Bernard Schoenburg
The State Journal-Register
Gov. BRUCE RAUNER‘s top lawyer says he believes the governor has followed the state Constitution in his budget proposals, but for those who question if that is the case, he takes comfort in a 2016 state Supreme Court opinion.
DENNIS MURASHKO, who joined the Rauner administration as a deputy counsel and moved up to general counsel in October…spoke last week at the Sangamo Club to the Illinois Government Bar Association.
Springfield Ward 7 Ald. JOE McMENAMIN, president of the group, asked about the constitutional call for the governor to propose a state budget.
The finance article of the Constitution calls for the governor to propose and the legislature to appropriate a budget, and in both cases, the amount should not exceed funds estimated to be available that year.
“We do think seriously” about what the Constitution says, Murashko said, and “of course,” the administration thinks it has “discharged our obligation.”
He recognized there is a “skeptical view of the process” where people say Rauner’s first budget was “way out of whack” because it counted on pension savings that were in proposals made but not passed. Those proposed changes were designed to save $2.2 billion.
He said he is “comforted” by a 2016 Supreme Court decision in which justices decided that even though lower courts said the state must eventually provide back pay promised to some union workers under a contract dating back to 2011, the real power to decide was with the General Assembly. The court said in the state’s case against the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that the state wasn’t obligated to provide back pay for those who hadn’t received it if the legislature didn’t appropriate enough money.
The Supreme Court was clear, he said, that appropriations are “the function of the General Assembly, where the governor plays but an advisory role. So he can suggest, he can recommend a budget, but it’s the General Assembly’s obligation to pass a budget.”
Rauner has made a point of telling the world when the budgets passed by the legislature are not balanced.
Concerning the back pay, ANDERS LINDALL, spokesman for AFSCME, said while some state workers got the promised money, others didn’t. He said Rauner vetoed a bill, Senate Bill 2046, last spring that would have funded an average of $2,500 in back pay to about 24,000 employees, while also providing funding for social services and higher education.
The governor, in his veto message, called that bill an “empty promise” because it included spending more than $3 billion the state didn’t have.
“The governor believes the General Assembly should honor this part of the former contract and should compensate state employees as part of a balanced budget with changes to put our state back on sound fiscal footing,” Rauner spokesman CATHERINE KELLY said last week.
And much of his talk was about how to manage pressure, which in his job, he said, was like drinking from not just a fire hydrant, but “a sprinkler that’s going crazy, with the same intensity that a fire hydrant has.”
He said with people, including agency folks, asking for “instant advice,” it’s important to slow down, taking adequate time to get the right answer – which is often not the intuitive answer.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 