Just because Illinois now has a budget doesn’t mean all of the entities covered by it will get their money right away.
Some payouts will come out of special funds, that have to accumulate a balance first.
Other bills may go to the bottom of a pile of overdue vouchers totaling roughly 8 billion dollars.
For the past several months, legislators’ paychecks have been sitting in that stack.
Senator Kim Lightford – a Maywood Democrat – says it’s wrong, and a political game. She says now that there’s a budget, she hopes the paychecks will come.
“So I hope the work that we’re doing today would allow us an opportunity to continue to take care of our own homes," Lightford said. "And I’m hoping the comptroller would decide and recognize that we’re not vendors, that we’re actually employees of this body and we deserve to be paid.”.
A spokesman for the Comptroller says the office is still determining what impact the new spending plan will have. But he says legislators should get paid this week. He says their April paychecks are nearly at the top of the bill backlog.
