California, here we come?

It’s normal for Midwesterners to grow up daydreaming about living in California.

In the schoolboy fantasy, California is movie stars, California Girls and the Beach Boys, with everyone having fun in the sun.

But, decades after most grown Illinoisans have stopped wishing for it, we just might get to know what living in California is like in 2009.

Fun, Fun, Fun, it isn’t.

Last summer, California was staring at a $60 billion dollar budget hole that was closed, temporarily, with a combination of cuts, taxes and federal stimulus money.   Education and human services were hit hard and the pain continues;   Over the next two years, the Golden State’s budget is expected to be $22 billion in the red.

A new report warns that Illinois is headed for of a devastating financial crisis like that which has California on the brink of insolvency. The report, Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril, by The Pew Center on the States, tells us that Illinois’ budget situation has gone “from shaky to unsustainable” in the last few years, thanks to “its lack of fiscal discipline to balance its state budget.”

The refusal by past governors and legislatures to raise the money to pay for the services the state provides has cause Illinois to have one of the three largest budget gaps in the country – $13.2 billion.

So, to makes things really simple, unless the Illinois General Assembly and the Governor raise revenues to the point that the deficit can be eliminated and state programs, including education, can be adequately funded, we could be living a California lifestyle by next year.  Among other things, that means pressure on the pension systems, education program cuts and bigger class sizes along with layoffs and furloughs for employees in elementary, secondary and higher education.

We’re heading into the most difficult period yet for public education in Illinois and it will require an unprecedented level of IEA member activism to convince lawmakers to be brave in an election year and get Illinois back on track.

Check in regularly with the IEA Website www.ieanea.org.  You’ll be hearing a lot more about this.