I’m going on vacation, the concept of which changes after
you retire. Vacation used to be a break
from the hectic; getting away from the schedule, the appointments, the being
late, the looming deadline, the unexpected crisis. Now vacation is more like moving this
leisurely existence to another location.
Vacation for retirees means lolling around in a different
environment. My wife and I are going to
Quebec. It looks like as good a place as
any for lolling.
We’ll be gone about ten days. My hope is that when we return, and log back
into American life, Illinois has a budget.
I briefly brushed up against my old work life recently. I attended a committee meeting of Illinois’
best advocate for kids, a statewide youth service collaborative. Most of the committee members were on the
phone, but I had the chance to attend at their office in Chicago.
A receptionist put me in the small office of the director,
and I sat there for a while in the quiet.
She was finishing up another meeting.
Her lunch was in a white Styrofoam clamshell on her desk by the silent landline
phone. The desk was piled high with
papers, manila folders, bound reports, some open, some closed. I began to reminisce, but only for a
while. As time stretched on I filled it
by softly whistling some old tunes that had been rattling around in my head,
thinking about nothing in particular, a newfound luxury I have discovered. It’s a byproduct of lolling. The start time for the meeting came and went.
The director burst through the door with her MacBook Air laptop
in one arm, open and running, and her cell phone in the other.
“Come with me, we’re moving to another room. Sorry I’m late. I’ve been behind all day.”
She started to move back through the door; seconds after
she’d entered it, then went back to her desk and grabbed the lunch, the white container
hinged open like her laptop, and balanced it in the hand holding the cell
phone. I followed her down the hall.
It was a finance committee meeting. A few of us were present but most were on the
phone, logged into a conference line, their voices coming out of a little
speaker. They were busy employed social
service execs also. My friend apologized
once more to them for being late.
Lateness is a chronic condition of the busy. I was late for so many years I do it still,
out of habit I guess. Leave as close to
the start time as possible, and if travel makes you late so be it. You miss the early meeting chit chat.
As my friend the exec ran her finger quickly on her laptop
touch pad she stole a bite of salmon salad with a plastic fork. As soon as she swallowed she started the
meeting. It was 2:30. She was late for her own lunch.
It was a finance committee meeting. Like all private social service organizations
doing business with the State of Illinois the main agenda item was cash
reserves and available credit. At that
organization we’re monitoring it with a weekly cash report on all accounts. Money, being conveniently represented
numerically, allows easy calculation.
How long can we pay the staff without getting paid by our funders? When do we reach a crisis point? Fortunately, that organization’s fiscal
outlook is healthy. They do business
with entities other than the state.
They’ve planned ahead. Other
healthy organizations are able to pay them dues. They have a diverse revenue stream. We adopted a tentative budget. We made plans that went beyond survival. Instead of a future defined by a budget
controlled by someone else, that organization is able to look ahead. Not every social service organization is so
lucky.
When you provide services to communities through an
agreement with the State of Illinois you had best have money in the bank and a
good relationship with your bankers.
Banks, if they know your agency and the work it does, and trusts the
board of directors and the administrators they employ, will extend a line of
credit to you based on your assets, your track record of balancing expenses
with revenue, and a certain amount of faith.
Small community banks are typically more faithful than big ones. You can provide them a list of the contracts
and grants you were given last year by the state. If pressed you would have to admit the
contracts that have been issued so far this year by the state of Illinois are
not even as good as the paper they are printed on without a budget that
appropriates money to that activity. Illinois’
code departments have issued contracts as a way of anticipating that those
contracts will be in place. No one knows
for sure how many dollars agencies will receive through those now hollow contracts
and grants.
And then there are a number of contracts that were not
issued. These are the programs and
community efforts that were cancelled just before Easter in the Friday night
massacre. At that time a letter was sent
then from the Republican administration simply saying agencies had received
their last payment for that previous full year commitment. Consider those programs the low hanging fruit
of cuttable expenses. Small in the scope
of state expenditures they fund after school programs, prevention efforts,
community organizing, aid to immigrants, the list goes on and on. All in place for decades, usually in
Illinois’ poorest communities, those contracts have traditionally be held by small
organizations, with limited capacity to raise significant private funds. Together they form a sort of quilt of support
for kids, families, the mentally ill, the addicted, and the developmentally disabled. They are not fancy; they do not have
sophisticated studies proving their effectiveness. They do not have a wealthy or particularly
vocal constituency or donor base. Of
course all that combined is what makes them cuttable.
A stink was raised in reaction to the third quarter cuts and
those grants were restored in three weeks but only until the end of the state’s
fiscal year, June 30. When the fake
paper only contracts for July 1, 2015-June 30 2016 were issued those same
programs were not among them. Those
programs are in limbo. If you were a
banker would you extend credit to those programs? If you were an agency exec or a volunteer
board member would you continue to pay the staff who work in those
programs? Faith can be easily tested.
And so calculations are being made all over the state. Without state money when can we make our last
payroll? Would the bank raise our limit
on our line of credit? Will those
programs now in limbo indeed by funded? How
important are these programs? If the state
does not fund them can we possibly find another source of revenue? What will the people we serve do without
us? What will happen to them?
While hitchhiking in Oklahoma in the 70’s (I’m afraid I’ve
told this story before) I was once picked up by a guy in a cowboy hat driving a
new Cadillac. He sprayed Lysol on the
leather passenger seat before I got in. When
he asked me where I’d been I described my trip to South America. When he asked me why I was going home I said
I had run out of money. I never forgot
his response.
“You didn’t run out of money you ran out of rope.”
“Rope?”
“Yeah. If you had
real money you’d still be out there.
Your money would be making money and you, especially travelling like you
are, could stay away as long as you want.
You didn’t have money, you had rope.”
Your small local community agency most likely does not have
money either, enough to sustain its operation and its payroll indefinitely
without the State of Illinois’ funding.
Social services agencies run on rope.
Rope and hope. Both are running
short.
If there is not a budget in place by the time I get back
from Quebec, local agencies and the
programs they operate, and the people they serve, will be in serious trouble. If and when state contracts are finally sent
to the Comptroller’s office for processing it will take weeks longer for them
to issue checks. Think lack of
investment, poor computer systems, vouchers processed by hand. In the meantime pencils will be sharpened, calculations
will continue to be made, lawyers for the governor and the advocacy groups will
make noise and go to court about the legality of cuts, searching for ways to both
enforce and prevent them, and legislators will sponsor bills to restore
funds. Pressure will force them to open
the spigot some. Pass along some federal
funding (not all) and pay some new Mediciad expenses. They pick and choose depending on who screams
loudest. Piecemeal and desperate,
Illinois will lurch along.
I spent some time lolling under the trees not long ago on a
beautiful Friday night at the Hegeler Carus mansion in LaSalle listening to
good music written and performed by Katie Belle and the Belle Rangers. As it ended I ran into an old friend, who I
frequently see at local music events, still working at a local social service
agency. I mentioned a local state
legislator. He went off, and he’s not
like that. He should have been mellowed
out. He, like me, had been drinking wine
and listening to music for an hour and a half.
“They’re doing nothing for us. Neither party. It’s all going to come down on social service
agencies. Community based agencies without clout. Watch it happen. They want us to fail. At some point there will be no one to fund to
do that work.”
I don’t blame my friend for being worked up. But we all have to take a deep breath.
He’s completely right of course. Having exempted state employees and schools
there is little room to spread more money around. Until a budget is in place every reaction is knee
jerk. The tax increase expired. There is no budget. Something has to give. And it is likely to happen in your community
to those with the least voice; those low income day care parents, kids in after
school programs, the disabled, the poor.
The list goes on. Cuts here and
there that some think won’t matter. They
will.
My friend and I both know that not for profit mission driven
organizations don’t typically fail spectacularly in a ball of flames. They fade away. Quietly desperate they put off paying their
bills. Unable to face the fact that the people they serve will be ignored they adopt
one last plan that is unachievable. They
don’t make payroll (or their payroll checks bounce) and their staff, some of
whom volunteer for a while, finally stop working. Most painful is the message they craft to
their clients saying their worker will no longer see them. The letter suggests other resources they know
will not meet their needs. Not for
profits are deeply ashamed of failure. Maybe
some other organization picks up the pieces and maybe not. Do you think there is a long line of
organizations that can’t wait for the chance to provide low income parents day
care at the low rates paid by the state?
Think again.
The board of directors has its last meeting. Someone volunteers their home address to
receive straggling correspondence. They
find someone to accept and clear out their office furniture. Word goes out to the community. New jobs are sought. People in the community think it’s a pity,
and the next morning they have breakfast.
You can only hold out so long without money, no matter how important
your mission or how illogical the lack of support. That’s the nightmare your friends in
Illinois’ social service community are waking to at 2:00 a.m. as the budget
crisis continues.
I’m encouraged at the response to my last blog piece on stupid
and drastic day care cuts. It had the
highest readership of any post since St. Patrick’s Day when I wrote an article
on homosexuals in the holocaust. Readership
increased because the post was shared on Face Book by several of you Dave in
the Shack readers. Thank you. Please keep sharing. Everybody in Illinois should know what’s
happening.
I may not post to this blog again until I return from
“vacation,” otherwise known as lolling around in Canada. Let’s hope the story line has changed by
then.
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