The Illinois General Assembly adjourned the Spring 2012 session late last night.  The General Assembly passed a $33.7 billion state operating budget.  This budget included massive cuts to many state programs including an astonishing $1.6 billion in cuts to the Medicaid program, and millions in cuts to education funding.  The Legislature also approved a $1 per pack cigarette tax increase that will generate approximately $300 million in additional revenue.  

The General Assembly failed to pass pension reform legislation for state funded pensions including state employees and state university employees.  However, the Legislative Leaders and Governor have pledged to return to Springfield in the coming weeks or months to try again.

Senate Bill 2378 contains appropriations to the Secretary of State for library programs.  The library community focused our full attention on preserving level funding for the largest library grant programs, and we have succeeded!  The budget passed by the General Assembly maintains level funding for all the major library grant programs including public library per capita, school library per capita, system per capita and equalization.   

Regrettably, some library line items were affected.  Funding for Project Next Generation was eliminated ($325,000), as was the Penny Severns Summer Family Literacy program ($250,000), and tuition and fees for Illinois Archival Depository Systems Interns ($45,000).  The individual grant to the Chicago Public Library was also reduced by 10%.  While we objected to these cuts, the library community did extremely well in light of the unprecedented budget cuts to the fiscal 2013 budget.  Individual libraries are also the beneficiaries of many capital appropriations contained in Senate Bill 2332.

ILA is also pleased to report that every substantive bill actively opposed by ILA was defeated in the recently concluded session.  Senate Bill 2862, Senate Bill 2073 and House Bill 4608 all would have changed the Tax Cap statute to reduce the available revenues to local taxing bodies in areas with declining property tax assessments.  ILA strongly opposed these bills and our members were key to the defeat of these bills.  ILA also quickly mobilized and led the effort to oppose and defeat House Bill 3637; a proposal to divert local revenues from the personal property replacement tax (PPRT) to state coffers.  A very small amount of PPRT will again be allocated to pay the salaries of regional superintendents of education, but this amount is tiny fraction of what was proposed in House Bill 3637.

ILA will continue to alert our members to important legislative developments including the continuing negotiations on state pension reform.