By Diane S.W. Lee Illinois Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois does not appear to need a cigarette tax hike, or the $300 million it could potentially raise, to start work on new roads and buildings this summer.

"There is approximately $3 billion of bonds that have been sold, so the capital program as the governor has indicated can start now," said State Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield. "There shouldn't be any delay."

A review of the numbers being tossed around the Capitol paint a different picture than the one Senate President John Cullerton is portraying.

Cullerton, D-Chicago, has said the state needs money from the cigarette tax to make sure work can continue across Illinois this summer. The original funding source for the construction plan has been slow to appear. A new liquor tax is tied up in the courts, and video poker has yet to arrive in bars and truck stops.

“The liquor tax, some of that money is in escrow and it is not coming to us,“ Cullerton said. “We haven’t gotten one penny from the video gaming, because of bureaucratic bungling.”

Cullerton hopes to pass his cigarette tax out of the Illinois Senate this week. He is rushing, he said, to make sure this summer’s construction season is not wasted.

There are an estimated 120 construction projects on the schedule for this spring and summer, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. Several road resurfacing projects in St. Clair County and a new Mississippi River bridge project to downtown St. Louis are currently under way, according to IDOT.

The total six-year capital construction package costs $31 billion. Illinois has sold nearly $4 billion in bonds to pay for all of the first two years of work. The court's ruling affects roughly $2.2 billion. The state has also collected nearly $425 million from higher fees and those now legally challenged taxes. 

Bomke said that’s plenty of money for this spring, summer and a while after that.

“It is paying the bonds back that’s the issue, finding a revenue source to pay those bonds back,” Bomke said. “Since we already have that, that is ample money to start construction and probably carry us for another year. So there really is no concern until spring of next year.”

Josh Kauffman, IDOT spokesman, said projects from the capital program will continue as planned.

“We had one of the largest construction seasons in state history due to the capital plan last year,” Kauffman said. “And we are continuing to move forward soon with our annual construction season, typically starting in early April.”

Gov. Pat Quinn’s office also does not appear worried about a work stoppage this summer. Spokeswoman Kelly Kraft said building new roads and buildings is helping to bring in money by putting people to work.

But it will likely be sometime in 2013 before Illinois would see the full benefits of Cullerton’s cigarette tax.

Numbers from the American Lung Association of Illinois peg the cigarette tax as bringing in $195 million in 2012. The projected revenue is supposed to then jump to $352 million in 2013, $362 million in 2014, and then dip back to $352 million in 2015. The tax would not go into effect until at least July, so that accounts for the lower haul in the first year.

Cullerton is also backing the plan, because he says it will help people quit smoking. American Lung Association of Illinois estimates with a cigarette tax hike, 59,400 adults will quit, and 77,600 kids will never start smoking. The association’s spokeswoman Kathy Drea said  that’s why revenues are expected to dip the first year.

The state’s current tax on cigarettes is 98-cents per pack, and the proposal would phase-in the $1 a pack tax, in two 50-cent increments.

“We are 100 percent committed to continuing the capital program,” Kraft said. “It has put thousands of people to work in every corner of the state.”