Illinois governor summons special session on budget

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Gov. George Ryan on Friday called the Legislature into special session to deal with a newly minted budget that he says is $724 million in the hole.

The General Assembly will report to the Capitol at 2 p.m. Monday to consider reductions Ryan will make to bring spending in line with revenues. There could be as many as 100 vetoes of individual budget items, Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Steve Rauschenberger, R-Elgin, said Friday.

Outside his Statehouse office Friday night, Ryan said, "I will have made some cuts in the budget, significant cuts for them to act on."

Ryan also announced he will veto a bill that prohibits him from hiring private companies to run prison cafeterias, a measure that passed by a combined 157-10 in the House and Senate. He said privatizing food service and commissaries could save $30 million.

Legislators, who were told to expect a three-day session, will be forced to decide whether to override Ryan's vetoes, which in some cases would require a three-fifths majority vote of each chamber.

"We'll probably try to support the governor," Rausch-enberger said. "We've argued all along we're better off with bigger reductions."

$53 billion budget

After weeks of wrangling over how to solve a $1.35 billion deficit, legislators left town late Sunday with what officials considered a precariously balanced, $53 billion budget.

The fiscal plan increased cigarette and riverboat casino taxes and authorized other financial maneuvers, such as borrowing $750 million against future tobacco lawsuit settlement proceeds. It also closed several prisons and health care facilities, cut Medicaid payments and called for laying off 6,500 workers.

It included $277 million in spending added by the Legislature, which also took a pass on $220 million in additional taxes that Ryan had proposed in a Memorial Day address to jump-start stalled negotiations.

That made it $500 million short of Ryan's blueprint, although the governor commended the General Assembly's work.

Yet even as lawmakers were celebrating the end of a difficult budget session, Ryan was warning that May tax revenues were $224 million lower than last year.

He said Friday he didn't know on Sunday the impact of the legislative changes and "it took a little time to figure out what they did."

And now he says he's unsure whether he'll use the tobacco-proceeds borrowing plan.

That worried Senate Democratic Leader Emil Jones of Chicago, the plan's main proponent. He said Ryan wouldn't need to slice the budget if he stuck to the agreement he reached with legislative leaders.

"He wouldn't have to lay off people and cut a lot of services to people all across the state of Illinois. That was the whole trick," Jones said. "If he's not going to do it, I don't know why we sat down and agreed to do it."

Ryan vetoes

Ryan's vetoes will go to the Senate, where spending bills originated. A veto can be undone only if both chambers vote to override, so the House will only act if the Senate does.

The governor can veto parts of the budget by cutting out entire lines of spending or reducing funds for them.

If the governor eliminates spending for an entire program, restoring it takes a three-fifths majority vote. Putting back spending reductions in programs takes a simple majority.