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Quinn Says Social Service Agencies Will Get Paid
Some of Illinois' social service agencies are hanging on by a thread, waiting for money from the state.

The state is in arrears on its payments to the tune of $4.5 billion, much of it owed to Medicaid and social service providers. Many of the social service agencies are small and are finding a hard time meeting their payrolls and other costs of doing business with the state late in paying them by four or five months.

Gov. Pat Quinn says he hopes they can hang on until next month. "The financial institutions that they work with, I would ask them to be as patient as they can, as helpful as they can," he said. "The money is coming."

Quinn says December is typically a slow month for state state's cash flow, and come January, money will be found to pay the state's bills.

The governor says the beleaguered agencies shouldn’t blame him for the situation; he says he stuck up for them in the summer, when lawmakers were considering a budget that would have cut spending on social services by 50 percent.

Quinn proposed borrowing $500 million to pay debts; Comptroller Dan Hynes nixed the idea, saying he didn't know where the state would get the money to pay back the loan, having already borrowed several billion to pay bills. Quinn sees this as a political issue: Quinn and Hynes are opposing each other in the Democratic primary for governor.

(Illinois Radio Network)
12 29 09 by Newsroom
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