Rauner suspends state money for county-fair prizes
The state gave $5.1 million to county fairs in fiscal year 2015, including $1.7 million for prizes and competitions.
Among Gov. Bruce Rauner’s June 12 spending reforms was the suspension of funding for county-fair prizes, competitions and rehabilitation projects, effective July 1. Reforms also included suspension of state funding for prizes at Illinois’ agricultural shows and agricultural education fairs.
County-fair funding has been in the governor’s crosshairs already this year. In March, Rauner instructed county-fair officials to stop spending state money on fairground rehabilitation. It was also included in the Illinois Policy Institute’s 2010 and 2012 “Piglet” books, which detailed unnecessary government spending.
The state gave a total of $5.1 million to county fairs in fiscal year 2015, including $1.7 million for prizes and competitions, and $1.3 million for rehabilitation, according to the Department of Agriculture. The state doled out a range of different amounts for prizes at each fair – topping as much as $79,000 for DeKalb County. The $1.3 million in rehabilitation money was divided up into $13,250 for each one of the 92 county fairs in Illinois.
In response to the March freeze, Mike Maske, the secretary for the Logan County Fair Association, told the Associated Press donations could potentially make up for losses of state money.
“We do what we have to do,” Maske said, “and we’re going to weather this.”
Illinois’ county fairs will weather Rauner’s most recent reforms, too.
State fairs would as well, if they were given the same scrutiny. The Illinois and DuQuoin state fairs alone lost $41.8 million between fiscal years 2001-2009, ignoring a 1993 Illinois Department of Agriculture statue for them to break even. The state cannot afford – among its countless other shortcomings – to have state fairs running deficits.
Meanwhile, a state like Texas has shown that public funding might not be necessary at all. The State Fair of Texas, one of the longest-running and largest state fairs in the country, is run as a private, nonprofit organization.
Innovation and meeting consumer demand is a more responsible position than reckless spending. Illinois should move toward the former in its involvement with state fairs, county fairs and beyond.