“U of I systems will receive every penny appropriated to them by the general assembly for the current fiscal year.”

These are the words of Governor Blagojevich’s spokesperson Becky Carroll as she stresses how the University of Illinois will not be losing any money from the state, as changes are being made to the payment structure of state funding. The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget will spread out state appropriations to the University over 12 month increments instead of the usual 9 month increments for the current fiscal year. Carroll says this is to better manage cash flow for other state bills.

“We’re implementing a new cash management system to ensure that we can pay all doctors enrolled in our state MEDICAID program. That will allow us to have a little more cash on hand in the last few months of the fiscal year than we normally would have.”

The University will be receiving all of their state appropriations totaling to 711-million dollars. But U of I spokesperson Tom Hardy says the University could lose a significant amount of money by not earning interest on this money first hand.

“Based on the cash flow from the state last year and on interest rates, we estimate that the difference in the interest we would be able to earn in this fiscal year on this change cash flow situation will be about 500-thousand dollars.”

Hardy says this will not affect the University budget in any way. The University has complied with state cash management issues in the past, making this only a temporary change. The current fiscal year is expected to end in June 2007. Carroll says the state funding will most likely go back to normal after that. Check out tomorrow’s edition of the Daily Illini for more coverage on the story.