today knowing that what happened, happened with the budget and we need to try to move forward together and tackle some of the remaining problems that still exist across the state today.”