A Mess of Committees

Although his father was a onetime Chicago alderman. Illinois Democrat Otto Kerner, 53, never really developed much stomach for rough-and-tumble politics. "I've never been a ward leader or a county leader, and I'm not interested." he says. Elected Governor in 1960 on his record as a Cook County judge. Kerner began putting off state problems by appointing committees to study them. This summer his procrastination has come home to plague him: Illinois is in the worst fiscal mess since the Depression '30s.

Unless something is done, the state will have a deficit of $168 million by next July i. It is not entirely Kerners fault. He was the first Illinois Governor to inherit a budget deficit from his predecessor: some $13 million from Republican Governor William Stratton. The state legislature last year voted to spend $76 million more than Kerner asked for in his $3.1 billion budget, and the Republican-controlled senate rejected his plans to raise an extra $75 million, mainly through an increase in the corporation tax.

Vacillation. Yet when Kerner was finally forced to act. he vacillated. He ordered a pay freeze for all the state employees under his control, but granted a million-dollar raise to 1.775 teamsters in the highways division. He banned new hiring, except for emergencies, yet the number of employees grew. The new employees, he lamely explains, were an "absolute necessity." Without approval of the legislature, he cannot transfer money from the few special funds that have a surplus into the nearly empty general revenue fund--yet he refuses to call a special session. "I will not take the risk of an unproductive session." he says.

Last week Kerner chose the unusual forum of a Boy Scout executives' meeting (a retired major general in the National Guard. Kerner is also a Boy Scout supporter, recently hiked 22 miles to open a Scout trail) to announce his boldest decision so far: he wants to slash state welfare spending, possibly by as much as 35%. to get by until the legislature meets in January. Welfare costs absorb one-fifth of the general fund, have been running some $4,000,000 a month above their allotment. Kerner wryly concedes that this cut maybe "politically unpopular." "Indefensible." It is indeed. "To single out public aid as the goat in the state's financial crisis is indefensible," cried Raymond Hilliard. Cook County public aid director. "The cuts hurt the people who have the least." Even Kerner's political sponsor, Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley, was unhappy, since two-thirds of the reliefers live in Cook County. Said he: "Anyone who makes relief a political issue had better be pretty careful. It has never been done in this state, and I hope to God it never will be." If Kerner sticks to his stand, he still will face far tougher decisions in January.

"We're living on borrowed time," says Budget Superintendent Ted Leth. "There is nothing in the bank." What is clearly needed is tax reform. Illinois depends mainly on a sales tax, has no income tax.

Yet Kerner refuses to say if he is for or against an income tax. He has. he says, appointed a commission to study it.

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