State Stix

General funds dip

With only two more months in fiscal year 1986, the general funds balance at the end of April dipped to $244.711 million and the average daily available balance to $174.89 million. This is the lowest average daily available balance since December 1983.

Road funds smooth

While general funds might be considered a bit marginal, the road funds are doing fine without a soft shoulder in sight for the rest of fiscal 1986 and probably for fiscal 1987. The end-of-month road funds balance in April was $224,188 million; in March it was $193,918 million, the highest third-quarter balance in the funds' history, according to an April report from the Comptroller's Office.

Increased revenues from higher state taxes brought in more federal revenues. Passed in fiscal 1984, the state tax hikes included an increase in auto and truck license fees and incremental increases in the motor fuel tax, which reached its top level of 13 cents per gallon in fiscal 1986. Revenues resulting from the increases (but not the base) in the fees and the motor fuel tax go into the State Construction Account Fund, created when the hikes were passed. The fund is used for road construction only — repairing and building.

This may be the best year for roads since Gov. Len Small started black-topping the state back in the 1920s.

April employment: the 'happy' state

The final seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate in April was 7.1 percent, down by 0.1 percent from March but still indicating a sluggish economy with high unemployment in the oil industry and fears of higher interest rates. Illinois was the 15th state in oil production in 1985; in 1984 it was the 14th, according to the Illinois Petroleum Council.

Illinois' unemployment dropped 0.7 percent; the April rate of 8.2 percent was still higher than the national but meant that 52,000 more people had jobs than in March.

Warm weather, sparse rainfall and low interest rates made for the most construction activity since 1980. Preliminary figures from the Department of Employment Security show the industry employing 18,000 more workers in April than in March. This included both building construction and roads. Employment in amusement and recreation and in eating and drinking establishments also got a boost, as did garden supply stores. Farm work helped the employment picture, too: Illinois farmers had 15 percent of their corn in by the end of April. Many of them, however, were no longer landowners. According to the December 1985 Economic Development News, Illinois lost 4,000 farms in the year ending June 1, 1985.

One man's recreation another's job

It's hard to find out how much people spend on recreation and how this swells the Illinois economy since recreation does not have standardized economic statistics comparable to agriculture or other industries. The Department of Conservation has been coordinating an ongoing study on the subject for the last two years and came up with some preliminary figures in April. They show that recreation "generated" about $6.3 billion in personal spending in Illinois in 1985. That's about 5.7 percent of all personal spending.

Other figures included in a report entitled "Highlights of the Economic Significance of Recreation in Illinois Study," handed out in April at the first governor's conference of that name, show that the state's recreation industry employed almost 150,000 Illinois residents in 1985 or about 3.2 percent of the work force. Federal, state and local tax revenues "attributed" to recreation in Illinois amounted to about $1.8 billion in 1985, while federal, state and local agencies in Illinois spent almost $580 million to provide recreation.

Wide range in metro unemployment finals for February: from 5.9% to 15.3%

Final unemployment rates in the state's metro areas in February were: Aurora-Elgin, 9.6 percent; Bloomington-Normal, 7.5 percent; Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, 5.9 percent; Chicago, 8.8 percent; Davenport-Rock Island-Moline (Illinois sector), 15.3 percent; Decatur, 12.7 percent; Joliet, 9.4 percent; Kankakee, 13.5 percent; Lake County, 6.7 percent; Peoria, 11.6 percent; Rockford, 10.8 percent; Springfield, 8.0 percent; and St. Louis (Illinois sector), 11.9 percent.