On January 11, 2012, the State of Illinois sold $800 million of General Obligation bonds to support capital projects. The bond offering included $525 million of tax-exempt bonds, as well as $275 million of taxable bonds to reimburse other governments for previously completed projects. The sale attracted considerable attention because it came just days after a rating agency reduced the State…
Governor Pat Quinn released a three-year budget projection for the State of Illinois this week that shows only minor improvements in the State’s financial circumstances in the near term and declining prospects for Illinois’ future fiscal stability. The budget plan, required by law to be issued the first week of January, provides an update to the FY2012 State budget after changes made during the…
This article discusses the State of Illinois’ upcoming issuances of general obligation bonds to fund its ongoing public works program. Plans include bond sales of between $500 million and $750 million on January 11 and additional bond sales up to $750 million in March following the release of Governor Pat Quinn’s proposed FY2013 budget. The article cites the Civic Federation’s projection that…
In the past two years, nine states have passed laws to reduce automatic annual increases in pension benefits for current retirees. The latest example is Rhode Island, which in November 2011 enacted legislation to suspend annual pension increases until the state’s retirement systems are more adequately funded. The table below, based primarily on data from the National Conference of State…
On December 16, 2011, the Governor signed half of a tax incentive package that was sent to him earlier in the week by the legislature. The package of tax incentives had failed to advance earlier in the veto session. After splitting a bill that passed the Senate but failed in the House into two separate measures, the House approved both sets of incentives on December 12, 2011. The Senate…
As previously discussed here, many controversial issues confronted the Illinois General Assembly as it entered its fall veto session. Pension reform, gambling expansion, tax incentives for corporations, the Governor’s budget vetoes and a list of pending facilities closures all loomed large on the fall legislative agenda. The session was originally scheduled for October 25 through October 27 and…
The State of Illinois’ statutorily required contributions to its five retirement systems will be $535.0 million higher than expected in FY2013, partly due to the impact of a pension reform law enacted in 2010. Required FY2013 state contributions to the five systems had been projected to total approximately $5.333 billion, based on actuarial valuation reports as of June 30, 2010. The retirement…
This article explains how employers in some states, including the State of Illinois, must pay higher taxes as a result of their state not paying back loans made by the Federal government to fund unemployment programs. The State of Illinois is issuing bonds to pay back the $2 billion debt, but employers will not see lower taxes until 2012. The Civic Federation says issuing bonds is…
The State of Illinois’ 44 regional school superintendents’ offices, which were slated for elimination in Governor Pat Quinn’s FY2012 budget recommendation, have been granted a reprieve—at least for one year. In presenting his proposed FY2012 budget to the General Assembly on February 16, 2011, the Governor stated that he was eliminating state funding for the offices in order to spend more in the…
This editorial discusses the lack of action so far on the part of State of Illinois legislators during the veto session to address issues in the State’s pension system and its backlog of overdue bills. It cites the Civic Federation’s estimation of the State’s obligation to the pension system, which is projected to increase rapidly over the next several years.
