When the Illinois General Assembly overrode Governor Rauner’s veto of the FY2018 budget package in July, it estimated that the enacted budget would have an operating surplus of about $360 million. Since the override, Governor Rauner has insisted that the legislature’s budget plan results in a deficit rather than a surplus. This week the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget (GOMB) released…
For nearly two months, the fate of Illinois’ budget for the current fiscal year was in doubt because of Governor Bruce Rauner’s veto of a school funding bill. With compromise education funding legislation enacted on August 31, attention can now turn to the FY2018 budget itself and specifically on whether it is balanced. An operating budget is balanced if expenditures match projected revenues. On…
Seven weeks after the General Assembly enacted Illinois’ first budget in three years by overriding the Governor’s veto, the backlog of bills owed by the State still stood at $14.5 billion.[1] As this blog discussed in July, the General Assembly’s budget did not attempt to address the entire backlog in a single year. Rather, the Budget Implementation (BIMP) Act authorized a package of measures…
After two years with no complete budget except for public school funding, Illinois now faces the prospect of beginning the 2017-18 school year with a budget for everything except schools. On August 1 Governor Rauner issued an amendatory veto of the school funding bill, SB1, passed by the General Assembly on May 31. Because the appropriations bill enacted in July over the Governor’s veto required…
In this segment, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall discusses key aspects of the State of Illinois’ FY2018 budget and the challenges the State still faces. He says the most important aspect of Illinois having a budget is that it puts parameters on the obligations the State will in incur in the coming fiscal year.
Higher education was one of the areas hit hardest by the State of Illinois’ two-year budget impasse. This blog post examines how higher education fares under the budget enacted earlier this month by the General Assembly’s override of Governor Bruce Rauner’s vetoes. The new budget has appropriations for fiscal year 2018, which began on July 1, and additional appropriations for the previous fiscal…
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…
In the following news pieces, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall discusses details of the State of Illinois’ FY2018 budget plan and the impact the budget will have on the State’s finances. He says that the enactment of the State’s FY2018 budget is a great step in the right direction but will not fully end Illinois’ long-term financial crisis. ----- The Wall Street Journal: Illinois…
This segment discusses how the State of Illinois could lose the Powerball and Mega Millions lottery games if the State does not reach a budget agreement by the end of this month. Civic Federation President Laurence Msall makes the point that this development is yet another blow to Illinois' fiscal reputation and notes that the loss of revenue from those games will be money that is not available…
The Illinois General Assembly ended its regular session on May 31, 2017 without passing a budget, heightening concerns that the State might move into a third year without a complete financial plan. Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service immediately lowered Illinois’ credit rating by one notch to just above junk status. S&P cited “the severe deterioration of Illinois’ fiscal…
