Senate Bill 587 is designed to electronically submit transfers of

money to the comptroller office instead of using paper. SIU will use the bill to expedite university cash flow by paying vendors and travelers quicker.

SIUC Controller Jeff Holder said the new system creates good will between SIU and other agencies and limits the paperwork between SIUC and the comptroller office in Springfield.

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SIU will receive money quicker and vendors and travelers will receive their money quicker, which means we don’t have to worry about late charges, Holder said.

Holder said before the bill, documents and transactions were sent to the comptroller on paper and then had to be reentered into the comptroller’s office computer.

This bill stops the reentering of the data at the comptroller office, he said. It will now be submitted in an electronic format.

Ed Marshall, press secretary for Illinois comptroller Loleta Didrickson, said the $18 million spent on the electronic commerce bill will save Illinois $120 million the first year it is in place and a minimum of $20 million every year after that.

This will have an effect on all of the state agencies, Marshall said. The money saved could be used for other processes, like paying the Medicaid backlog, building prisons, and possibly education.

According to Marshall, the bill will cut the waste and inefficiency present under the previous paper-dependent system.

The state government is dependent on paper which costs money in postage, printing and labor. This bill will result in a better and smarter government, Marshall said.

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Patty Schuh, spokesperson for the Senate Republicans, said the bill was sponsored by Sen. Aldo DeAngelis, ROlympia Fields, at the request of the comptrollers office.

The bill is to help bring the office into the information age by allowing the technology to cut paperwork. It’s to improve the efficiency of the comptroller office, Schuh said.

Marshall said redundancies in the state’s 85 different accounting systems were a huge cost to taxpayers because each system had to be upgraded every year.

The state issued 14 million checks, he said. If you look at the cost in money for managing money, it equals $800 million, which is about $57 for each check.