The Senate failed to advance the state budget bill Wednesday
night throwing lawmakers off track for a Friday adjournment even after the two
Democratic caucuses and Gov. JB Pritzker announced a deal on Fiscal Year 2024
spending Wednesday afternoon and the Senate filed a budget bill.
Pritzker and Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) along
with House Speaker Chris Welch (D-Hillside) announced an agreement following an
extra five days of negotiations on a budget Pritzker pegged at about $50
billion for Fiscal Year 2024. The announced agreement largely preserves the
budget Pritzker proposed in February despite recent struggles to hammer out
exact spending and revenue figures but the budget filed in SB250 didn’t make it
out of the Senate before the end of the night.
The schedule set by lawmakers for the week required the
Senate to pass an appropriations bill amended to include the Fiscal Year 2024
budget. The bill would have then needed to be introduced in the House before
midnight to allow the bill to reach its required third day of review by the
chamber on Friday, the last scheduled day of session. With the budget failing
to move by the end of the night, lawmakers cannot adjourn any earlier than
Saturday.
The Senate filed a budget on SB250 around 9 p.m. Wednesday
night, but it was not called for a vote before midnight. Harmon told senators
around 10:45 p.m. they were waiting for feedback on the bill from House
Democrats who were caucusing to discuss the budget, and it would not be
possible for the Senate to advance the bill before midnight.
If the Senate passes the budget Thursday, the House would be
able to run session on that starts Friday and another session after midnight on
Saturday morning that includes a budget vote to meet the required three days of
review for the bill.
During a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Harmon brought
up the need for trust between the Senate and House to pass the budget without
changes forcing it to be sent back to the other chamber for a second vote to
stick to the Friday adjournment schedule.
“I'm not sure either chamber in the past would have trusted
the other chamber to adopt the budget without an amendment,” Harmon said at the
news conference. “I appreciate Speaker Welch's commitment.”
Harmon added at the news conference he had “hope” the
spending plan would pass his chamber Wednesday night. When pressed why he
wasn’t more definitive about passing the bill Wednesday night, Harmon
attributed it to the sometimes-difficult process of getting the budget
physically filed into a bill.
Exact spending and revenue figures were not made available
by Pritzker at Wednesday’s news conference.
As lawmakers came up on their self-imposed May 19 deadline
last week, they appeared to be having a hard time agreeing on what to do with a
program that provides health care to undocumented residents aged 42 and up. The
program started in 2020 just for seniors and lead sponsor then-state Rep. Delia
Ramirez (D-Chicago) said the program would cost $2 million. The department now estimates the program will
cost $1.1 billion to implement in Fiscal Year 2024. The department also expects
over 120,000 residents will be enrolled next year—a significant increase from
the roughly 56,000 it covers now, Capitol News Illinois reported.
Those estimates are also only if the program does not
change. Some lawmakers had proposed expanding the program to cover all undocumented
adults above age 18, which the department believes would cost an additional
$380 million. Lawmakers also have other priorities they want to fund this year,
especially on education, and increasing costs for the program could crowd out
other priorities.
To fix the problem, Pritzker said his administration will
get “tools” from lawmakers to manage the program’s costs “in a budget friendly
way.” A spokesperson for Pritzker said the estimate in the budget for the program is a cost of $550 million in
Fiscal Year 2024, shy of the department’s $1.1 billion estimate without any
changes to the program’s management. The budget does not appear to expand the
program’s scope.
“The possible management options include limiting future
enrollment, copays, ensuring we get every federal dollar available, a possible
move to managed care,” Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough said in a statement.
“By using these tools, Governor Pritzker is confident we’ll be able to
responsibly manage this program and preserve healthcare for more than 50,000
people who are already a part of the program.”
The budgeting challenges around the program come after
the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (CGFA) released
their April report at the beginning of May showing a major decline in personal
income tax receipts for the month that will erase a previously projected
multi-billion-dollar surplus. The report revised the Fiscal Year 2023 projected
surplus down $728 million and the year is now running $132 million higher than
this time last year. When discounting one-time federal dollars, Fiscal Year
2023 revenue is actually $193 million lower than last year.
The report did not make any significant changes to the
projected revenue for Fiscal Year 2024 as lawmakers work to craft the budget.
CGFA projects FY24 revenue will come in around $50.4 billion, which is still
above Gov. JB Pritzker’s initial projection of $49.9 billion of
revenue. Pritzker’s own Governor’s Office of Management and Budget revised
their projection earlier this month up to $50.5 billion citing an expected “reallocation”
of funds in Fiscal Year 2024.
One program the budget does not save is the Invest in Kids
Scholarship program. The program established in 2017 gave a tax credit to
donors who contributed to the program to help low-income students attend private
schools. The program could cost up the state up to $75 million annually, but
the tax credit is set to expire at the end of 2023. Pritzker said that doesn’t
mean the program won’t continue, but the budget will not be used to extend it
this year.