Impact on Illinois' Structural Deficit
Release: October 21, 2019
The state of Illinois faces a significant structural deficit into the future. The report highlights the nature of the structural deficit and identifies two key causes: the state’s historically flawed tax policy and the plan devised for repayment of Illinois’ pension debt. CTBA proposes both the adoption of the Fair Tax and a reamortization of the pension debt as described in the report titled: Addressing Illinois’ Pension Debt Crisis With Reamortization. Doing so would allow the State to ensure full funding for the Evidence Based Funding Formula while also improving the status of Illinois’ public employee pension system and eliminating the State’s structural deficit by 2042.
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.
Turnaround Fact Sheet #1: Workers' Compensation
Release: March 16, 2017
This is the first in a series of CTBA Fact Sheets reviewing the proposals in Governor Bruce Rauner's "Turnaround Agenda," which the Governor's office has made a precondition of signing any state budget.
Illinois’ Significant Disinvestment in Higher Education
Release: January 27, 2017
Center for Tax and Budget Accountability Releases New Report on the Cost of Disinvestment in Higher Education
CHICAGO – Between 2000 and 2015, Illinois cut nearly $1.4 billion from General Fund appropriations to Higher Education—even before the ongoing budget crisis, which has cost Illinois colleges and universities over a billion addition dollars. That is one finding from Illinois’ Significant Disinvestment in Higher Education, a new report released today by the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (CTBA).