Saturday, October 17, 2015

Two Tickets to Paradise...Later

When last we left the Illinois Lottery, it had stopped writing its larger lottery winner checks because the state comptroller was forbidden by law from writing checks when there was no state budget. Since Illinois law directs that any checks larger than $25,000 must be written by the state comptroller, well, oops. Apparently the money was there, but it was impossible to legally dispense it, which was a situation that probably made little sense to the people who had spent their money on tickets and won.

Wednesday, the Illinois Lottery announced a much simpler reason why they would now not make payments more than $600 to any lottery winner: Not enough money in the rest of the state coffers to cover writing a check for the winnings. It seems they had been using the rest of the state's operating funds to cover these smaller amounts with the idea, I guess, of replacing it with lottery proceeds when the budget impasse ended. The impasse continues, the checks still can't be written, and there is less money now than there was in July when this mess started. So unless you won $599 in the Illinois Lottery, your winning ticket reads "IOU."

There being people who are owed money and there being a large sluggish faceless entity which can be said to owe them that money, an eruption of lawyers has occurred.

Lottery winners have hired then on the assumption that a lawsuit will be resolved before the budget impasse is solved and that their lawyer's fees will not reduce their own winnings too significantly. The first of those is probably a push but I would not give good odds on the second.

They are taking aim at the state lottery system and suggesting the word for an enterprise that promises large winnings if lucky numbers are drawn but then does not pay those winnings is "fraud." One attorney believes that as much as $288 million has not been paid since the 2014-15 fiscal year ended June 30. This means that if the budget impasse is solved, then in addition the other payments it's delaying -- like half a billion dollars to the state pension system -- Illinois will immediately be on the hook for almost a third of a billion to its own lottery winners. Plus whatever fees it will have to pay to litigant attorneys in the settlement and to its own lawyers for defending it.

Two things are suggested in this Government by Kafka scenario. One, it seems fairly obvious that whatever else President Barack Obama did or did not gain during his time in Illinois government, he wholly acquired its bookkeeping methods. Two, it may be believed that once the Illinois governor and legislature finally solve their budget fight, they should hang their heads in shame. I think they would be better advised to start buying Illinois Lottery tickets. Although they're probably prohibited from winning, the system is going to need all the cash and publicity it can get.

2 comments:

fillyjonk said...

One of my dad's pensions (fortunately, not the only retirement income he and my mom have) is from Illinois. I fully expect him to receive an "IOU" one of these days.

I will say this whole thing has been an object lesson to me: my state teacher's retirement system is currently pretty healthy, but I am not counting on it being so in the future and am trying to sock away as much as I can independent of them.

(And Social Security - I expect mine to be a hearty handshake and a thanks for supporting all those retired folks over the years. Maybe not even a handshake.)

Friar said...

The upside is that Oklahoma had begun making moves to close its own retirement fund gap under David Dank's work. Also, we are nowhere near as bad off as Illinois financially.

Clergy can opt out of Social Security payments and I did based on the same reasoning; it would have no impact on what I would receive since I expected the system to be underwater by the time I retire.