SPRINGFIELD — Democrats who control the Illinois General Assembly head into the final days of the spring legislative session with several of the major initiatives Gov. J.B. Pritzker laid out in his February budget proposal, from about $900 million in tax hikes to legislation challenging the insurance industry, still unresolved.
Tax increases on sportsbooks and corporations, which Pritzker’s office says are needed to both balance the budget and maintain the state’s trend of credit upgrades, could be sticking points as legislators negotiate the governor’s $52.7 billion budget proposal. Acknowledging pushback from lawmakers, many of whom are up for reelection in November, the governor’s office has warned state agencies to prepare for cuts to an array of state services.
But at the same time, there is no shortage of interests lobbying for more money. The Chicago Teachers Union and the city’s public school system are seeking an increase in funding. While the CTU has pushed for $1.1 billion it says is needed to fully fund the city’s schools, Chicago Public Schools says it would settle for a $550 million statewide increase in school funding, which remains well above the $350 million Pritzker has proposed.
Two large unions — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union’s local outfits — are fighting to get wage increases for their members included in the final budget after they were snubbed in the governor’s original proposal.
Crowding the agenda while not formally on it, the Chicago Bears are trying to persuade Pritzker and the legislature to back public funding for a new lakefront stadium, and the White Sox also want taxpayers to help with a new ballpark. The governor has called the Bears’ proposal a “nonstarter,” and no legislation to facilitate any sports stadium plan has been filed.
Pritzker last week reiterated that his main objective is a balanced budget, “whether there are cuts that are made, revenue enhancement, whatever it is.”
“There’s only so much to go around, and we’re doing the best that we can to meet the needs of the moment that we’re in, and there are vital areas to put money and then there are less vital areas and, again, prioritizing those things every single year is part of my job and then, importantly, the 177 members of the General Assembly,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker’s budget included $182 million to fund the influx of migrants into Chicago from the country’s southern border and hundreds of millions more for two Medicaid-style programs for immigrants that were a major roadblock in budget negotiations a year ago.
Still, some of the biggest budget hurdles may be over Pritzker’s proposals to raise revenue by increasing taxes.
One proposal would extend a cap on losses large corporations can write off on their state income taxes, which Pritzker estimates would bring in $526 million in revenue. Another would more than double the tax on sports betting, a change estimated to generate $200 million. Pritzker has also resurrected a previously unsuccessful plan to limit the tax that discount retailers receive for collecting sales tax, which his office estimates would generate another $101 million.
Pritzker also proposed raising taxes on individuals by reducing the standard exemption for state personal income taxes, which would raise an estimated $93 million by increasing tax bills for Illinois residents.
A tax break has also sparked debate. Pritzker wants to eliminate a 1% sales tax on groceries. While some Republicans believe the idea is commendable, they’re concerned that municipalities around the state would have to pick up the tab. They’ve called for local governments to get some kind of public reimbursement for any resulting tax burden.
“If we don’t do that, all we’re doing is lowering taxes at one unit of government to increase them somewhere else,” said state Rep. Dan Ugaste, a Geneva Republican.
Deputy Gov. Andy Manar, Pritzker’s budget point person, earlier this month issued a memo to state agency heads advising them to identify possible budget cuts, writing “opposition” to the governor’s revenue proposals was “significant enough.” The memo implied that if the legislature doesn’t pull together support for Pritzker’s revenue plans, state program spending could be on the chopping block.
“The Governor will not sign an unbalanced budget. Therefore, we must prepare to implement a potential balanced budget scenario with $800 million less in available revenue,” Manar wrote. “While we do not know which specific programs would be impacted should the General Assembly choose to not pass the revenue package, we think it is prudent to prepare for the possibility.”
Pritzker last week declined to comment on exactly where in the legislature that opposition was coming from, but said there was “misinformation” circulating on two of his key tax proposals: the sports betting hike and the corporate write-off cap extension. On the gambling front, he emphasized that the tax on sports betting would be on companies like DraftKings and FanDuel, not “against sports bettors themselves.”
“Our leaders of our agencies needed to understand that if those new revenues don’t come through that we’ll probably be hearing from the legislature about cuts,” Pritzker said.
State Rep. Will Guzzardi, who is a part of a House Democrats’ working group on budgetary matters, downplayed the level of opposition against the governor’s proposal cited in Manar’s memo.
“I think ‘opposition’ is too strong a word from what I’ve been hearing from my colleagues. Some of these ideas are new to some of my colleagues,” said Guzzardi, of Chicago. “There’s some education that folks need to do.”
In a report released earlier this month by the Civic Federation, the fiscal watchdog group noted that Pritzker’s proposed “tax changes and enhancements” would close a budget deficit and bring it into “technical balance,” but the group cautioned that further tax increases could be unsustainable for taxpayers due to the state’s “already high tax burden.”
The group nonetheless said it supports increases to the evidence-based funding formula for Pre-K-12 education and increased appropriations to the Monetary Award Program grants for college students, which are part of Pritzker’s proposal. It also supports the governor’s budget goal of managing the state’s massive pension debt by increasing the funding target to 100% from 90% and extending the payment deadline by three years, to 2048.
But it’s not just the budget where Pritzker’s proposals are on the line.
Health insurance, consumer issues
In his budget address, Pritzker promised to expend political capital to battle the insurance industry over legislation that includes a prohibition on insurance plans requiring what is known as “step therapy” which is when the insurer requires a customer to try different treatments or medications before those prescribed by their doctor.
Doctors and patient advocates condemn the practice, saying it can worsen patients’ conditions. But insurance industry representatives say it keeps costs down.
The legislation would also prohibit insurers from requiring prior authorization, when patients sometimes need permission from insurance companies before receiving treatment for in-patient, or overnight, mental health care at a hospital. The bill would ban the sale of short-term, limited-duration health insurance plans, which don’t cover as many medical services as typical plans, and allow the state’s Department of Insurance to reject unreasonable price increases proposed by certain large group health insurance policies.
The House approved the measure last month in an 81-25 vote, and it is now before the Senate.
Bills to cap costs of glucose monitors for diabetics and genetic testing for cancer susceptibility both passed the Senate and are now before the House. Those with commercial insurance would pay no more than $50 to learn their risk for cancer based on family history, requiring medical coverage “catch up” with scientific advancements that can help patients, said bill sponsor Sen. Julie Morrison, a Lake Forest Democrat.
With reproductive rights being a signature issue for Democrats on the national level, lawmakers voted to increase insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization treatments by removing a limitation in Illinois that only requires insurance to cover four rounds of IVF treatments. The legislation awaits Pritzker’s signature.
In another bill tackling consumer issues, the House voted 71-35 to eliminate so-called junk fees or hidden charges that are often found at the end of receipts or last point of sale. The measure is now being considered in the Senate.
Another bill would prohibit consumer reporting agencies from including a person’s medical debt in their credit reports. The bill passed 58-0 in the Senate and 109-2 in the House and is now headed to Pritzker’s desk.
The legislation comes at the same time Pritzker has proposed steps to erase as much as $1 billion in medical debt for more than 300,000 Illinois families as part of his budget plan.
Workplace issues
Legislators are moving to prohibit employers from holding mandatory meetings with anti-union or otherwise political or religious messages for employees. The bill passed in the Senate on a party-line vote early this month and is scheduled to go before the House Labor and Commerce Committee this week.
The Senate last month also passed a bill raising penalties for violations of child labor law. President Joe Biden’s administration and some states have moved to strengthen enforcement against child labor violators in recent years while other states — including neighboring Iowa — have sought to weaken their laws.
“Illinois being a state that has had workers’ rights front of mind for years now, I said, ‘We are in a perfect position to actually go in the other direction and literally strengthen our child labor law,’” Chicago Democratic Sen. Robert Peters, chair of the Senate committee covering labor, said in an interview last month.
At the same time, legislation that would ban the subminimum wage for tipped workers seems to have stalled despite a similar initiative’s success in Chicago last year. The bill has not yet come to a full vote after passing out of the House labor committee early last month, amid opposition from the Illinois Restaurant Association.
Schools, mass transit, social services
A measure that would extend a moratorium on closing any Chicago Public Schools by two years is in the Senate after passing through the House last month in a 92-8 vote. The bill would bar the Chicago school board from approving “any school closings, consolidations, or phase-outs” until Feb. 1, 2027.
Pritzker has come out in support of the legislation, while opponents, including the CTU, have raised concerns that the measure could hurt neighborhood schools.
Lawmakers are weighing whether the Chicago Transit Authority should be consolidated with Metra and Pace into one agency as the agencies face a combined $730 million budget hole as soon as 2025. The proposal would replace the Regional Transportation Authority with a new Metropolitan Mobility Authority, which would oversee the operation of buses, trains and paratransit, rather than having the CTA, Metra and Pace each operate their own services.
On the social services front, legislators approved a measure pushed by Pritkzer to consolidate early childhood services under a single agency, paving the way for the creation of a new state Department of Early Childhood. If the governor signs the bill as expected, the new agency in 2026 would become an umbrella for early intervention for children with disabilities and developmental delays from the Department of Human Services; preschool programs overseen by the Illinois State Board of Education; and day care licensing responsibilities handled by the beleaguered Department of Children and Family Services.
Lawmakers are looking to provide the relatives of children in the care of DCFS with more incentives to maintain a home for youths as an alternative to the children being placed with strangers in foster care. Legislation dubbed the Kinship in Demand Act comes as DCFS has been under scrutiny for a range of issues including criticism over being unable to find adequate placement for youths under its purview.
The legislation would require DCFS to seek federal funding to start a “kinship navigator program” to assist relatives who are caregivers with the agency and increase financial support to these caregivers. According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, more than 10,000 children in DCFS live with relatives but over 60% of these caregivers are denied the foster care benefits necessary to care for a youth being placed in their household.
The bill passed 113-0 in the House on Wednesday and is now before the Senate.
Two bills aiming to make mental health care more accessible are also making their way through the legislature.
One is designed to encourage more behavioral health providers to enroll in commercial insurance networks and, in turn, reduce costs for some seeking their services. The bill, sponsored in the House by state Rep. Lindsey LaPointe of Chicago, would set a minimum percentage for behavioral health professionals to be reimbursed for care covered by state-regulated commercial insurance plans, among other requirements. It was passed by the House in an 86-20 vote last month and awaits consideration in the Senate.
A more narrowly focused bill aims to expand mental health care benefits for police officers and firefighters. The measure would mandate Illinois municipalities to cover couples and family therapies for these workers and their spouses. The first responders bill has amendments that still need to clear the legislature before the bill can be sent to the governor.
Olivia Olander and Olivia Stevens reported from Chicago.