Comptrollers Quarterly

              the state’s financial position continues to
deteriorate as the backlog of unpaid state obli-gations
continues to outpace incoming rev-enues.
With $4.7 billion in fiscal year 2010
payables on June 30 to start the new fiscal
year and $1.7 billion in additional fiscal year
2010 payments presented during the lapse
period, over $6.4 billion in fiscal year 2011
revenues will be used to pay last year’s bills.
this amount represents almost 23% of total
fiscal year 2010 General Funds base revenues.
meanwhile the state has accumulated over
$3.5 billion in fiscal year 2011 General Funds
obligations, further exacerbating problems for
state vendors and providers of state services
as payment delays reach historic levels.
even with short-term borrowing of $1.3 bil-lion
in July to assist with the payment of fiscal
year 2010 bills, the cash flow position
improved only temporarily. at the end of
september, the backlog of unpaid bills and
transfers from the General Funds in the
Comptroller’s office (ioC) stood at $5.510
billion compared to payables last year at this
time of $2.913 billion. the state currently has
unpaid invoices dating from last march with a
likelihood of continuing prolonged delays.
the chart of adjusted General revenue
Fund (GrF) balances shows the balance on
september 30, 2010 to be a negative $4.931
billion even after the July short-term bor-rowing.
at this time last year, the adjusted
GrF balance was $2.801 billion. as noted
earlier, the General Funds expenditures
lapse period obligations for fiscal year 2010
exceeded $6.4 billion, a lapse period record.
as of the end of september, $2.0 billion of
fiscal year 2010 vouchers remain unpaid,
although the state has until December 31,
2010 to pay off these liabilities as allowed
by public act 96-958.
Base expenditures decreased 0.9% due to an
increase in payables. transfers out are up pri-marily
due to the beginning of repayment for
pension bonds issued last year. also, while
transfers were being delayed in the first quar-ter
last year due to cash flow problems, the
same conditions have delayed the completion
of many remaining fiscal year 2010 transfers
until the first quarter of this fiscal year.
Base revenues are up an unimpressive $3 mil-lion
through the end of september. the timing
of deposits and transfers appears to have
played a role in some the revenue sources. it
should be noted that $263 million in inter-fund
borrowing as authorized by public act 96-958
was initiated in the first quarter.
Base revenues
income tax revenue was one area of growth in
total revenues for the first quarter. individual
income tax receipts through three months
increased $49 million or 2.6% while corporate
income tax receipts grew $24 million or
10.0%. the increase in individual income tax
receipts was due in part to a change in the per-cent
allocated to the refund Fund. including
the amount allocated to the refund Fund, indi-vidual
income taxes were up only 1.5%.
the economy remains sluggish as sales tax
revenues are down $1 million or 0.1%. it
appears that the sales tax holiday in august for
back to school items may have accelerated
some spending from september, but its overall
impact on tax collections in unclear as of now.
all other receipts are up $27 million or 3.8%.
inheritance taxes are up $34 million but will
start to decline since there is no longer a feder-al
inheritance tax collected. public utility tax
★★★★★ ★★★★★
State Bill Backlog continueS to grow
CQ
tHe IllInoIs state
Daniel W. Hynes, Comptroller edition 37, oct 2010
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