Illinois residents, your taxes will soon be paying $1.1 billion in late-interest payment penalties. Due to the state going without a budget during Governor Bruce Rauner‘s first two-and-a-half years in office, penalties fees rose while bills went unpaid.
About the late fees, former Republican state Sen. Kirk Dillard said “Illinois’ inaction and political gridlock has a price, it’s billions of dollars, billions of dollars that can be used for education, or law enforcement or mental health services, or paying down public pension debt… What needs to change is the state’s got to realize that it is wasting, literally wasting, billions of dollars.”