The board of directors at Peoria’s Easter Seals voted to add a half million dollar line of credit to keep services going through January.
“For my folks who operate on these state contracts, if there’s no more line of credit, or no more payment, their jobs are done,” Runyon said.The move comes as the non-profit, and many others in Illinois, are left in financial limbo because of the state budget impasse. Easter Seals’ Executive Vice President James Runyon says forty of the Peoria agency’s service providers haven’t been paid since the end of June.
Runyon says already, nine individual providers serving the Eastern region of the state have been forced quit their job.
The forty staff members that serve the Peoria office are state-funded by the Child and Family Connections grant.
Runyon says other nonprofits in the state are facing similar painful choices: increase their line of credit, lay off employees, or close operations.
“Most folks had enough money for July and August, and it will really be September and October when you see that change, and it’s been a really strange dynamic because people won’t talk about it.”
He says some of his grant-funded employees are contemplating leaving their jobs.