The ordinarily quiet River North neighborhood of Chicago was rattled by gunfire Wednesday afternoon. Reginald Hardaman, a panhandler who for decades had struggled with mental illness, was riding in the back of a police car, having just been arrested, when he pulled out a gun and allegedly shot a police officer in the shoulder. The officer rolled out of the car and shot back into the rear window, killing Hardaman.
With a new round of statewide budget cuts threatening to slash funding for human services by more than $200 million, some experts worried that cases like Hardaman's would only become more common. Patients at drug treatment centers or mental health facilities might literally be discharged mid-treatment, NBC reported.
Against the backdrop of the Hardaman incident and wide public outcry opposing the cuts, the Governor's Office of Management and Budget announced Thursday that it would limit the severity of its cuts, to a figure "more along the lines of $100 million," according to Michelle Saddler, secretary of the Department of Human Services.
To be softened, the Chicago Tribune writes, is the complete cut-off of funding to drug treatment and prevention agencies that was proposed last week. That would have cause as many as 55,000 people statewide to lose their help fighting drug addiction.
Still, many advocates believe the lowering of cuts to $100 million is not enough. Willie Delgado, a state senator from Illinois's 2nd District, was among the most outspoken opponents of the cuts, saying the reduction was "another movement to keep everybody pacified."
He also argued that the structure of the budget was fundamentally dangerous: while cutting human services, the budget will increase funding for the Department of Corrections, a correlation that Delgado doesn't see as accidental. Progress Illinois has video of his comments:
Meanwhile, legislators in the State House have put forth a non-binding resolution arguing against the cuts. "This is actually more like taking a battle ax and a hatchet job to some very, very serious services,” said Rep. Sara Feigenholz to The State Journal-Register.