Comptroller Quarterly

              throughout fiscal year 2010, both the state’s
financial condition and cash flow position
continued to deteriorate rapidly, as spending
pressures were left largely unabated and as
the recession continued to impact state rev-enues.
illinois ended the year in the worst fis-cal
position in its history. at the end of June,
the backlog of unpaid bills and fund transfers
in the illinois office of the Comptroller (ioC)
stood at $4.712 billion. this compares to last
year’s end of year payables of $2.785 billion.
Just as important, the delay in paying vouch-ers
was 153 working days this June compared
to 99 days at this time last year. some trans-fers
to other state funds have been delayed for
the entire fiscal year and the state was unable
to transfer $276 million back to the Budget
stabilization Fund on June 30th. Both the
amount payable and the days delayed are
record highs.
the chart of adjusted General revenue Fund
(GrF) balances shows the balance on June
30, 2010 to be a negative $4.692 billion. this
is the lowest end of year balance on the chart
and will be the lowest budgetary balance in
history after accounting for spending in the
state’s lapse period. a few factors have had a
major impact on the cash flow position – the
state’s economy-driven revenues weakened
and spending was transferred to other funds
in the fourth quarter.
although the backlog of bills is historically
high, this is a modest improvement from
what was anticipated at the end of the third
quarter. this is due primarily to the transfer
of approximately $1.8 billion in medicaid
spending from GrF to the Healthcare
provider relief Fund and tobacco settlement
recovery Fund, a reallocation of over $300
million in state Board of education quarterly
grant payments from the GrF to the
education assistance Fund, and marginally
better revenue collections in the fourth quar-ter
than originally projected. However, near-ly
$2.6 billion in fiscal year 2010 General
Funds appropriations remain unexpended and
a large portion of that may be submitted for
payment in the next two months for remain-ing
fiscal year 2010 obligations.
Base spending for the year was down 8.8%
due to the backlog of payables, the decline in
pension payments due to the borrowing this
year for these payments, and the transfer of
medicaid spending to other funds.
While base revenues decreased 4.2% in fiscal
year 2010, it is the decline in economic rev-enue
sources that greatly impacted the ioC’s
ability to pay the state’s bills. Corporate
income tax receipts were down 20.5%, sales
tax receipts have decreased $465 million or
6.9%, and individual income tax receipts fell
$712 million or 7.7%. these declines were
partially offset by transfers into the General
Funds. With the failure in economy-driven
revenues, the Governor has proposed a $1.3
billion “revenue failure” short-term borrow-ing
for late July.
base revenues
at the end of fiscal year 2010, base revenues
decreased $1.211 billion or 4.2% for a total of
$27.933 billion. state sources of revenue were
down $564 million or 2.5% while federal
sources decreased $647 million (9.9%) to
★★★★★ ★★★★★
Fiscal Problems Worsen
signiFicantly as Fy 2010 ends
CQ
tHe IllInoIs state
edition Daniel W. Hynes, Comptroller 36, July 2010
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