About the Candidate
Name: Susana A. Mendoza
DOB: May 13, 1972
Occupation: Illinois State Comptroller
Political Experience: Illinois State Representative, House District 1 (2001-2011); City Clerk of Chicago (2011-2016); Illinois State Comptroller (2016 -present)
Website: susanamendoza.com
Twitter: @susanmendoza10
Facebook: facebook.com/susanamendoza10
Instagram: @susanmendoza10
Candidate Statement
Hi, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza here, respectfully asking for your vote for re-election. Here’s why:
When you first elected me your Comptroller in 2016, I walked into the worst fiscal crisis in our state’s history.
A backlog of unpaid bills approaching $17 billion.
Nursing homes and hospice centers unconscionably waiting six months to a year to get paid, while connected consultants were on speed-pay.
The average bill in the comptroller’s office was 210 business days — that’s nearly a year old.
Small businesses and social service providers suffered like never before.
You elected me to turn things around, and that’s exactly what I did.
On Day 1, I put our state’s most vulnerable at the front of the line.
I delivered the largest financial transparency reforms in the history of the Comptroller’s Office, including my landmark Debt Transparency Act.
Newspapers around the country call my website the gold standard for transparency in COVID spending.
I eliminated our state’s backlog of unpaid bills — down from $16.7 billion to an Accounts Payable of $2.5 billion today, without using a penny of federal ARPA stimulus funds.
Instead of 210 days, state vendors are now paid in a week — the fastest vendor payment cycle in over 20 years.
I helped lead our state to its first 6 credit upgrades in over 20 years — in the middle of a global pandemic.
And on my watch, the state’s Rainy Day Fund has grown from less than $60,000 to over $1 billion — the most ever.
A remarkable turnaround that took strategic and responsible financial management on my part.
All this hard work I’ve done as your comptroller to fix the state’s finances? It’s to get Ilinois ready for its growth spurt. And it’s ready.
Thank you for trusting me to serve as your Comptroller, and I hope I can count on your continued trust and vote.
Candidate Q&A
Why are you running?
When I was first elected in 2016, I inherited the worst fiscal crisis in our state’s history — an average 210 business day delay in paying vendors, eight consecutive credit rating downgrades during the best bull market economy of our lifetimes, and a $16.7 billion backlog of unpaid bills.
Today, I’ve delivered the fastest vendor payment cycle in decades (down from 210 business days on average to my oldest bill being less than a week old today), led our state to six credit rating upgrades in less than a year (our first upgrades in over 20 years), and completely eliminated our bill backlog without using a penny of Federal ARPA stimulus dollars.
I’ve delivered the best results for Illinois’ finances during the worst of times, and thanks to my leadership, the best of times are ahead for our state. I’m running to continue the progress I’ve made and keep Illinois on the path to fiscal prosperity.
What does this office do well, and what needs fixing?
The Office of the Comptroller has done a lot well under my leadership, but don’t take it from me, take it from the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, who had never endorsed a Democrat for statewide office until they endorsed me recently, stating that “voters from both parties should rest assured that Susana is the right person to take on the difficult tasks ahead to protect our state’s finances and taxpayers’ checkbooks.”
As well as the Comptroller’s Office has performed under my leadership, I still want to see our state’s finances continue to improve. We need to continue getting credit ratings upgrades, continue to deposit money into our state’s Rainy Day Fund and pension obligations and continue to attract businesses and residents to our beautiful state. If I am re-elected, you can bet that I will ensure we do all of the above.
What is the most pressing issue facing your constituents and how do you plan on addressing it?
Now that Illinois is paying its bills and on the path to fiscal prosperity, it’s time to prioritize paying down our pension obligations and replenishing our Rainy Day Fund.
My current priority is passing legislation to mandate automatic deposits into the state’s Rainy Day Fund and Pension Stabilization funds to help Illinois be better prepared to weather any economic downturn and also address the state’s unfunded pension liabilities.
When I was elected in 2016, our state had less than $60,000 in its Rainy Day Fund — not even enough to cover 30 seconds of government operation. Today, I am proud to say that our Rainy Day Fund sits at over $1 billion dollars. We still have a long way to go, but we’re in much better shape now than we were 6 years ago.
What specific steps would you take to ensure your office is accessible and responsive to your constituents?
My office is already the most accessible, responsive, and transparent Comptroller’s Office that Illinois has ever seen.
During my first term, I fought to pass the Debt Transparency Act (DTA) — the most significant reform bill in the history of the Comptroller’s Office. My DTA mandated monthly, rather than yearly, reporting from state agencies to the Comptroller on the amount of bills being held at state agencies.
During my second term at the height of the pandemic, the online COVID-19 spending portal my office created has received national recognition as the gold standard for COVID-19 spending transparency.
Looking ahead, I am working to modernize our State Accounting Management System (SAMS) to make the Illinois Comptroller’s Office the most trusted source of government financial data in the country. We are currently in the process of building out this major tech implementation and look forward to fully executing it by the end of 2022, early 2023.