SPRINGFIELD — Changes to Illinois’ budgeting process will put more responsibility in the hands of the General Assembly this spring.

Committees in both the state House of Representatives and state Senate will have to decide how to spend the finite amount of money the state is expected to collect during the next fiscal year because of provisions in the Emergency Budget Act of Fiscal Year 2011.

 

The law, passed in the previous General Assembly, is the result of what’s been a perpetually messy budgeting process and calls to rein in spending for a state mired in a multi-billion dollar deficit.

 

The change is a stark departure from the past two years in which the Legislature would approve how much the state could spend, and then let the governor decide how to divide it among state agencies, a practice referred to as lump-sum budgeting.

 

State Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, said that a smaller pool of money to draw on necessitated the need for lump-sum budgeting.

 

“That was basically to try to give the governor and the Office of Management and Budget the ability to make decisions within different agencies budgets as how best to spend the money they have available,” Sullivan said.

 

State Rep. Mark Beaubien Jr., R-Barrington Hills, doesn’t quite see the past two years in the same light. He said the Legislature failed to live up to its duties by giving Gov. Pat Quinn a check but no direction on how to spend it.

 

“We abdicated our responsibility and said to the governor, ‘here’s the budget, you deal with (it),’ and that’s not what the Legislature should be doing,” Beaubien, the GOP budgeteer in the House, said.

 

Now the Legislature will have its responsibility back, which could be a double-edged sword because before the Legislature can decide how to spend, or cut, it must first know how much it can spend. Appropriation committees in both chambers will be given a revenue figure for the next fiscal year, out of which a portion for each state agency must be carved, according to the new law.

 

“This year they’re going to be forced to make some very tough decisions, because you get education, human services, all the sudden they recognize, ‘hey wait a minute, we have responsibility now in making this work,’” Beaubien said.

 

Both Beaubien and Sullivan have been in the Legislature for several election cycles and dealt with many budgets. Both also serve on appropriations committees alongside freshmen lawmakers. However, seniority won’t protect either from the new law’s learning curve, Sullivan said.

 

“This is going to have to be an ongoing dialogue between OMB, the (state) agencies and the appropriation committees as we kind of work through this process. So it’s going to be an education for all of us,” Sullivan said.