artisan politics are less of a factor in Illinois today than they have been in the past — at least that’s how several local officials and political analysts see it.

The real issue for Republicans is not partisanship, but the looming budget crisis and how the state and local governments will handle the largest budget deficit in the state’s history.

NIU associate political science professor Mikel Wyckoff said it does not really matter to counties and municipalities what party operates in Springfield.

“Ten years ago it might have mattered, but right now, there really isn’t any money available to fight over,” he said.

DeKalb Mayor Greg Sparrow agreed, but indicated he would like to see the parties work together to resolve the state’s budget crisis.

“Partisanship should be secondary when considering where this state should go,” Sparrow said.

Still, Democratic DeKalb County Board member Patricia Vary, representing District 10, said having a Democratic-controlled state could be beneficial to DeKalb County.

“We still need business investment, but Democrats seem to be more focused on social issues,” she said. “DeKalb has a good network of social programs, and those programs probably will see more protection from budget cuts with Democrats in control of the state.”

Vary also said many of the problems facing DeKalb should be non-partisan issues, such as improving education. She believes bipartisan cooperation will help resolve these problems before anything else.

Sparrow said he is glad to see Gov. Rod Blagojevich attempting to breach some of the lines between the parties. He identified one example of this as Blagojevich’s first appointment of Carl Hawkinson to the Department of Homeland Security. Hawkinson ran with Jim Ryan against Blagojevich in the last election.

“The budget will require a lot of creativity to solve, and we’ll need all the support we can get,” Sparrow said. “Division right now can only hurt us.”

Yet Republican DeKalb County Board Chairman Robert Prichard, from District 11, contended that partisanships have little or nothing to do with how local governments receive and distribute state and federal dollars.

He added that it is not a party’s control of Springfield that really makes a difference on the county level, but each administration’s philosophy of governance.

“Requests for state funding should be based more on merit than on political ties, and that is the way the law is set up,” Prichard said.

He added that the biggest issue is the way an administration chooses to allow local units of government the flexibility to operate autonomously rather than governing from Springfield.

“Just like states argue to the federal government for more rights and authority, we argue for more rights and authority for the county,” he said.

But Vary indicated that partisanship can play a role in the county’s politics.

“The [DeKalb County] Board is now 42 percent Democratic, and we hope to utilize the higher number of Democrats on the board to improve our finances and gain more attention in Springfield,” she said. “Our state representatives are Republicans, but they have been cooperative with both parties in the past.”

Sparrow said he doesn’t see higher education as a partisan issue and said both parties have a vested interest in maintaining state dollars for education.

“State funding for NIU is very critical to this community, but I don’t really see partisanship having an influence on [NIU] at this time,” Sparrow said.

Sparrow has experienced both sides of partisan politics first-hand, after switching from the Democrat to Republican party.

“I’ve always had a good relationship with both parties, and we will need more of that in the coming year,” he said.