By CAPITOL NEWS ILLINOIS

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. JB Pritzker’s second-term legislative agenda will kick off in earnest next week as he proposes his fifth annual state budget to lawmakers in the General Assembly.

But while a governor’s proposal usually provides the framework for the state’s annual spending plan, it rarely makes it through the General Assembly untouched by lawmakers who have their own spending priorities.

The monthslong negotiating process involves dozens of budget hearings and behind-closed-doors meetings, eventually culminating in the budget’s passage – in normal years – sometime before the end of the legislative session, which is May 19 this year.

Here’s what to watch for ahead of Pritzker’s Feb. 15 address.

REVENUE ESTIMATES: Illinois is coming off a record-high $50.3 billion in base general revenues for the fiscal year that ended June 30 – about $8 billion more than had been anticipated when the Fiscal Year 2022 budget was initially approved in the spring of 2021.

Following that strong performance, lawmakers budgeted for an 8 percent decrease in the current fiscal year that began July 1. But in the seven months that have already passed in FY 2023, revenues are outpacing even last year’s strong performance by $2.3 billion, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability’s January report.

The strong revenue performance led COGFA to up its projections by $4.9 billion in a November forecast revision. The agency now anticipates revenue receipts will top last year’s totals by $259 million.

As the economic forecasting agencies mull the likelihood of a recession, we’ll be watching to see if Pritzker plans for a downturn in revenue or if the current-year projections for a surplus are updated in either direction.  

SPENDING GROWTH: In his second inaugural address last month, Pritzker telegraphed a few areas where he’d like to see increased state investment: child care, preschool and higher education.

That included making preschool “available to every family throughout the state,” and making college tuition “free for every working-class family.”

Details on those plans are lacking, so one thing to watch will be whether the governor proposes spending amounts or any specifics as to how such plans would be implemented.

Spending growth is important to watch because the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget’s five-year budget analysis projected Illinois could be in for a deficit of about $384 million and growing beginning in Fiscal Year 2025. Generally, that means the state must increase base revenues, cut expenditures or pass some combination of both.

It remains to be seen what, if any, new revenue sources or structural spending reforms the governor might offer in his address next week.

PENSIONS: At about $9.9 billion, the state’s GRF pension payment was its single biggest expenditure for the current year, topping the $9.8 billion spent on K-12 education.

While that number reflects the payment required by law, a recent COGFA report outlined another annually repeated criticism of the state pension funding formula: accountants say it comes up short. The report estimated the state would have to increase its contribution by $4.4 billion this year to stave off continued increases in unfunded liabilities.

While such a large infusion is unlikely – and the governor has staunchly resisted calls for a constitutional amendment to change pension benefits – we’ll be watching to see if he’ll propose any changes to the payment level required in law.

RECEPTION: How easy a path the governor’s budget will have can often be gleaned from the initial response to it. And with Democrats dominating both chambers of the General Assembly, the response from the governor’s own party will likely be a stronger indicator.

Democratic comptroller Susana Mendoza, for example, said in a recent interview with Capitol News Illinois she’d be opposed to new ongoing spending initiatives. While she has no formal vote on the matter, her voice has proven an influential one at the Capitol.

But Republicans will also make their voices heard. The House GOP laid out its asks for the budget year last month, including greater GOP involvement, an earlier adoption of a revenue estimate and more time to review the budget.

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CHILD TAX CREDIT: A group of Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday called for creating a state-level child tax credit that would give low- and middle income families up to $700 per child each year in tax relief.

But whether Gov. JB Pritzker includes such a plan in his budget proposal, scheduled to be delivered Feb. 15 – and whether it receives the endorsement of top Democratic leaders in the General Assembly – remains an open question.

Erion Malasi, director of policy and advocacy at the advocacy group Economic Security for Illinois, pegged the plan’s cost at somewhere between $700 million and $800 million annually.

State Sen. Mike Simmons, D-Chicago, said passage of such a measure would benefit about half of all children in Illinois.

Illinois already offers an earned income tax credit, or EITC, which is available to people who meet certain income guidelines, even if they have no children. A child tax credit would be an additional payment to parents. Like the EITC, the child tax credit would be refundable, meaning if the amount of the credit exceeds the filer’s total tax liability, the excess amount would be repaid to the taxpayer.

The language of the proposal is contained in Senate Bill 1444, which Simmons introduced Tuesday. Under the legislation, individuals with income below $50,000 and married couples filing jointly with incomes below $75,000 would be eligible for a $700-per-child tax credit.

For tax filers with incomes above those limits, the amount of the credit would be reduced by $24 for each $1,000 of additional income.

But the idea comes at a precarious time for Illinois, and it could face resistance due to its estimated annual price tag. Although the state has been running multi-billion dollar surpluses in each of the last two years, the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget has projected that state finances could start running deficits as soon as Fiscal Year 2025.

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PRIVACY RULING: People who’ve been subject to fingerprinting, face or retinal scans as either employees or customers of Illinois companies have five years to file lawsuits if they believe the business violated a stringent state privacy law, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled this week.

It’s the latest in a handful of cases that have reached Illinois’ high court in recent years, all refining the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act. Also known as BIPA, the first-of-its-kind law has, since 2008, made Illinois the only state that grants a private right of action to sue over the improper collection and mishandling of biometric data.

The justices on Thursday ruled BIPA has an unequivocal five-year statute of limitations on all claims under the law – not a one-year window as employers and business groups had hoped for.

In this case, logistics company Black Horse Carriers Inc., which has since been acquired by trucking giant Penske, faced a class action lawsuit. A former employee initiated the suit, alleging the company violated BIPA by requiring time clock fingerprint authentication without maintaining a publicly available policy on how the company would treat employees’ biometric data.

The suit also claimed Black Horse failed to provide notice to employees that the timeclock was collecting their fingerprints, and didn’t explicitly get employees’ consent. The company argued the court should’ve applied the one-year statute of limitations under Illinois’ Right of Publicity Act. But the court unanimously disagreed.

In issuing a blanket five-year statute of limitations for all BIPA claims, the 5-0 majority of the court emphasized that “the full ramifications of the harms associated with biometric technology is unknown.” Without the law, the court wrote, individuals whose biometric data was improperly collected or disseminated might never even know it – at least until they felt the consequences.

Thursday’s opinion was another legal victory for proponents of BIPA – especially a handful of law firms specializing in filing class action cases over biometric data. Those attorneys have made the same basic argument in thousands of lawsuits over the last several years: if someone’s identity is stolen, they can obtain a new social security number. But if their biometric data is stolen, it’s impossible to get a new fingerprint or face.

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MEGASITE GRANTS: Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday announced the creation of a $40 million grant program to incentivize the creation of large development-ready areas known as “megasites” across the state.

Megasites are large swaths of land, developed to attract businesses such as manufacturing plants, warehouses and distribution centers. Pritzker said developing these sites will help make Illinois more competitive, especially as sectors including clean energy and manufacturing are rapidly expanding in the U.S.

The Megasites Development Program announced Monday uses Rebuild Illinois capital funds aimed at providing the necessary infrastructure improvements to develop these megasites. Other eligible costs include various land acquisition, clean-up and development expenses.

“The new megasites investment program grants will help communities innovate their own business attraction efforts and will spur economic development in communities across our great state,” Pritzker said at a news conference.

The program is open to private entities, nonprofits and local governments, and the application portal is open through April 6. Those receiving the grant must match each dollar granted by the state with other private or local funding.

Grant allotments would range from $250,000 up to $5 million, depending on the acreage of the site. Eligible sites must have at least 200 contiguous acres and applicants must own or have an agreement in place to acquire the property when they apply.

Kristin Richards, acting director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, said the investment-ready sites may lure manufacturing and distribution hubs, or large scale one-stop shops that produce multi-part products within one location.

“I like to think of megasites as turn-key houses: move-in ready, with zero hassle, which is exactly what fast-growing businesses are looking for,” Richards said.

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GUN LAWSUITS: A temporary restraining order that partially blocks Illinois’ new assault weapons ban from being enforced will remain in place after a divided state appellate court panel’s ruling Tuesday, Jan. 31.

The restraining order was issued Jan. 20 by Effingham County Circuit Judge Joshua Morrison, but it applies only to the 800 or so gun owners and firearms dealers named as plaintiffs in the suit. The case was filed by southern Illinois attorney Thomas DeVore, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for attorney general in 2022. On Thursday, Feb. 2, a White County judge issued a similar order for a separate set of plaintiffs.

At the appellate level, in a 2-1 ruling, the justices said plaintiffs in the Effingham County case made a plausible argument that the law violates their rights to equal protection under the law. Under the law, some categories of people – active and retired law enforcement officers, correctional officers and military personnel on active duty, for example – may purchase and possess those weapons. Other groups, such as retired military personnel or those who are not on active duty, are barred from obtaining assault-style weapons after Jan. 1, 2024.

Attorneys for the state argued that it was reasonable to exempt certain groups of people who have extensive training in the use of such firearms. But the court majority rejected that argument, saying: “The fundamental rights at stake require lawmakers to ‘narrowly tailor’ legislation to effectuate its purpose.”

In accepting the argument that equal protection rights are at stake, the appellate court also rejected arguments that the General Assembly violated the Illinois Constitution’s requirements that bills deal with only one subject, that they be read three times on different days in both chambers, and the guarantee of due process.

Justice Barry L. Vaughn wrote the decision. Justice Mark M. Boie concurred in the opinion while Justice James R. Moore dissented in part, saying he would have overturned the circuit court entirely by rejecting the equal protection argument.

The law bans the sale and purchase of a long list of semi-automatic weapons defined as “assault weapons,” .50 caliber rifles and large-capacity magazines, as well as various devices that effectively convert other weapons into something identical to one of the banned weapons.

The ruling means that the state is prevented from enforcing the law against the named plaintiffs in the case. The decision is expected to be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.

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TEACHER SHORTAGE: Illinois schools are still grappling with a teacher shortage that seems to only be getting worse, a recent survey by the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools shows.

This mirrors the state’s own data, which shows Illinois’ teacher shortage is at the highest level in the last five years. More than 5,300 classroom positions, including administrative and support personnel, went unfilled in 2022, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

As a result, teachers often have to absorb unsupervised students into their existing classes or fill in for subject areas in which they have no background.

According to their 2022 survey of more than 700 districts, 68 percent of districts reported fewer teacher applicants than the year before. And 45 percent of districts reported the shortage in their school had worsened from the year prior.

One area of focus, IARSS President Mark Klaisner said, is improving the pipeline between education institutions and Illinois’ K-12 schools by starting educator recruitment earlier. That could include programs that allow middle schoolers to shadow teachers.

He also advocated for dual credit programs that allow students to earn some college credit while in high school.

The report also calls for direct state funding to key areas to encourage more diversity within the profession. This includes increasing funding from $4.2 million to $7 million annually for the Minority Teachers of Illinois scholarship; investing more money into the Illinois Teachers Loan Repayment Program which helps pay down student loan debt for Illinois college students that qualify to teach in low-income areas; and further increasing the state’s Monetary Award Program by $50 million.

To better fill gaps in the short term, Klaisner pointed to incentivizing teachers to complete additional subject endorsements, which can be done through the ISBE website.

Other recommendations include observing how districts have used federal pandemic-era Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds to help teachers get provisional licenses in shortage subject areas. Additionally, the survey recommends strengthening the state’s educator prep programs by showing which paths have stronger results in teacher placement and success.

Several survey respondents also noted that a 2010 state law creating a lower tier of pension benefits for new employees has made the teaching profession less desirable from a compensation standpoint.

The survey also showed strong support for policies increasing the number of days retired teachers can substitute without impacting their retirement benefits and allowing currently enrolled teaching students with at least 90 credit hours to be licensed as substitute teachers.

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COLLEGE BOARD CONTROVERSY: Gov. JB Pritzker this week asked the College Board for more information about its reasoning for changing the final framework of a new Advanced Placement course in African American studies after it had been criticized by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Although we are pleased to see many core ideas remain in place, there are still significant issues with the way the College Board has chosen to present this curriculum,” Pritzker said in an email statement. “Refusing to name the components of Black history that Gov. DeSantis is most afraid of like intersectionality, feminism and queer Black life but still including them in the curriculum can be viewed as a weak attempt to please extremists.”

The College Board – the not-for-profit organization that administers the SAT test as well as AP courses through which high school students can earn college credit – first released a pilot course in August in 60 high schools. It then spent months refining the course with feedback from college professors and high school teachers before releasing the final framework on Wednesday, Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month in the United States.

But the subject immediately became embroiled in culture war politics when conservatives attacked it for promoting “critical race theory” – the idea that racial disparities are the result of systemic prejudices that are woven into the fabric of institutions. DeSantis blocked it from being offered in his state, claiming it violated a Florida law known as the “Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act,” or the Stop WOKE Act.

According to reports, DeSantis specifically objected to the teaching of concepts like “intersectionality” – the overlapping of categories such as race, class and gender and other sources of discrimination to create unique dynamics and effects – as well as Black queer studies, the Black Lives Matter movement and the reparations movement.

That prompted a backlash from Democratic lawmakers in Florida as well as Pritzker, who wrote to the College Board on Jan. 25, warning it not to change the curriculum or cave in to pressure from conservatives like DeSantis.

The College Board, meanwhile, issued a news release announcing the final framework and addressing controversy.

“No states or districts have seen the official framework that is released, much less provided feedback on it,” the board said. “This course has been shaped only by the input of experts and long-standing AP principles and practices.”

A spokeswoman for Pritzker said Wednesday that any local district in Illinois that wants to offer the course is free to do so.

 

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide, as well as hundreds of radio and TV stations. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.