It’s another sign of Illinois’s improving fiscal condition. Comptroller Susana Mendoza says the state now has less than a billion dollars in pending Accounts Payable, the first time the number has fallen that low in 15 years.
Illinois’s backlog of unpaid bills hit a record $16.7 billion as a result of a two-and-a-half-year budget impasse under then-Governor Bruce Rauner.
But since then, a combination of increased revenues and refinancing of the debt has helped to reduce that number steadily. Mendoza notes the backlog was down to $3 billion even before any federal pandemic relief dollars arrived.
At the peak of the budget impasse, many vendors waited more than 200 days to get paid by the state. Currently, Mendoza says the oldest bill she has is just 16 days old.
