Even Illinois's CFO Doesn't Know How Many Bills Are Unpaid
- Bill would require agencies to report unpaid bills monthly
- Measure ‘favorable from a credit perspective,’ investor says
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How big is Illinois’s pile of unpaid bills? Even the state’s chief fiscal officer doesn’t know for sure.
The state sold $4.5 billion of bonds on Wednesday to help pay down the estimated $16.6 billion it owes to contractors, health care providers and others who waited to get paid during Illinois’s record-long fight over the budget. But Comptroller Susana Mendoza, a Democrat, says her office doesn’t know the size of that backlog for sure, and she wants that to change.