Over at Capitol Fax, Rich Miller has sought to highlight stories that illustrate the worst impacts of the ongoing budget impasse, which he has, at least in this case, termed a “hostage” situation in a greater “war.”
Setting the possible tastelessness of calling them a “hostage” aside, here’s the latest on one social service provider Miller highlighted yesterday, via the Chicago Tribune:
The list of victims related to the state’s budget impasse continues to grow, as officials with an Elgin-based drug treatment center traveled to Springfield last week to announce they will close shop July 1 without state help.
About 160 people are at risk of losing their jobs should the Latino Treatment Center, which also has locations in Chicago and West Chicago, go under.
The state owes the center $56,326, on top of $60,690 cut from the group’s budget by the Rauner administration in 2015.
To get by without state funds, agency officials said they cut staff salaries and exhausted credit lines and cash reserves. Without a budget agreement, employees will begin to be laid off on May 15, and two facilities will close by June 15. The third will follow by July 1.
May I be so bold as to express some skepticism here?
This drug treatment center is going to lay off 160 people and close three facilities over $117,000? I’m sorry, but something really doesn’t seem right in those numbers there. We’re working with limited information, but let’s assume for a minute here that those 160 employees make roughly the per capital income for Kane County, which is $29,480. That would put this center’s personnel budget alone at $4,716,800 per year. Heck, if we cut the per capita income figure in half, that still puts the personnel budget at $2,358,400/year. And that’s just personnel.
They can’t meet that $117,000 shortfall by just laying off a few employees, rather than shuttering the whole operation and cutting 160 people loose?
Beyond that, you’re telling me that they can’t possibly go out and raise $117,000 from the private sector?
Perhaps I have their financial situation completely wrong. I admit that possibility. Again, I’m working with limited information here. But I think these numbers provided in the Tribune piece at least raise some significant questions about the management and operation of this center. And yet neither the Tribune nor Rich Miller seem all that interested getting a little more clarity here.
Miller accepts the all of this on face value because it feeds his own confirmation bias. Beset by the Springfield hive mind, he sees the budget impasse as producing a post-apocolytic world from Cairo to Zion, befitting a far-too-long and uninteresting Kevin Costner film. And all because this new governor won’t consent to letting Springfield Democrats continue to spend money that the state doesn’t have.
Look, it’s unfortunate that any social service provider in this state is feeling squeezed by the budget “war.” But this is a fight we need to have, what with this state already having amassed a $111 billion unfunded pension liability and upwards of $10 billion in unpaid bills. The consequences of the wanton fiscal mismanagement of this state being allowed to continue unabated are going to be far bigger than a $117,000 shortfall for a drug treatment center.
Miller closes this post with a brief editorial statement:
Once more, with feeling: Find. Another. Way.
Wow, what stunningly insightful advice.
Miller keeps saying this. But I really have no idea what he actually means here. And I’m not convinced he does either.
What, Rich, is this supposed third way? Care to offer any specifics? Any insights gleaned from your years in the sausage-making factory that is the State Capitol?
Of course, I’ve covered before what Miller’s preferred end to this “war” is: Rauner capitulates to whatever the Democrats want. And I’ve covered why that would be foolish and irresponsible.
The only way forward from this is Rauner and the Madigan/Cullerton team meeting in the middle somewhere. Rauner is clearly willing to do that, offering to put on the table the tax increase the Democrats so desperately want. The Democrat leaders have been, and remain, intransigent.
Unfortunately for Rich Miller and his “Find Another Way” sloganeering, there really is no “other way.”