A court ruling on health insurance for retired State of Illinois workers could put additional pressure on the State’s stopgap budget for the year that began on July 1, 2014. In a 6 to 1 decision on July 3, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that health insurance subsidies for State retirees are protected by the Illinois Constitution’s pension protection clause. The provision states that “[m]…
Despite criticizing the General Assembly for not passing an adequate budget for the new fiscal year, Governor Pat Quinn signed the legislature's appropriations bills into law on June 30, 2014, the last day before the start of FY2015. The Governor vetoed $250 million from the capital budget, but the change will not affect the State’s operating expenditures. As discussed here, the FY2015 General…
UPDATE: In addition to the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), two other large State of Illinois pension funds have also lowered their assumed rates of return on investment. Both the State Universities Retirement System (SURS) and the State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS) recently reduced their assumed investment rates of return from 7.75% to 7.25%. SURS took the action on June 13, 2014,…
Under Illinois law, the State is required to share a certain portion of state income tax receipts with municipal and county governments in Illinois through the Local Government Distributive Fund (LGDF). The state revenue shared with local governments is a legislatively required transfer from the General Fund to the Local Government Distributive Fund. The Illinois Comptroller then…
Although Governor Pat Quinn originally proposed a capital budget for FY2015 with no new debt-funded projects, the General Assembly approved an additional measure that added $1.1 billion in new road projects that will be funded through the sale of long-term capital bonds. As previously discussed here, the Governor’s recommended FY2015 capital budget included $19.5 billion in total spending, of…
The following opinion piece by Civic Federation President Laurence Msall was published by the Chicago Tribune on June 5, 2014. State legislators left Springfield last weekend with very little to show for their disappointing efforts this year. Police and fire pension funds are still in danger of insolvency. A pension bill negotiated by Cook County and several of its unions stalled in the House.…
State statute governs all benefits and funding of public pensions for the City of Chicago. The City cannot contribute more to its pensions than the multiple of employee contributions allowed under state statute. There has unfortunately been some confusion in the media on this point ahead of a Monday, June 9th deadline for Governor Quinn to sign into law pension reforms for the City of Chicago’s…
A week after the Illinois General Assembly ended its spring session, legislative leaders circulated new information about the FY2015 spending plan approved by lawmakers. General Funds spending in the legislature’s budget totals $35.8 billion, according to a budget overview issued by Senator Heather Steans, who chairs one of Senate’s two appropriations committees. That total is $400 million…
UPDATE: Illinois General Assembly Passes FY2015 Budget On May 30, 2014, a day before the end of the Illinois General Assembly’s regular spring session, the Senate passed the FY2015 budget previously approved by the House. As discussed below, the budget does not cut spending or extend existing income tax rates that are scheduled to be rolled back midway through FY2015. It relies instead on …
More Illinois residents than originally projected are signing up for Medicaid as a result of the federal Affordable Care Act, but the long-term impact on the State budget remains unclear. Illinois officials had initially projected that 241,500 new recipients would sign up by the end of the current fiscal year on June 30, 2014. The current enrollment estimate for year-end FY2014 is 78.1% higher…
