Update: City has fixed billing issues

In April, the Daily News reported the city's health department had an electronic billing system that was incompatible with the state's, preventing the city from billing the state for its mental health services.

The city planned to close four mental health centers until these revelations. At one point in April, the city had billed only one percent of its expected billing levels, according the Illinois Department of Human Services.

A DHS spokesman told me that the city has fixed its billing issues. There's no word yet whether the mental health budget for 2010 will be affected by the past year's billing. However, DHS spokesman Tom Green says the state's budget crisis will affect the city's mental health budget to some degree.