Illinois State Senator J. Bradley Burzynski and State Representative Robert Pritchard spoke about the troubling fiscal problems the Illinois State Legislature is facing at Wednesday’s DeKalb County Board Meeting.

With the state in the bottom of a recession and $4 billion in delayed bills, Burzynski said the Illinois State Legislature has a lot on its plate.

“We’ve got issues,” he said.

To fix the fiscal problems, Pritchard said the state will need to create new revenue and items need to be cut.

“There’s no easy quick fix to cutting spending,” he said.

The payments the state legislature delayed to its vendors are having a large impact on community providers too, Pritchard said.

“People are being forced to borrow money to increase their cost of operations,” he said. “We’ve got to stop that and get the money flowing here.”

Besides the need to balance the budget, Pritchard said the state legislature will also be looking to relieve the tension in the state’s water supply, deal with growth, revitalize highways and reform health care.

Both Pritchard and Burzynski also spoke to the Board about the recent impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Burzynski called the impeachment surreal.

“I never thought I would be there for anything of this magnitude in the state of Illinois,” he said. “I’ve never seen the senate quite that quiet.”

Pritchard also spoke highly of Lt. Governor Pat Quinn, who hopes to fill the soon-to-be-vacant governor’s seat.

“It’s interesting that he used an executive power to create a reform committee,” he said.
Pritchard invited County Board members to continue to give their input on solutions to current state issues.

Pritchard said the biggest optimism he has for the upcoming session is that the legislature is going to start dealing with the big issues.

“When we deal with the big issues, the little issues will then come to the top and we’ll be able to deal with some of those,” he said.

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