When wading into the murky waters of how Illinois funds essential operations, it’s common to be only ankle deep before wondering if the confusion is intentional.

There’s room for a healthy debate about political considerations at play in the policy shift, but whether someone endorses or rejects underlying motives, the situation illustrates the perils of delivering state services with federal money.

Nine of the governments that did submit plans took note of a fundamental challenge: they don’t control their residents’ salaries.

The present reality, at best, makes it harder for taxpayers to advocate for better allocation of public resources. At worst, the system offers an inviting shield for elected officials to deflect blame for poor (or intentionally harmful) decisions.

Density, infrastructure and other factors vary widely by ZIP code, but every state agency deals with similar regional discrepancies and SB 2111 simply didn’t go far enough in addressing concerns about the shared basic need to get from here to there.

The projects might’ve cost less if started earlier but the Department of Natural Resources budget was shuffled down the priority list during years when even social service agencies weren’t close to adequately funded.

What’s a better framing for the reserve, 2% or $29 million? What about Pritzker’s proposal versus what Democrats formally budgeted: who wanted to pull which levers of power at what time or, from the other side, who was willing to bear the criticism if the money doesn’t move?

Whether these bills might become law is analysis best saved for someone more familiar with Madison than Springfield but it’s interesting to at least consider the proposals as well as underlying factors in order to draw comparisons to Illinois.

After visiting a teller in person and signing off on several forms, we got seven letters confirming the change – one for each checking and savings account affected – then two days later seven more initially sent to the old house and rerouted to the current address.