Facing a torrent of protest, Gov. Pat Quinn on Thursday cut in half plans to impose more than $200 million in drastic reductions next month on the Department of Human Services, including a cutoff of state funding for drug and alcohol abuse treatment programs that threatened to shutter several providers of addiction services.
Quinn’s budget office and the human services officials recently informed social service providers of planned cuts totaling $208 million. But on Thursday, the size of the cuts was reduced to about $100 million. Quinn said he had concerns about the fairness of how programs were targeted for cutbacks, including drug and alcohol treatment for individuals who did not qualify under federally reimbursed Medicaid coverage for the poor.
“I don’t want to have such a severe situation that it causes great harm, so part of my job in balancing (the social service needs) is to step in,” the governor told reporters after speaking to the City Club of Chicago. “My ultimate responsibility is to find the right balance and sometimes to step in and say, ‘OK, this is enough and that will be the way it goes.'”
State lawmakers, who last year authorized Quinn to make budget cuts, had protested the size and effect of the initial reductions. More than two dozen House lawmakers signed on to a nonbinding resolution that contended for each dollar spent on treatment, the state saves $14 in health care, criminal justice and child welfare costs.
Before Quinn spoke with reporters, his human services secretary, Michelle Saddler, told members of the Senate Human Services Committee that the administration had adjusted the size of the planned cuts.
“We’re pleased that the target is reduced. We’re pleased, very pleased, that the governor’s office and the Office of Management and Budget are working so diligently to provide options,” Saddler said. “And as they work to provide or identify these options, that gives us a bit more flexibility in implementing these $100 million in reductions.”
Word of the March 15 cuts had come only days after Quinn outlined plans for severe reductions in social service funding beginning July 1, when the state’s new budget year begins. Private agencies providing social services had not expected the Quinn administration to move so quickly on human service cutbacks in the current budget year.