South Cook News

Today, the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) released updated revenue projections, indicating that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's proposed budget is more than $1 billion out of balance. The report highlights discrepancies between the governor's figures and COGFA's projections.

"The independent COGFA numbers show the governor used aggressively inflated revenue projections to minimize the cuts or tax increases his budget would require to be balanced," stated Illinois Senate Republican Leader John Curran. He emphasized the need for Governor Pritzker to control spending on non-citizen programs and prioritize taxpayers.

According to COGFA, state revenues for the next fiscal year are projected at $740 million below what the governor presented in his recent budget address. When excluding proposed changes to state law, as required by statute, the deficit rises to $1.2 billion.

The governor's budget relies heavily on theoretical policies and tax increases not yet proposed or approved by the General Assembly. "I would like to say that I’m shocked that the governor’s plan is so far out of whack, but the truth is that we’ve been saying this all along," commented Senate Republican Chief Budgeteer Chapin Rose.

If Governor Pritzker does not cut spending for noncitizen healthcare as promised, the deficit could grow to $1.6 billion. State Senator Don DeWitte remarked, "While the governor spends his days chasing national headlines doing interviews on anything but the state he was elected to manage, this new report shows that his fuzzy math budget is out of balance by over $1 billion."

The report also projects a current fiscal year deficit of approximately $525 million. If these projections hold true, Illinois will need to address this shortfall before tackling next year's financial challenges.

For further details, refer to the full report available online.