Thomson, a maximum-security prison in northwestern Illinois, has sat virtually empty since it was completed in 2001. The federal government announced plans to buy it in mid-December.

On the day before Veterans Day, Gov. Pat Quinn held an event in Chicago to announce the site for a new state-run nursing home for veterans.

The facility, to be paid for by the long-awaited capital construction program that lawmakers approved last summer, would be the state’s fifth veterans’ home and the first in the Chicago area.

The announcement made sense from a political standpoint. Quinn is running for governor, and the project will create hundreds of jobs in the construction industry.

The announcement also highlighted one of Quinn’s pet issues, veterans, and for good measure, was aimed at a major bloc of voters where no current state home for veterans exists.

Few doubt the governor’s sincerity on the issue of veterans and their families. He has attended more than 200 military funerals. He invited the mother of a deceased soldier to stand with him when he announced his bid for a full term as governor.

But his announcement of the new veterans’ home comes with a caveat that Quinn left unmentioned.

Although a lot could change between now and the time the Chicago nursing home is built, the state doesn’t appear to have the financial wherewithal to actually open such a facility.

In reality, all Quinn might have announced was the construction of yet another empty state-owned building.

Here’s why: Because of the state’s budget problems, the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs already has empty beds at its existing facilities.

It’s not because there aren’t enough veterans to fill those beds. It’s because the state hasn’t had the will to spend the money to provide adequate staffing for the facilities already in existence.

Take the veterans’ home in LaSalle as an example. An expansion of the facility was completed several years ago, bringing its capacity to 200 beds, up from 120. But, until this year, there wasn’t money in the state budget to hire staff for the added beds.

Quinn visited the LaSalle facility in March to say his budget proposal finally earmarked enough money to get the facility running at its full capacity. Yet nearly halfway through the fiscal year, with his budget proposal mostly ignored by lawmakers, only 10 of the new beds have been filled, according to figures provided by the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

The agency continues to interview prospective nurses and other staffers in hopes of bringing enough employees on board, said spokeswoman Sabrina Miller.

Examples of Illinois’ anti-Field of Dreams mentality dot the landscape of the Land of Lincoln.

On the far northwestern horizon of the Prairie State, a maximum-security prison has sat virtually empty since it was completed in 2001.

It wasn’t left unused by the state for a lack of inmates. The prison system is overcrowded, no matter how they count things at the Illinois Department of Corrections. The prison in Thomson was mothballed because none of the leaders of state government could figure out a financial way to truly open the state-of-the-art lockup.

The economic downturn after the 2001 terrorist attacks was the first excuse. Lack of political will by the Blagojevich administration was the second excuse.

Four governors after the prison in Carroll County was first conceived, Quinn announced in November that the federal government might finally take it off the state’s hands to house suspected terrorists. In mid-December, President Barack Obama’s administration announced it was proceeding with the sale.

About 175 miles south of Thomson, in Logan County, there are four 10-bed homes for developmentally disabled residents that sit completely unused. They were supposed to become home to people displaced by the closure of Lincoln Developmental Center two governors ago.

No one can decide what to do with the fully furnished facilities. Local leaders have pressed for several years for the state to use the vacant homes — as well as other buildings on the 100-acre Lincoln Developmental Center campus — but have gotten no bites from either Blagojevich or Quinn. The facilities sit empty, gathering mold, an investment of tax dollars slowly sinking back into the earth.

In Springfield, just blocks away from the Capitol, sits another monument to malaise — Southern Illinois University School of Medicine’s year-old Simmons-Cooper Cancer Institute building. The $21.5 million facility is empty and unused because the state ran out of money to finish it.

Based on a review of the statewide capital construction bill, these types of examples could multiply in the coming years if Illinois doesn’t change course.

The list of projects being funded by higher booze taxes, video gambling and added fees on motorists include the possible expansion of the veterans’ home in Anna — a project Quinn is likely to hail and promote at some point in his bid for a full term in office.

Universities across Illinois also are in line to get state funds for massive building projects, despite the effects of a state budget situation that has left them worrying about making payroll, curtailing hiring and imposing other cost-cutting measures.

At Western Illinois University, for example, president Al Goldfarb recently sent out a letter to the campus community calling for everyone to clamp down on spending because the state is so late in paying its bills.

Yet, at same time the university is worrying about its ability to pay its existing employees, the capital program contains a $42 million earmark to build a new WIU campus in Rock Island.

The capital bill also contains what amounts to billions of dollars worth of irony.

For example, one earmark is for $75,000 to upgrade a swimming pool in Taylorville. Yet, Taylorville is among dozens of prison towns across Illinois complaining that the state is months behind in paying its water bill.

While those empty buildings at Lincoln Developmental Center continue to attract mold spores, the capital plan calls for spending $200,000 to upgrade group homes for the disabled in Chicago.

The problem is endemic across all state agencies.

At the Illinois Department of Corrections, taxpayers are forking over tens of millions of dollars in overtime costs because the state doesn’t have enough money to hire the proper number of guards and cooks. Yet, the capital bill provides for more than $7 million to start planning a new cellblock at Stateville Correctional Center and a health facility to treat inmates who are ill.

You can’t blame politicians for wanting to cut ribbons on new projects, especially during an election year. But they need to be asked a follow-up question in every instance:

Until you figure out how to operate what we’ve already got, isn’t this new building, literally, just an empty promise?

The politicians will have an answer: By putting thousands of people to work building things, the state could see a bump in revenue from the added income taxes those workers will generate. That, combined with a tax increase and cuts to other programs, could help re-balance the state’s ledger, enabling the state to operate all these things it plans to build.

For now, however, the situation represents a window into the soul of Illinois voters.

After the scandals tied to the state’s two previous governors, Illinoisans don’t trust the politicians to adequately manage their money.

So, rather than pay higher income taxes to finance the largely unseen bureaucracy, we’ll hold our noses and pay higher taxes if it results in something concrete that we can see. Even if it is an empty shell.

Although a lot could change between now and the time the Chicago nursing home is built, the state doesn’t appear to have the financial wherewithal to actually open such a facility.

Taxpayers are forking over tens of millions of dollars in overtime costs because the state doesn’t have enough money to hire the proper number of guards and cooks. Yet, the capital bill provides for more than $7 million to start planning a new cellblock at Stateville Correctional Center.

Guest columnist Kurt Erickson is the state Capitol bureau chief for Lee Enterprises.

Illinois Issues, January 2010