Just so everyone understands – having a budget does not equal getting paid.

Two weeks after passage of Illinois’ stopgap budget for FY 2016, we face many new questions, but still no answers. We don’t know when we will be paid. We don’t know how much we will be paid, or whether we will be paid a lump sum or in increments. We don’t know how the money will be allocated. After all, $432 million has been budgeted for social services. The Pay Now Illinois plaintiffs – which is a growing list (see below) are seeking $161 million. We know that’s a small fraction of the total amount of money owed to the hundreds of other social service agencies – who are not part of our coalition – that are also saving the lives of vulnerable populations in Illinois and need to be paid for work that has been performed. That suggests there will be some kind of allocation so the state can pay its bills. But remember our suit is seeking immediate full payment of everything owed to us. Fractional payment won’t work because we didn’t do a fractional amount of our work. And we will continue to meet our contractual obligations because we believe in what we are doing and we believe in good business practices.

So we went back to Court on Tuesday. Judge Garcia granted our request for an extension to July 20 to file an amended complaint and amended request for preliminary injunction as we try to determine how the stopgap budget will be implemented. The filing next week will also introduce the 18 new plaintiffs to our suit – bringing our total to 99 – which are listed here: Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago, ASI, Inc., Association for Individual Development, CJE SeniorLife, Connections for the Homeless, Family Alliance, Inc., Family Focus, Inc., Gareda Homecare, Glenkirk, Healthy Families Chicago, Henry County Health Department, Hesed House, Housing Forward, North Central Behavioral Health Systems, Inc., Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC), RAMP, Inc., Stark County Health Department, Union County.