Gov. Pat Quinn successfully worked with state lawmakers to route emergency funding toward child-care providers for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. But the governor secured the votes needed by extending the wait period for low-income parents to get cash payments from the state.
Also, Quinn’s proposed budget for next fiscal year, which the state legislature is supposed to pass a version of by next week, would make almost $85 million in permanent cuts to child-care providers. This is much to the chagrin of child-care providers who just got done lobbying for the emergency funding. Read more »
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn wants lawmakers to financially rescue Illinois child care providers, one week after 40,000 state-subsidized providers were told the state ran out of money to pay them for the rest of the fiscal year. At stake is whether 85,000 low-income parents who work or attend school can continue to access child-care.
The U.S. Senate did not authorize a new funding stream for jobs programs like Put Illinois To Work (PITW) as part of a vote on welfare programs today. The decision raises the specter that thousands of PITW workers will be laid off around the state unless Democrats in Washington's Upper Chamber find a way to approve additional dollars in the face of Senate Republicans' intransigent opposition.
Some 27,000 people in Illinois -- most of them young, female, and poor -- found $10-per-hour jobs in the private and public sector through PITW; the federal government paid for most of their wages using dollars appropriated under the 2009 stimulus bill, with the states picking up the rest. PITW was one of the most aggressive jobs programs in the country, and when the initial round of federal funding ran out on September 30, Gov. Pat Quinn committed $75 million in state dollars to keep it going through the end of November.
Quinn -- who took a lot of flack during his gubernatorial campaign for supporting PITW with state dollars -- was hoping that Congress would provide more funding for a successful program that created jobs and generated impressive returns of sales, income, and other kinds of taxes. That hasn't happened in Washington. This is bad news for Illinois.
There's a menu of viable economic policy initiatives out there that would
assist unemployed people and cash-strapped states. Will Congress fund any of them?
The Put Illinois To Work (PITW) program has become a surprising
lightning rod in Illinois' gubernatorial race. It started yesterday
when Gov. Pat Quinn committed
$75 million in state funds to extend the federal stimulus program,
operated by the Illinois Department of Human Services, for two months.
(It was slated to expire
tomorrow.) PITW offers private employers subsidies to hire (for
$10-per-hour) Illinoisans eligible for the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families program and was widely seen as a success, creating
jobs for 26,000 low-income people. At a rally in Chicago's Daley Plaza
today, employer Paula Mitchell said she didn't understand the type
of impact the program would have until she brought several women on
using the funding. Watch:
During their debate this morning, GOP
gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady lashed out at Quinn for the plan,
calling it "as bad as your AFSCME deal."
"You extended a program," he added, "that will cost the taxpayers $75
million so you could buy public sector jobs for people in the private
sector." That criticism is a bit strange; a job in the public sector is
no less valuable to people looking for work than one in the private
sector. And demand for the program has been high specifically because
so few private sector firms are adding employees to their staff.
Brady
did raise a secondary concern we also share: should Illinois spend $75
million on a program Congress may not extend further when it owes
literally billions to human service providers and other state vendors,
many of whom are being forced to shed staff and cut programs because
the state can't pay its bills on time?
Gov. Pat Quinn has committed
$75 million in state funds to extend through November a federal stimulus program that has created an estimated 26,000
jobs.
If the U.S. Senate does not extend federal funding for the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund by the end of the
month, an estimated 26,000 workers in Illinois could lose jobs they acquired through the successful
Put Illinois to Work program.
Gov. Pat Quinn successfully worked with state lawmakers to route emergency funding toward child-care providers for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. But the governor secured the votes needed by extending the wait period for low-income parents to get cash payments from the state.
The U.S. Senate did not authorize a new funding stream for 
