Southern Illinois State Senator Gary Forby says he will fight the Governor's proposed budget cuts to southern Illinois.Wednesday the Governor called for closing 14 major state facilities including the Tamms Correctional Center and a dozen smaller state offices. Forby says most of those facilities and offices are in downstate Illinois. Twelve of the 14 prisons, juvenile justice centers, halfway houses, mental health centers, and developmental disabilities care centers are downstate. Forby says all of the local human services offices the Governor wants to close are downstate. One of those is in Carmi. Forby says under the plan the Governor expects low-income families in the Carmi area to travel to the human services office in Mt. Carmel for help.
Forby says closing Tamms, one of the state's newest prisons, will put about 300 people out of work in Alexander County. The Benton Democrat says he doesn't know if the governor's been to Alexander County lately, but if he had, he'd know that Tamms is one of the biggest employers in the area and if it's closed, the 300
people he wants to fire aren't going to have an easy time finding new jobs. Forby says the unemployment rate in Alexander County is already 12.1%. Forby says closing the state's only super-maximum security prison doesn't make any sense... Tamms is where they send the worst of the worst that are a danger to inmates and guards at the state's other prisons. Forby says if you put them back in regular prison, they'll
attack guards and other prisoners again.
The governor expects closing all these facilities to save about $90 million. But, Forby says Governor Quinn wants to increase spending in other areas by more than $100 million. Forby says that seems like an insult to the hard-working guards at Tamms.... if you're going to talk about closing facilities, you shouldn't be increasing spending anywhere... period.
Forby suggests the legislature go through the budget line by line and find places to cut first. Forby says on top of the cuts Governor Quinn announced during his budget speech, the governor still does not want to pay for school buses or regional superintendents. Forby says he will do everything he can to prevent the governor's budget cuts from taking place.
