Rock Island Today

Sen. Win Stoller (R-Peoria) is unimpressed with Gov. J.B. Pritzker's budget plan.

“Listening to his address today it felt to me he was spiking the football,” Stoller said. “It’s almost to me as if he was declaring 'mission accomplished.' The reality is we still have the highest pension debt in the country, the worst credit rating of any state, inflation is raging, crime is out of control and last year 113,000 people left our state.”

He said that the budget plan's increased spending is how Illinois got “in this situation in the first place.”

“We got this huge windfall this year fueled by the federal government, but we have not changed our underlying behavior,” Stoller said. “This budget increases spending by $2.5 billion. The revenue windfall is temporary.”

During his State of the State address, Pritzker said he’ll set aside $600 million to fund the state’s  budget stabilization fund this year and another $279 million next year. 

“For years, Illinois has been without any financial cushion in the event of a downturn, and 22 months ago we experienced how debilitating that could be,” Pritzker said during his address. “Now that we’ve paid down our bill backlog and consistently balanced the budget, it’s time to begin restoring our state’s long-neglected budget stabilization fund, also known as the Rainy Day Fund. Right now the average state can run for 29 days on its Rainy Day Fund. In Illinois, we can run for 15 minutes.”

Pritzker’s state budget totals $112.5 billion, Patch reported.

Of that, $45.5 billion would be from the state’s general revenue fund and the rest is federal funds, Patch reported.

Public employee pensions are a big part of the budget, Patch reported.