- $5.1 billion in unpaid bills to schools, social service agencies, hospitals, small businesses and others,

- Runaway spending and borrowing.
 

Let’s face it: Illinois government is a mess. Seven years of spend-and-borrow policies, coupled with current economic woes, have brought us to this point. The governor and the political party in power haven’t been able to fix it. Moreover, it doesn’t look like they’ll be bringing forth solutions anytime soon.
 
While a change in leadership becomes an option in the November General Election, our schools, hospitals and social service agencies simply can’t wait. So, I’m suggesting another idea.
 
Crowdsourcing. According to Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing: Why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business, “(c)rowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”
 
Crowdsourcing relies on the old maxim; two heads are better than one. It requires using the internet and social media to tap into the collective minds of interested individuals, all working together to solve a specific problem. In this case the state’s budget.
 
I am a huge fan of collaboration. Collaborative efforts have worked well in my community: neighborhood organizations, Elgin Day, community-built playgrounds, Crisis Overnight, United States Run and so on. So why not take it a step further? Why not use the collective intelligence and energy of the peoples of the state of Illinois to address the state’s budget crisis?
 
Effective crowdsourcing in Illinois requires greater transparency then we currently have in the state. In this case, to be successful, those involved in crowdsourcing would need access to raw data that includes the state’s income, expenditures, assets and debt.
 
Thanks in large part to Rep. Michael Tryon and the Illinois Policy Institute, some state expenditures are available through the Transparency & Accountability Portal and Spotlight on Government Spending websites. While these sites do not provide information about outstanding debt (vendors who have not yet been paid) or provide data about revenues, they do offer a glimpse into where the state spends some of its money.
 
For crowdsourcing to work, all of the state’s budget information must be online. Crowdsourcers will need access to the income side of the ledger, as well as the balance sheet (assets and debt). Since that data is not readily available to the general public it means asking legislators and the governor to put it on online in an easy to use format.
 
Once we have a general understanding of where the state receives its income we then have to decide where to spend it. That’s the hard part. Prioritization. And, that’s where the politics comes into play.
 
We’ve elected 177 legislators from around our diverse state to work together with the governor to craft a final budget that takes into consideration all of our needs, including jobs, education, public safety, transportation, healthcare, social services, etc. It’s not an easy task for policymakers from the rural, suburban and urban parts of Illinois to agree on priorities.
 
Perhaps crowdsourcing can help by providing lawmakers with data unaffected by politics to ensure they have the information they need to make the best decisions. While crowdsourcing can come up with likely solutions, the fact is the people elected to make the decisions, still have to decide.
 
If you think this approach is worth pursuing, contact your legislators and ask them to expand the state’s Transparency & Accountability Portal to include revenue streams, debt and assets.
 
Let me know what you think?
 
Side note: Don’t know your legislator? The Illinois State Board of Elections provides a legislative look-up feature on its website to help you identify your legislators. Once you have identified your lawmaker, you can access their office contact information or go to Tweet Illinois to find your legislator on Twitter. A growing number of General Assembly members are on Facebook as well.