Illinois' backlog of payments to the state's transit systems is now more than $280 million. Millions of people living and working in Illinois rely on our mass transit systems, including 2 million trips per day in Northeastern Illinois alone.
Delayed payments to the Regional Transportation Authority for CTA, for Metra, and for PACE harms the ability of our people to get to work. In addition, the state has been forced to pay more for procurement contracts, simply because we do not pay on time.
Vendors are not bidding competitively--our bids are 6% to 10% higher than they should be--because those contracting with the state expect long delays in payment. This is not insignificant; we pay $700 million to 1$ billion extra per year as a result.
Even with our new revenues, if we do not restructure our debt it will take decades for us to return to the prompt payment cycle of a fiscally responsible government.
There's a passage in Scripture that says, if you save one life, you save the whole world. And this year in Illinois, a historic year, 2009, for the first time since 1921 we had less than 1,000 deaths on the highways of Illinois.
Now that took a lot of work. It took State policemen on the highways, the Department of Transportation. We passed a law this year, a very important law that will ban texting while driving.
Source: Illinois 2010 State of the State Address
, Jan 13, 2010