June 13, 2017 UPDATE: The State of Illinois has renegotiated the termination thresholds on four of its five interest rate swaps to help avoid termination fees if the State’s credit rating is downgraded further. Original post published on May 19, 2017 With the end of the Illinois General Assembly legislative session looming and a budget compromise still out of reach, the…
May 7-13, 2017 is Public Service Recognition Week, an initiative of the Public Employees Roundtable (PER), its member organizations and the Partnership for Public Service. Founded in 1983, PER is a coalition of good government associations whose mission is to promote government employment and careers, educate Americans about the value of public servants and the services they provide, recognize…
Click here to read the full report. The Civic Federation’s Institute for Illinois’ Fiscal Sustainability not able to support Governor Rauner’s recommended FY2018 budget because it has an operating deficit of at least $4.6 billion, presents an insufficiently detailed plan for closing the gap and does not address Illinois’ massive backlog of bills. In addition to analyzing the recommended…
As Illinois approaches the end of its second year without a complete budget, lawmakers are debating a new plan to provide partial funding for higher education and human services. This blog post examines the size of the funding gap and how far the proposal would go toward closing it. Most State spending has continued during the prolonged budget impasse due to court orders, consent decrees,…
While Illinois lawmakers remain gridlocked over a State budget plan, another area shows promise of compromise in Springfield: government consolidation. With over 6,900 local government units, Illinois has more units of government than any other state. The multiplicity of local units of government, many of which are funded predominantly by property taxes, is often cited as a reason for high…
On Friday March 24, 2017 Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed Senate Bill 2437, legislation that was intended to increase city funding to help prevent the City of Chicago’s Municipal and Laborers’ pension funds from going insolvent within the next decade. The legislation had passed with large bipartisan majorities in the Illinois House and Senate. This was the City’s second attempt to improve…
On March 22, two State Senate committees heard testimony on Illinois’ fiscal crisis. The not surprising message of the nearly three-hour hearing: the State’s budget problems have built up over many years, driven largely by rising pension costs, and will not be easy to fix. Thomas Walstrum, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, testified about his research on the history of…
In addition to many other obstacles to achieving a balanced budget, Illinois now faces another setback this week, this time in the form of under-performing revenues. A report issued by the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) revised the agency’s earlier forecast of FY2017 General Funds revenues down by $674 million. The first forecast, issued in July 2016, had…
As Illinois endured its 20th month without a complete budget, Governor Bruce Rauner proposed a financial plan for the upcoming fiscal year with a significant operating deficit and no details on how to address the State’s multi-billion backlog of unpaid bills. The recommended budget for fiscal year 2018 has general operating revenues of $32.7 billion and expenditures of $37.3 billion,…
The Institute for Illinois’ Fiscal Sustainability at the Civic Federation today released its annual Roadmap, with recommendations to restore fiscal balance to Illinois. Illinois has gone more than 19 months without a full-year, comprehensive budget. This prolonged delay— unprecedented in recent history—is the result of a political struggle between Democratic legislators who control the General…
