http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...payments-delayed-met-0828-20150828-story.html After years of struggling financially, Susan Rick thought things were looking up when her boyfriend won $250,000 from the Illinois Lottery last month. She could stop working seven days a week, maybe fix up the house and take a trip to Minnesota to visit her daughter. But because Illinois lawmakers have not passed a budget, she and her boyfriend, Danny Chasteen, got an IOU from the lottery instead. "For the first time, we were finally gonna get a break," said Rick, who lives in Oglesby. "And now the Illinois Lottery has kind of messed everything up." Under state law, the state comptroller must cut the checks for lottery winnings of more than $25,000. And lottery officials said that because lawmakers have yet to pass a budget, the comptroller's office does not have legal authority to release the funds. ... "The lottery is a state agency like many others, and we're obviously affected by the budget situation," Illinois Lottery spokesman Steve Rossi said. "Since the legal authority is not there for the comptroller to disburse payments, those payments are delayed." While Rossi said winners will eventually receive their money once a budget is in place, the promise is cold comfort for Rick. "You know what's funny? If we owed the state money, they'd come take it and they don't care whether we have a roof over our head," Rick said. "Our budget wouldn't be a factor. You can't say (to the state), 'Can you wait until I get my budget under control?' "
Illinois is a cluster. High taxes, generous state employee pension payouts, etc. This is what happens when government grows and the private sector shrinks. What an embarrassment. And then they wonder why people are moving to the South.
This is why states and the federal government should be absolutely required to pass, year after year, a budget by the first day of the fiscal year. If not, they stay at work, unpaid and unable to leave work, 24/7, until it's finished, with no payback for any delay beyond day one of the fiscal year. Period. Direct punishment for failure to complete their duties. They can leave work when the job is done and the nation and the states are able to conduct all of their functions without political BS threatening the very services needed by the voters who put those people in office.
well, most lotteries pay interest from the drawing to the payout date. If this ever happened when you spanned a tax year, you could really be in a bad place because you owe those taxes and haven't gotten the money yet.
