URBANA — With inaction in Springfield causing a funding drop for its scientific surveys, the University of Illinois is taking responsibility for funding the Prairie Research Institute.

The temporary shortfall amounts to $15.8 million in fiscal 2012.

After the state appropriations bill was passed in the spring, the deadline ran out on an implementation bill to fund the survey through the UI's general revenue fund. The appropriation bill and implementation bill are separate measures.

Prairie Research Institute Associate Executive Director Gary Miller said the surveys are running smoothly, in part because much of its grant money comes from the federal government and other state agencies, notably the Department of Transportation.

"We've been assured the money will come in the veto session," he said.

The legislature will return in October, and the UI expects that funding will be secured then.

The funding is for the Prairie Research Institute as a whole, not the five individual surveys that make it up, said spokeswoman Libby Johnston.

Miller said the institute is functioning normally.

"Everyone is getting paid; there hasn't been a holdup in the paychecks," he said. "The UI has be great through all of this."

Nevertheless, it's never relaxing to await necessary funding.

"It has been worrisome. There's a lot of pressures and issues," Miller said. "You don't have your money until you have it. We're a little unsure about things, but we're going ahead with our collections and we haven't cut back."

UI spokesman Tom Hardy said the lack of funding is only part of the institution's shortfall in state government funding.

"The university is managing, as it always does, to navigate around the latest obstacle thrown up by Springfield," he said via email.

The UI "still is owed more than $313 million in unpaid vouchers by the state for the fiscal 2011 year that ended June 30, so we'll add the additional $15.8 million in fiscal 2012 funding for the surveys to the state's tab," Hardy added.

He said administrators are dealing calmly with the situation.

"President Mike Hogan has been assured that the funding transfers for the state surveys will be restored when lawmakers return to Springfield for the veto session this fall. A number of funding transfers — not just the UI state surveys' funding — were not completed before the legislature adjourned last May, so funding for the surveys got caught up in a larger situation and we're assured that will be resolved. Meantime, we are managing cash flows and the new academic year will get off without a hitch," Hardy said.

"It's isn't like we were singled out," Johnson said. Other small agencies are also part of the implementation bill.

Miller said the institute is just opening a collection center for plants that has been in the words for a decade.

He said the institute's total budget last year was $75 million.

Much of that is from grants, particularly to work in fast-growing areas such as Chicago's collar counties.

"We bring in $4 for every (tax) dollar," Miller said.

Miller said State Sen. Mike Frerichs was working on the problem. Frerichs is out of the country now, and unavailable for comment.

The Prairie Research Institute was once the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability.

It was created in July 2008 to house four state scientific surveys — the Illinois Natural History Survey, the Illinois State Geological Survey, the Illinois State Water Survey and the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center.

In 2010, the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program became the fifth division, under the new name of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey.