Forecasts for Illinois Budget Range From Bad to Worse
An archive of Illinois budget books in the Legislative Reference Bureau's law library in the Illinois State Capitol Building. Brian Mackey/Illinois Public Radio
Every day, Illinoisans hear about the human toll of COVID-19, but the novel coronavirus is also doing significant damage to the state’s finances.
State officials have until today been unable or unwilling to say just how bad the losses in sales and income tax might be. So a group of experts from the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois made their own assessment of the damage — or at least the range of possibilities of damage, which span from bad to worse.
Amanda Kass spoke with The 21st about the report she co-authored. Kass is an affiliate of the IGPA and associate director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Also on the show is Robin Fretwell Wilson, who recently took over as director of the IGPA.
My colleagues and I worked really hard on this @IllinoisIGPA report about the COVID-19 pandemic's potential impact on the state's finances....the tl;dr is revenue down, spending up. but give the full thing a read �� https://t.co/RTkoKLk6i1
— Amanda Kass (@Amanda_Kass) April 9, 2020
Note: This converstaion was broadcast before Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker released estimates of how much state tax collections would drop on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
$4.6B is about 10% reduction in est. 2021 General Fund revenue from previous estimate. The new rates from graduated income tax are estimated to bring in $1.2 billion in 2021 (in revised estimate) https://t.co/9ZW75fyM72
— Amanda Kass (@Amanda_Kass) April 15, 2020