The state of the State 1987: a long, long time from February to July

A year ago state lawmakers sat absorbed in the Illinois House while Gov. James R. Thompson used his State of the State message to issue a call to action: "All we need is the vision and the will and the refusal to be hobbled by the past or the challenges of today." It was a good speech. Thompson said later that it was the most enthusiastically received of any he had given.

Thompson outlined goals for Illinois that included improved schools, welfare reform, economic renewal and better human services. A month later he followed with a budget and tax hike request that would have boosted state revenues by $1.1 billion in the fiscal year that began July 1, 1987. Lawmakers debated the tax hike, disputed its need, denied the governor's request and doomed most initiatives.

The speech failed to earn majority support for ensuing proposals to hike taxes. This year there will be a change of strategy. The State of the State address will be combined with the budget message on February 25. And the budget message will be for a spending plan with no tax increase.

Last year's tax hike failure left chasms between the rhetoric of February and the reality of July. In February Thompson stressed the need to continue the 1985 public school reforms: "Failure to move education ahead now, and next year, and the next year carries a higher price — one we cannot afford. It robs our children of the chance to compete for the jobs of tomorrow, and it condemns thousands of our fellow citizens to lives of poverty and ignorance."

In July Thompson slashed funding for elementary and secondary education, cutting $113 million from lawmakers' hold-the-line budget. When all was done public school spending stood at $2.43 billion, $75 million below the previous year. Money distributed to schools under the general state aid formula decreased $57 million.

In February Thompson pledged to emphasize programs for young students aimed at preventing failure: "And if choices must be made between priorities, I will choose to emphasize early learning, the prevention of lives squandered and ultimately lost. . . . More than two decades of federal-state efforts to treat rather than prevent failure have produced marginal rather than greater benefits."

In July among the hardest hit programs was an initiative to help preschoolers. The State Board of Education had sought to spend $74.7 million to serve 31,000 of the 100,000 preschoolers identified at risk of failure in school. Funding was held at the previous year's $12.7 million level, enabling service to 6,000.

In February Thompson urged improvements in services to the mentally ill and retarded: "What I am unwilling to do is further squeeze down the budget of DMH/DD, and its community providers, to fund programs even as important as education."

In July there was some more money, but not even Thompson argued it was enough. The state mental health budget increased from $594.1 million to $625.8 million. But when he announced his cuts, cuts that protected mental health funding, Thompson acknowledged that no effective treatment system exists.

In February Thompson said the state needed to do more to prevent child abuse: "The cry of a wounded child — abused, battered and neglected — is the most frightening sound to be uttered on this earth, and it must be heard with diminishing frequency in Illinois."

By July the cries of wounded children, as measured by reports to the Departmen of Children and Family Services, stood at record levels. For the year ending June 30 those reports totalled 91,720, a 30 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. The department's total budget saw a decrease of $20 million from its original request, but

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remained $7 million above last year's level.

In February Thompson urged lawmakers to clean up their ethical house: "Our laws and practices relating to campaigns, campaign financing, elections and election conflicts are a confused, archaic, jumbled overlapping mess."

In July the centerpiece of reformers' efforts, partial public financing of gubernatorial campaigns, stalled in a House committee. Most other "reform" legislation met the same fate, sidetracked by House Democrats wary of initiatives that would split the party in Chicago.

Not all the governor's rhetoric went unfulfilled. In February Thompson targeted welfare reform for attention: "The time has come to admit plainly that in Illinois, except for keeping people alive — sustaining existence — welfare, like its counterparts in every other state in this nation, is a multi-billion dollar failure that is immoral and unaffordable."

By July the administration proposals had cleared the General Assembly. Opponents had diluted some of the initiatives, but the package passed was one all said they could live with. And Thompson heralded it as a breakthrough in ending welfare dependence.

In February Thompson urged help for the Rock Island and Moline: "I would propose creation of a Northwest Regional Development Authority to help the troubled Quad-Cities recover."

That was accomplished with the creation of the Quad-City Economic Development Authority whose members were appointed and beginning to organize themselves nearly a year later.

Thompson concluded last year's address with reference to his daughter and the state's other children: "I want Samantha, and your children and their children to read this shining record of that book of life that we begin to write today in Illinois." The book for the first year of the 85th General Assembly started with a shining State of the State Address. What followed in ensuing chapters were accusations about responsibility for the Illinois' fiscal condition and posturing on the tax hike. This year Thompson will try again to write that shining record in the book of life for the children to read. Dr. Seuss, where are you? □

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