First, enact balanced budgets and a predictable fiscal system

•September 26, 2018•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

This is the first of seven weekly columns that offer a blueprint for fixing Illinois, the title of the writer’s 2014 book (University of Illinois Press). Nowlan is a former Illinois legislator, agency director, senior aide to three unindicted governors, campaign manager for U.S. Senate and presidential candidates, and professor of government at several universities in Illinois as well as China.
The first order of business in transforming Illinois from a laggard to a leader, once again, among the American states is to enact balanced budgets and create a stable, transparent, predictable fiscal system, something the state has not accomplished even once in the past two decades. Only then will business leaders, entrepreneurs and creators be confident they can locate, build and expand in our state.
The numbers tell the sad story of our fiscal disarray. The 20 17 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report of the Office of the Illinois Comptroller shows that the net assets of the State of Illinois declined from a negative $6 billion in 2002 to minus $141 billion in 2017. [This number will plummet even further next year, when new accounting rules require Illinois to report its unfunded future employee health care costs.]     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.