Illinois Valley Times

Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon) wants to make sure federal COVID-19 relief dollars are spent appropriately across the state, including going to those impacted the most by pandemic lockdowns.

President Joe Biden recently signed the COVID-19 relief bill that included $13 billion for the state government, as well as local governments.

Demmer said the funding would provide relief to businesses, individuals, families and governments nationwide impacted by COVID-19 closures.

"It's important to understand in Illinois that, thankfully, the economic impact on the state's finances hasn't been nearly as bad as was first originally feared," Demmer said in a recent press conference with other Republicans. "We've seen a number of revisions upward of positive changes in the state's collections of income taxes, sales taxes and others, and it has left the state in a slightly better financial situation than what we thought."

Demmer said House Republicans came together to urge several key principles about how the Legislature should appropriate the federal funding that Illinois will receive.

Demmer said it's vital as policymakers that the Legislature consider who is really in the most need of COVID-19 relief dollars and, in many cases, small businesses across the state of Illinois that have seen their operations closed or restricted or heavily impacted for the last year.

"Many of those businesses have borne far higher cost from COVID-19 than the state government has," Demmer said. "As we received these dollars, it's very important that we look to the kinds of programs that we can give business to grant ... financial help to these businesses so as we emerge from COVID-19, we reemerge after the pandemic we have a strong and vibrant economy that can continue to employ people and contribute to their communities all across the state of Illinois."

Demmer said there are also two important categories to improve the state's finances — paying off short-term borrowing and paying down on the bill for goods and services provided to the state by statewide vendors.

Demmer said this year alone, the state has borrowed $3 billion from the Federal Reserve due to be paid off in the next 2.5 years.

"That obviously creates an additional amount of financial pressure on top of the struggles and the pressures we already faced," Demmer said. "The state's finances and one of our top priorities with federal relief dollars should be to pay off that debt and free us from the repayment cycle in the coming fiscal year."

Demmer said paying down on the bill from statewide vendors would also improve the state's overall financial situation.

"We also put money in the pockets of these businesses in Illinois who have been waiting for the state to pay them," Demmer said. "We think it's very important that we exercise fiscal restraint through this process, that we think about the people who have been so dramatically impacted by COVID-19 and that we pass along relief dollars to them and that we don't look to fund new or expanded recurring programs using one-time federal revenue."

Demmer said if the money goes toward new or recurring programs, the state will find itself in a worse situation financially than what it was previously in.

"Those are key principles we as House Republicans will continue to push for to exercise responsibility, to exercise discipline, when we're receiving and spending these funds and to do whatever we can to support the communities all across Illinois who have been profoundly impacted by the pandemic," Demmer said.