Blago and Democrats Steal Money from Scholarship Funds
Cross-posted from IlliniPundit.com.
On IlliniPundit, there had been some clamoring for a thread to discuss this:
Drivers sporting University of Illinois or other special collegiate license plates in Illinois were told that the extra fees for those plates would go toward scholarships, but some of the money is actually being used on other state expenses.
The Governor's Office of Management and Budget recently took about $40,830 of the funds raised by specialty license plates for public and private universities and put it into the General Revenue Fund. An equal amount was taken in July. By the end of June 2006, a total of $163,320 will have been transferred out of the collegiate license plate funds.
Budget office spokeswoman Becky Carroll said the collegiate license plate funds had built up excess balances beyond what had been appropriated to pay for the scholarships, and a small portion of that was transferred into the state's main checking account to help with other expenses.
"This is one of hundreds of fund sweeps that have been conducted over the last three years," Carroll said. "This is by no means anything new, nor is it anything that will impact the funding of any scholarships, not by one penny."
But state Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said people who purchased those plates were told that the money would be used for scholarships, and that's what it should be used for. Transferring money out of those funds means fewer students can get help paying for college, he said.
"The governor's budgetary sleight of hand is having a real impact in people's lives," Rose said. "Every single one of these funds that is swept has a person behind it, and in this case it is students all over the state of Illinois."
Of course, apologists for Governor Blagojevich and State Rep. Naomi Jakobsson will probably claim that this is some kind of overdue reform that will actually result in more scholarship money being paid to students. Either way, it's worth discussing.
3 comments:
Yawn.
The really dumb part of Becky Carroll’s comment was her claim that the scholarship was already fully funded. I graduated from the U of I at Springfield in May and am well aware that many students continue to pay their way through college, especially in the face of rising tuition rates. Shouldn’t 100% of the fund go to scholarships until every Illinois public college or university student can comfortably afford their tuition and fees?
Carroll was correct in saying that the Blagojevich Administration has raided many dedicated funds accounts similar to this in the past. She, however, failed to mention the many law suits and injunctions that resulted from these raids. The sad thing is that these law suits were brought about by industries represented by well-funded associations (bankers, manufacturers, etc.). I doubt that the IBHE or individual universities would be willing to stick up to the Governor as others have. Afterall, they have to deal with him for another year, if not longer.
one more example of Blago "being for the working families of Illinois"
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