Not yet recovered from the budget impasse, providers offer suggestions in latest issue of Fiscal Focus
September 9, 2019
SPRINGFIELD – Contracting reform, modernized billing and IT systems, and additional funding are among the suggestions offered to state government by social service providers that continue to feel aftershocks from Illinois’ two-year state budget impasse.
Service providers and advocates spoke with the Illinois Office of Comptroller about how the budget impasse affected them, their ongoing efforts to restore services they had to cut; recover from the brain drain of experienced professionals that left; and what it will take moving forward to recover, grow and be successful. Their stories and advice can be found in the latest edition of Fiscal Focus, a periodical published by the office of Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza.
“Social service providers are on the front lines every day, advocating for the vulnerable and offering a hand up to people who have nowhere else to turn,” Mendoza said. “They do this at the behest of state government, and they know where the bureaucratic challenges lie. I think they’ve offered some sound suggestions, and I hope policy makers will give their ideas serious consideration.”
Also in the September issue of Fiscal Focus, readers will learn about credit ratings and why they matter to state taxpayers, what the comptroller’s office and the Illinois Department of Labor are doing to ensure compliance with prevailing wage rules, and how the "Bank On Illinois" initiative signed into law this summer aims to help steer Illinois residents away from predatory lenders.
Fiscal Focus was relaunched in May after a five-year hiatus. It first was published under former Comptroller Loleta Didrickson’s administration in 1995 and continued under comptrollers Dan Hynes and Judy Baar Topinka.
The publication delves into state finance and policy topics and offers accurate, timely information and data that can be valuable to state policymakers and Illinois taxpayers.
The September issue can be found on the Comptroller’s website here.
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