With Budget Deal, State Can Finally Put Checks In Mail To Landlords

(CBS) – At the end of the month, you'll normally see longer lines at Illinois secretary of state driver's license bureaus.

What's not seen at places like Wheaton and Lombard are rent checks from the state, which is operating DMVs.

"We're very appreciate of the patience they've showed," Dave Druker, spokesperson for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, tells CBS 2's Jeremy Ross.

The office is renting about 120 sites across Illinois from property owners.

On average, Druker says, the state owes landlords 5 to 6 months' worth of rent. That includes unpaid utilities and other worker expenses that's an estimated $14 million dollars of deadbeat debt.

Blame the state budget squabbles in Springfield.

"This is the worst," Druker says of the delay in paying landlords.

So far, those property owners allow the state to continue business as usual -- accepting an IOU from the DMV.

Druker says the landlords have helped to put pressure on lawmakers to pass a budget, but would a short-term fix like the one approved Thursday only mean more late rent payments down the road?

"Hopefully that won't be the case," he says.

The checks could be going out to landlords in about a week's time.