SPRINGFIELD — Failure to pay debts on time has cost Illinois $1 billion in late-payment penalties.
SPRINGFIELD — Fed-up Illinois Senate Democrats plan to put the "grand bargain" budget compromise to the test, calling each of the dozen or so measures for votes to let them rise or fall on their own, a top senator said Tuesday.
CHICAGO — A stopgap spending plan that lawmakers approved to address Illinois' lack of a state budget for a second straight year is quickly draining the state's "rainy day" fund, focusing more attention on the state's unique and long-running financial management problems.
SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois House approved legislation Thursday to limit the salary upon which retired state workers can base their pensions in the future.
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers rejected a series of proposals Thursday that would have drastically reduced pension benefits for state employees.
SPRINGFIELD — The Quinn administration wants to use some of the proceeds from the sale of the state’s unused maximum-security prison in Thomson to chip away at its mountain of unpaid bills.
PEORIA (AP) - When Illinois can't pay its bills in a timely fashion, the interest penalties it's required to add on by law deliver another blow to the cash-strapped state, but they do little to ease the pain of waiting vendors.
SPRINGFIELD - Don't look for quick action to reduce Illinois' huge backlog of unpaid bills, despite universal agreement among state leaders that the debt is unfair to businesses, charities and local governments that provide valuable services.
SPRINGFIELD - If you plan on doing business with the state of Illinois, you'd better learn to beg, preferably to an influential politician.
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CARBONDALE - The Illinois Department of Corrections insists its failure to pay its bills on time isn't creating any safety concerns inside state prisons, but documents show one department executive warned of "a big problem looming" if a food supplier halted deliveries.
DECATUR - With mounting bills yet to be paid by the state, Illinois hospitals and other health care facilities continue to face challenges as they work to serve their communities. According to a recent research project conducted by The Associated Press, the top five Decatur-area businesses o…
CHAMPAIGN - Andrew Buffenbarger was expecting a check from the state of Illinois. What he got instead was a letter saying the Champaign County Nursing Home wouldn't be paid for its Medicaid services for 120 days.
SPRINGFIELD - The state budget amounts to bad news and more bad news for Illinois schools. They're getting less money this year and they'll still have to endure long waits to collect the smaller checks.
URBANA - Illinois' nine public universities are owed more than half a billion dollars by the state, part of an ongoing debt that contributes to rising tuition, spending cuts, increasing class sizes on some campuses and a need to carefully manage reserves.
CHICAGO — When the owner of a Southern Illinois child care center didn’t get the state funding he was promised on time and faced laying off employees and cutting services to low-income children, he borrowed money from family members to get by.
DECATUR — When Mike Foutch was released from Pinckneyville Correctional Center in August 2010, he was at risk of becoming one of roughly 1,000 people Heritage Behavioral Health Center could not help that year because of the state’s budget problems.
DECATUR — The years-long struggle to renovate downtown Decatur’s Lincoln Square Theatre may be close to an unsatisfactory conclusion.
SPRINGFIELD — Ambulance operators, pharmacists, aircraft repairmen, produce providers, funeral home directors, even racehorse owners.
SPRINGFIELD — Drowning in deficits, Illinois has turned to a deliberate policy of not paying billions of dollars in bills for months at a time, creating a cycle of hardship and sacrifice for residents and businesses helping the state carry out some of the most important government tasks.
If local governments and school administrators knew for sure when the state was going to pay them, they could plan for it.