Apparently stimulated by feature news stories about BRC Imagination Arts and the construction of the Lincoln Museum,
The Illinois Capital Development Board has budgeted $500,000 to determine if the state is owed money from any of the contractors who worked on the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
The Board says it is not targeting BRC specifically but reports link the action to news items:
In addition to discovering the state's interest in recouping some of the project's cost, the [Chicago] Tribune found that BRC spent about $356,000 of its (state funding] proceeds to hire law and lobbying firms to negotiate with the state on its behalf. Using government funds to hire firms to lobby for more government funds is not common, Arnold said, but it's not unheard of with large-scale projects, either.
