Mission                                                                                                                             

Identify and analyze issues, develop policy options, and promote fair, efficient and progressive tax, spending and economic policies that improve the well-being of low and moderate income families in Illinois.

Organization Overview                                                                                                 

The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability ("CTBA") is a non-profit, bi-partisan research and advocacy think tank committed to ensuring that tax, spending and economic policies are fair and just, and promote opportunities for everyone, regardless of economic or social status. CTBA's mission is three-fold. 

First, CTBA develops comprehensive and accurate data sets that objectively describe the cost of and demand for public services, and government's fiscal capacity to fund those services.

Second, utilizing analytical research tools, CTBA evaluates the impact of fiscal policies on quality of life issues affecting families.

Third, CTBA designs and then promotes policies that would make a state's fiscal system sound, fair, sustainable and competitive, so that state government has the fiscal capacity to provide the wide range of economic, healthcare, education and social services demanded by the public. In each instance, CTBA's advocacy work grows out of the findings produced by objective examination of the data. 

CTBA focuses on fiscal capacity because communities with the greatest need for public services typically lack adequate financial resources to fund them. Frequently, the data show that for fundamental services like education, inequitable public funding results in inequitable services. CTBA's research confirms that the best way to ensure all families, whether living in rural, suburban, urban, economically distressed, middle-class or advantaged communities, receive quality public services, is to ensure the state plays its role in funding those services.

CTBA utilizes this data-driven approach to: (i) link fiscal policy to the availability of quality, essential public services; (ii) quantify the contribution public services make to creating a more just society, by assisting families attain more income stability, healthcare, social services, housing, access to jobs and access to a quality public education; (iii) identify both how public services contribute to the general economy and the creation of wealth, and when public spending or tax policy is not accountable or is not generating the anticipated public benefits; (iv) advocate on behalf of, and provide a voice for poor, low and middle income families who frequently are absent from crucial fiscal policy debates; and (v) inform the public debate on the role of government in contributing to a just society. 

CTBA uses a data-focused, bipartisan approach to work in partnership with legislators, community groups and other organizations to help change both public policy and perceptions. CTBA was founded in 2000. In its brief existence, CTBA has had a number of policy, media and outreach successes. From being appointed technical advisor to various state legislative committees and commissions, to ultimately helping draft legislation and design administrative reforms that have generated or maintained over $2 billion in revenue for public services and created the state's Earned Income Tax Credit, CTBA continually works to take a data-driven, bipartisan and collaborative approach to public policy reform.

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