By Ashley Badgley

Illinois Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD — Now that lawmakers have reached their legislative spring break and the Capitol is no longer abuzz with activity, the 2010 session has hit the halfway mark.

Local lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn assessed the first half of the session, and looked forward to the second half.

Quinn counts pension reform as the greatest accomplishment so far, since the changes were approved with bi-partisan support. The legislation offers slimmer benefits to new public employees – including teachers, university faculty and staff, state employees, lawmakers and judges – in an effort to whittle down the state’s $80 billion in unfunded pension liability.

Although Quinn has yet to sign the legislation into law, he said Illinois residents heading into the future will see most of the benefit of the changes.

“Our pension reform, it was a long hard battle,” Quinn said. “We did get it done . . . and it’s going to save $115 billion or more for taxpayers in the coming generation.”

Pension reform was a key element of Quinn’s budget proposal presented in March, when he called for a one percentage point increase in the state’s current 3 percent income tax. The new revenue would target proposed education cuts of $1.3 billion. Quinn’s budget also relies on short-term borrowing of $5 billion to help bridge the state’s $13 billion budget deficit.

Lawmakers agree the politically charged pension reforms needed to be approved in the session’s first half, leaving the second half for budget wrangling.

State Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, said little progress has been made so far to help the state, but agreed the pension reforms were needed.

“Spending is continued and we had a budget introduced that’s going to do a record amount of borrowing,” Syverson said. “That’s certainly the bad side. The good side is we finally, after a decade, passed needed pension reforms that protect the pensions of existing workers, but change the system for future hires.”

Looking to the second half of the session, he said he fears lawmakers will continue to borrow money and get out of session as soon as they can in early May. The scheduled date for adjournment is May 7, although recent past sessions have gone into summer.

“The idea of doing regular amounts of borrowing on top of our huge debt already just puts us further and further behind,” Syverson said. “I wish we would bite the bullet and do the thing we are elected to do, which is be leaders and make those tough decisions. Unfortunately, I think we’re just going to keep borrowing money and go home.”

State Rep. Pat Verschoore, D-Rock Island, agreed pension reform was the biggest bill of the first half of session, but said he expects the budget to take priority when lawmakers return from break.

“We’re going to be working on the budget and I think that’s going to be our biggest task when we get back,” Verschoore said. “There’s some other legislation that’s coming through the pipe that is important, but the biggest and most important thing is the budget.”

Verschoore even made a prediction, saying lawmakers will approve only a six-month budget to postpone tough decisions until after the November election.

However, a Quincy Republican said she was disappointed that may bills sponsored by House Republicans were banished to committee and never considered.

“I found it disappointing that we had put forth a lot of bills that I thought would help with reforms,” said state Rep. Jil Tracy, R-Quincy. “So many of those just weren’t allowed out of committee and I found that very frustrating.”

Looking ahead, Tracy said the focus should highlight constituents, especially in the areas of education, human services and disability assistance.

“[My constituents] are wanting to know when the state is going to get back to normal and normal right now is that we’re broke and we’re not paying our bills on time and we’re making those that depend on the services suffer for it,” Tracy said.

Lawmakers are scheduled to return to session April 13.