Dupage Policy Journal

With state revenues down more than $1 billion in the just-concluded fiscal year, state Rep. Amy Grant (R-Wheaton) is demanding accountability as part of the solution.

“We must continue to fight for transparency and accountability in the spending of taxpayer dollars as we push to get Illinois on the path toward economic recovery,” Grant said.

With much of the chaos tied to the COVID-19 pandemic that sparked business shutdowns across the state still lingering, Grant knows solubility won’t come easily. According to the legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the state ended the 2020 fiscal year with a drop of $1.135 billion in base revenues compared with the 2019 fiscal year.  

Most of the nearly 3% decline resulted from a drop in revenue from the personal income tax, which was down by more than 4%. At the same time, corporate income taxes dropped just over 14%, a $430 million decrease.

Grant argues the state’s newly installed $42 billion spending plan does little to help the situation.

“I voted against the budget because it was wildly out of balance, includes massive borrowing, relies on funds from a federal bailout that has not been approved by Congress, and cedes a tremendous amount of spending authority to Gov. (J.B.) Pritzker," Grant said.

Even as the coronavirus crisis has led to drastically reduced revenues for the state, spending in the new budget still tops last year's expenditures by nearly 8%. The plan also paves the way for lawmakers in Springfield to borrow another $5 billion from the government to hold the plan together.

“House Republicans pushed for a responsible, balanced budget that included a pay reduction for lawmakers,” Grant added. “What we got instead was a wildly out-of-balance budget that actually increases spending by $2 billion at a time when state tax revenues have plummeted. Democrats shut Republicans out of final budget discussions and made sure the budget that came to the floor included a nice pay raise for themselves.”