Kane County Reporter

The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA), a bipartisan and bicameral body, has released its updated revenue projections for Illinois. The report indicates that Governor JB Pritzker's proposed budget is more than $1 billion out of balance.

Illinois Senate Republican Leader John Curran expressed concern over the findings: "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." He emphasized the need for the governor to control spending on non-citizen programs and prioritize taxpayer interests.

According to the COGFA report, state revenues for the next fiscal year are projected at $740 million less than what Governor Pritzker used in his budget address. When excluding the governor’s proposed changes to state law, as required by statute, the total deficit reaches $1.2 billion.

The governor's budget is heavily reliant on hypothetical policies and tax increases not yet proposed or approved by the General Assembly. Senate Republican Chief Budgeteer Chapin Rose remarked, "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."

If Governor Pritzker does not cut spending for noncitizen healthcare as promised, the projected deficit could increase to $1.6 billion. State Senator Don DeWitte commented on this situation: "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."

Additionally, COGFA projects a deficit of approximately $525 million for the current fiscal year. This suggests that before addressing next year's fiscal challenges, Illinois will need to cover a half-billion-dollar shortfall from last year.

The full report can be accessed here: https://cgfa.ilga.gov/Upload/03042025RevEstEconForecast.pdf