Although Governor Pat Quinn originally proposed a capital budget for FY2015 with no new debt-funded projects, the General Assembly approved an additional measure that added $1.1 billion in new road projects that will be funded through the sale of long-term capital bonds. As previously discussed here, the Governor’s recommended FY2015 capital budget included $19.5 billion in total spending, of which $16.5 billion represented reappropriations from previous years and $2.9 billion were pay-as-you-…
State statute governs all benefits and funding of public pensions for the City of Chicago. The City cannot contribute more to its pensions than the multiple of employee contributions allowed under state statute. There has unfortunately been some confusion in the media on this point ahead of a Monday, June 9th deadline for Governor Quinn to sign into law pension reforms for the City of Chicago’s Municipal and Laborers’ Funds. Eight local government pension funds in the Chicago area, including…
A week after the Illinois General Assembly ended its spring session, legislative leaders circulated new information about the FY2015 spending plan approved by lawmakers. General Funds spending in the legislature’s budget totals $35.8 billion, according to a budget overview issued by Senator Heather Steans, who chairs one of Senate’s two appropriations committees. That total is $400 million higher than the FY2015 revenue projection of $35.4 billion adopted by the General Assembly and discussed…
UPDATE: Illinois General Assembly Passes FY2015 Budget On May 30, 2014, a day before the end of the Illinois General Assembly’s regular spring session, the Senate passed the FY2015 budget previously approved by the House. As discussed below, the budget does not cut spending or extend existing income tax rates that are scheduled to be rolled back midway through FY2015. It relies instead on short-term measures —including borrowing and shifting revenue from FY2014—to cover operating…
More Illinois residents than originally projected are signing up for Medicaid as a result of the federal Affordable Care Act, but the long-term impact on the State budget remains unclear. Illinois officials had initially projected that 241,500 new recipients would sign up by the end of the current fiscal year on June 30, 2014. The current enrollment estimate for year-end FY2014 is 78.1% higher at 430,000. Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that pays for healthcare for certain categories…
The Civic Federation opposes Governor Pat Quinn’s recommended budget for FY2015 because it uses revenue from extending the 2011 temporary income tax increase for new spending. The State’s fiscal crisis demands that any increased revenue be used to stabilize State finances by significantly reducing its massive backlog of unpaid bills. The Civic Federation is encouraged that the recommended budget recognizes the State cannot withstand a $1.8 billion reduction in revenues next year due to the…
As part of the FY2015 budget recommendation for the State of Illinois, Governor Pat Quinn provided two separate five-year projections for both “recommended” and “not recommended” budget proposals. The long-term outlooks show the implications of the extension of higher income tax rates in the recommended budget and the considerable spending reductions that would be necessary to balance the State’s budget if the increases were allowed to roll back under the not recommended budget. Under current…
The consolidation and dissolution of local units of government has been the subject of much discussion recently in Illinois. The purpose of this blog post is to briefly summarize a recent report released by the Illinois Local Government Consolidation Commission and other relevant legislation aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government operations by streamlining the procedures for annexing, consolidating and dissolving units of local government in Illinois. The Local…
Governor Pat Quinn’s recommended budget for FY2015 proposes that the State of Illinois build a financial cushion to deal with future economic downturns. The Governor suggests the creation of an adequate “rainy day” fund in a five-year blueprint for the State, but specifics of the plan have not been provided. The State’s perilous financial situation—a looming revenue loss due to income tax rate rollbacks, billions of dollars in unpaid bills left over from the Great Recession and uncertain…
Although the budget recommended by Governor Pat Quinn for FY2015 proposes extending current income tax rates to avoid a massive revenue cliff, it also relies on borrowing $650 million to close a budget gap and pay down a portion of the State’s backlog of unpaid bills. Despite the additional income tax revenues, total General Funds revenues from State taxes and fees combined with federal resources do not cover all the expenditures proposed by the Governor. As shown in this table, the Governor’s…
