SPRINGFIELD, Ill – Comptroller Dan Hynes today encouraged state officials to take a first step to end their months-long stalemate by freeing up hundreds of millions of dollars in critical funding for public schools and police officers.

During a speech at the Sangamo Club in Springfield, Hynes said one-upmanship and name-calling have replaced public service as the top priority in Illinois' Capitol city. The result, Hynes said, is very negative and very real consequences for the very people state officials were elected to serve.

"Too many times during the past few months, our leaders demonized each other – when they should have been dealing with each other. They grabbed for the best headline – when they should have been getting down to work. And, time after time after time, they decided that winning was more important than succeeding," Hynes said.

Egos, Hynes said, have clouded judgment and resulted in decisions that haven't been in the public's interest. It is time, he said, to replace all that acrimony with action. He called on the General Assembly, its leadership, and the Governor to set their differences aside and approve the stalled spending bills.

"I say it's time we act differently. What we have to do is simple. Put our citizens ahead of ourselves, never confuse principle with ego, and recognize that the process matters to the people we serve," Hynes said.

One spending bill (HB471), being held in the House, increases by $400 the per-pupil minimum amount schools must spend on each student from $5,334 to $5,734. It also increases special education funding and grants for rural schools, hard to staff schools and targeted interventions. Another spending bill (SB182), being held in the Senate, would enable funding for the State Police. The Governor has threatened to layoff 1,800 of 2,000, or 90 percent of state troopers in January if the funding isn't approved.

Hynes said he hoped approval of these two spending bills would lead to an end to the fighting which has resulted in a record-setting overtime session of the General Assembly.

Hynes said because of this year's gridlock the state was without a budget for more than three weeks and a series of missed opportunities continues to grow. Among them, two state aid payments to schools due in August were late, the state failed to pay $150 million in construction aid to two dozen school districts that have been waiting for funding since 2002, $600 million in federal funds for hospitals was held hostage and two critical issues -- a statewide construction program and mass transit funding in the Chicago area – remain unresolved.

In addition, Hynes said, the Legislature missed an opportunity to send landmark ethics reform to the Governor via HB1, which cracks down on pay-to-play politics. The bill prohibits business owners with more than $25,000 in state contracts from making campaign contributions to officeholders awarding those contracts, requires contractors to disclose previous contributions and prevents individuals with conflicts of interest from receiving fees from state bond sales. It was approved by the House on a 116-0 vote and has 46 co-sponsors in the 59-member Senate, but hasn't been called for a vote in the upper chamber.