Friday, February 26, 2010

Suggest a Budget Solution for Illinois

Here is a wrapup of some city and state budget problems posted in various places today. The wrapup culminates with a link to an online form where you can suggest budget solutions for Illinois.

Situations like those appearing below are currently taking place in every city, county, and state in the nation. Individually, the job cuts and problems may seem small, but the cumulative impact, along with the tax hikes that are coming will be enormous.

Nevada

Gaming industry refuses to pay more to help solve state budget crisis http://www.lvrj.com/news/gaming-industr ... 46882.html

The Nevada Resort Association announced Thursday night that the gaming industry won't agree to a Democratic plan to obtain $32 million more a year from casinos to help balance the state budget.

If Democrats can't get the casinos to agree to cough up more revenue, it puts in jeopardy their whole budget-balancing plan that attempts to avoid deep cuts in education and social services.

Key Republicans have said they won't support any revenue-raising plan that the target industry doesn't accept.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas city budget woes: 170 jobs on the line http://www.mynews3.com/story.php?id=11788&n=5037

Thursday was a difficult day at City Hall. About 170 workers are being told their jobs are on the line.

Those layoffs are the result of a multi-million dollar budget shortfall. But Mayor Oscar Goodman says it doesn’t have to be this way. He wants all city workers to give up a little to save a lot.

The bad news was laid out by City Manager Betsy Fretwell and Goodman. A looming $70 million deficit means services and jobs are about to be cut unless the four major unions involved in city government agree to help out.

“We would much prefer everybody be a little bit altruistic, little bit caring about fellow workers. And if they did what we’re proposing, after all the cuts we’ve made, if they take and eight percent reduction in salary then nobody’s going to lose their job,â€