With two weeks left to go before the Illinois General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn, two budget plans for FY2013 are on the table: Governor Pat Quinn’s recommended budget and an alternative budget framework approved by the Illinois House. The General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn on May 31, 2012. Bills voted on after that date require three-fifths majority to pass, rather than a simple majority. As discussed here, the Governor presented his FY2013 budget on February 22, 2012. The $33.78…
Faced with the threat of a significant budget gap in FY2013, the Illinois General Assembly has approved legislation that would reduce the State’s bill for retiree health insurance by shifting more of the costs to retirees. Senate Bill 1313 passed the Senate on May 10, 2012 by a vote of 31 to 20. One day before, on May 9, the legislation passed the House by a vote of 74 to 43. The bill eliminates provisions of State law under which approximately 90% of the more than 80,000 retirees covered by…
On May 7, 2012, the Civic Federation sent this letter to Senator Gary Forby and the members of the Illinois General Assembly. Click here to read the Civic Federation's Position Statement on SB 3564. Update: On May 9, 2012, the Illinois Senate narrowly rejected Senate Bill 3564. The vote was 29 to 23, with one member voting present. Passage requires a majority vote of the 59 Senate members. Dear Senator Forby: The Civic Federation opposes SB 3564, as amended, which would amend the State…
Update: On May 9, 2012, the Illinois Senate narrowly rejected Senate Bill 3564. The vote was 29 to 23, with one member voting present. Passage requires a majority vote of the 59 Senate members. On May 7, 2012, the Civic Federation sent this letter to Senator Gary Forby and the members of the Illinois General Assembly. The Civic Federation opposes SB 3564, as amended, which would revise the State Facilities Closure Act and make it more difficult for the Governor to close State facilities.…
On May 1, 2012, the Civic Federation announced its support for Governor Pat Quinn’s FY2013 budget recommendation based on an analysis by the Institute for Illinois’ Fiscal Sustainability (IIFS), the Federation’s State government research arm. This marked the first time that the Federation has supported a Governor’s budget proposal since it founded IIFS in 2008 to expand its State budget research capacity. IIFS research is supported by grant funding from the MacArthur Foundation. The Institute…
The Civic Federation supports Governor Pat Quinn’s $57.4 billion FY2013 recommended operating budget, because it acknowledges the depth of the State’s financial problems and would put Illinois finances on the road to recovery with major structural reforms to the State’s Medicaid program and pension systems. The Governor’s proposed FY2013 budget makes several important steps toward Illinois’ fiscal recovery. The proposal does not rely on borrowing, a departure from the State’s pattern of…
A key component of Governor Pat Quinn’s proposal to close the State of Illinois’ $2.7 billion Medicaid funding gap in FY2013 is an increase in the State’s cigarette tax. The Governor projects that a $1 a pack increase in the cigarette tax, to $1.98, would bring $337.5 million in new revenues to the State to pay for Medicaid expenses. Medicaid spending is reimbursed by the federal government at a rate of 50%. The Governor expects federal reimbursements to bring in another $337.5 million,…
Public officials and opinion leaders in Illinois have expressed much interest in the landmark pension reforms approved in Rhode Island in 2011. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel remarked recently that Illinois should look at reforms similar to those enacted in Rhode Island. Cook County Commissioner Bridget Gainer named her pension report after Rhode Island General Treasurer Gina Raimondo’s influential analysis of the pension crisis in that state. This begs the question: what exactly did tiny Rhode…
The Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois (TRS) has concluded that it can no longer rely on the State to follow the law for funding its five retirement systems and that sweeping changes are needed to sustain the pension funds. On March 30, 2012, the TRS Board of Trustees approved a resolution stating that “the fiscal situation of the State has deteriorated to the point that the Board no longer has confidence that the State will be able to meet its existing funding obligations to…
The Illinois House has approved a spending plan for FY2013 that would cut the State of Illinois’ expenditures from the level proposed by Governor Pat Quinn and use an additional budget surplus to reduce the State’s backlog of unpaid bills. House Resolution 706, approved on March 29, 2012, calls for spending $32.9 billion from general operating funds in FY2013. That spending level is $858.6 million, or 2.5%, below the expenditures proposed in the Governor’s FY2013 budget. The spending plan…
