Analysis of Illinois’ FY2020 Enacted General Fund Budget
Release: October 31, 2019
In his first year in office, Governor J. B. Pritzker signed a General Fund budget that the General Assembly passed into law — something it took his predecessor four years to accomplish. And while both the General Fund budget for fiscal year (“FY”) 2020 and the Governor are new, the fiscal problems which continue to afflict the General Fund are not. In fact, these problems are both longstanding and structural.
Illinois’ Two-Decade Disinvestment in Higher Education
Release: October 21, 2019
For two decades, Higher Education in Illinois has been cast aside. Despite the evidence and relationship between educational attainment and economic viability, Higher Education in Illinois continues to be divested.
Since 2000, General Fund appropriation for Higher Education in Illinois has been less than it was in FY2000. While FY2020 appropriations are more than FY2019, they are still not enough to make Higher Education affordable for many students in Illinois. This means that public universities and community colleges must rely more heavily on tuition and fees. In fact, average in-state tuition at an Illinois four-year public university has increased 136.3 percent from FY2000 to FY2017.
As a result, with General Fund appropriations being less than two decades ago and tuition costs increasing, Higher Education has seen an overall decline in enrollment. This negates Illinois’ plan to create a “well-educated workforce with skills and competencies to compete in the modern economy” as intended by The Illinois Public Agenda for College and Career Success. Hardest hit by the disinvestment in Higher Education are students in Black and Latino households.
In Illinois’ Two-Decade Disinvestment in Higher Education, CTBA analyzes everything from economic impacts of higher educations, General Fund appropriation impacts on Higher Education in Illinois, the reliability of public institutions on tuition and fees, which disproportionately affects low-income students and students of color, and how the growing cost of college has contributed to a decrease in enrollment in our public colleges and universities.
Governor Rauner's FY2019 General Fund Budget Proposal Neither Balances Nor Addresses Long-Term Structural Fiscal Issues
Release: May 24, 2018
Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 marks the fourth General Fund Budget proposed by Governor Bruce Rauner. For the first two years of Governor Rauner’s administration, FY2016 and FY2017, the state went without a full General Fund Budget. That gave Illinois the dubious honor of going the longest that any state in the country had ever gone without a budget. This budget impasse led to an explosion in the state’s deficit under Governor Rauner’s watch. The state’s backlog of bills was $5.97 billion on July 1, 2015, when the impasse began.
Governor Rauner's FY2019 General Fund Budget Proposal Is a Major Setback For Public Education
Release: February 15, 2018
Governor Bruce Rauner introduced his proposed fiscal year 2019 budget on February 14. But despite promising to help close the shortfall from adequate resources identified by the new Evidence-Based Model for school funding, the governor's budget actually cuts available resources for K-12 classrooms by an inflation-adjusted $547 million. This cut frustrates the core purpose of the Evidence-Based Model, which he signed into law just last year: To increase the resources available to Illinois public schools to the levels that evidence shows they need in order to succeed.