2017 Year in Review on the Institute for Illinois’ Fiscal Sustainability Blog

December 27, 2017

The following are the five most read blog posts presented by the Institute for Illinois’ Fiscal Sustainability in 2017. These posts discuss issues ranging from Medicaid expansion to the end of Illinois’ historic two-year budget impasse and related legislation.

A Review of Medicaid Expansion in Illinois under the Affordable Care Act
January 12, 2017

Medicaid expansion was a key feature of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), designed to reduce the number of people without health insurance. While much of the debate about the 2010 law continues to focus on its insurance marketplaces, the Medicaid expansion portion of the law has led to a similar increase in healthcare coverage. This blog post examined Illinois’ expansion of the Medicaid program under the ACA.

Are Illinois Taxes High Compared with Other States?
April 7, 2017

This blog post explored the methodology behind several rankings of tax burdens among the states, including where Illinois falls in various rankings. As noted in the post, there is significant debate about what should or should not be included in the equation of relative tax burden.

Illinois Ends Two-Year Budget Standoff
July 7, 2017

As detailed in this post, the State of Illinois ended its two-year budget impasse on July 6, 2017, enacting a $36.1 billion spending plan with about $5 billion in tax increases. To break the logjam, the General Assembly narrowly overrode Governor Bruce Rauner’s vetoes of three budget-related bills with bipartisan support.

Veto of SB1 Leaves School Funding In Doubt
August 4, 2017

On a bipartisan basis, Illinois’ school funding formula had been criticized for years as providing too little State funding with too little attention to equity, resulting in disparate per-pupil spending levels. This blog post explained the various provisions of Senate Bill 1, which sought to remedy the outdated formula. After passing both houses of the Illinois General Assembly, SB1 was amendatorily vetoed by Governor Bruce Rauner, which left its future uncertain.

Update: Illinois legislators passed Senate Bill 1947 in August 2017, which kept much of SB1 intact. This post, which was one of the most read posts presented on the Civic Federation blog in 2017, provides additional detail on SB1947 and its impact on the Chicago Public Schools.

Is the State of Illinois’ FY2018 Budget Balanced?
September 7, 2017

Approximately two months after Illinois ended its two-year budget impasse, the Governor’s Office provided updated numbers that indicated Illinois’ FY2018 budget was more than $1 billion out of balance. This blog post examines why the estimates of the Illinois General Assembly differ from those of the Governor’s office and the implications for the State’s planned sale of bonds to pay down its then-$15 billion backlog of bills.