Proposed Budget - Fiscal Year 2025
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker released his fiscal 2025 budget proposal on February 21, which calls for operating expenditures from all funds of $123.2 billion, a 1.6 percent increase from fiscal 2024’s level. General fund expenditures are estimated to be $52.7 billion in fiscal 2025, a 1.4 percent increase from fiscal 2025. Total state expenditures are comprised of general funds (41.7 percent), special state funds (35.6 percent), federal trust funds (14.8 percent), debt service funds (3.5 percent), highway funds (2.9 percent), state trust funds (1.4 percent), and bond financed funds (0.1 percent). General fund revenues are estimated to be $52.9 billion, a 1.5 percent increase from fiscal 2024’s level. The budget includes a $2.0 billion rainy day fund and assumes a general fund surplus of $298 million.Â
Proposed Budget HighlightsÂ
The proposed budget for fiscal 2025 builds on five years of historic fiscal progress with balanced budgets, nine credit rating upgrades, a $2 billion rainy day fund, the elimination of a bill backlog, and a GDP that exceeds $1 trillion. The proposed budget reflects full payment of the certified fiscal 2025 pension contribution and continues transformative investments in early childhood education and childcare, K-12 education, higher education, and efforts to fight poverty. In addition, it further strengthens infrastructure and creates jobs through the sixth year of Rebuild Illinois, the state’s multi-year infrastructure program. Highlights of the budget include:Â
Education
- $400 million in total funding for preschool, childcare workers, early intervention, and home visiting programs through the state’s Smart Start initiative.
- Smart Start combines human services and education investments to target Illinois’ youngest residents and make a critical impact.
- Proposes creating a new agency specifically focused on early childhood, ultimately bringing together programs that were under three separate agencies to streamline services and make navigating the system easier for providers and parents.
- The budget includes $13 million to begin building out the agency.
- Other key education investments include:Â
- Investing $350 million in the evidence-based funding (EBF) formula to bring the total EBF program to $8.6 billion, or a $1.8 billion aggregate increase in funding during the Pritzker Administration.Â
- Changing the state’s Medicaid program to permit the capture of additional federal match dollars, resulting in a $200 million funding increase for school districts.
- Reaching historic levels of scholarship and grant funding with an additional $10 million in monetary award program (MAP) grants.
- Building on historic increases last year, with a $30.6 million increase for operating costs for public universities ($24.6 million) and community colleges ($6 million).
Capital and Economic Development
- $500 million in capital investments to continue building Illinois into a world-renowned quantum computing hub.
- $200 million which will serve as the state’s match to aggressively compete for $11 billion in federal CHIPS research and development funding that will be made available to states over the next 10 years.
- $900 million for capital projects for maintenance and modernization of Department of Corrections facilities.
- $157 million for additional funding to support construction of the new Department of Public Health laboratory in the Chicago area and rehabilitation of the Carbondale laboratory.
- $100 million to the Department of Children and Family Services for a multi-year capital grant program to improve capacity for youth placement by increasing capacity system wide.
- $40 million to continue Illinois’s growth as a major competitor for site selection.
- $24 million for additional manufacturing training academies to train Illinoisans for jobs of the future, particularly clean energy manufacturing jobs.
Healthcare
- $10 million in general funds for a new program to purchase private medical debt of low-income residents from debt collection agencies at a significant discount and forgive those debts, funding up to $1 billion in medical debt relief.
- $23 million commitment to decreasing maternal mortality, particularly the disparities that cause Black women to be three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes.
- $6 million for Get Covered Illinois, the State’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplace.
- Also proposes the Healthcare Consumer Access and Protection Act— major changes to prior authorization and utilization management healthcare regulations to save Illinoisans money and ensure timely, effective treatment.Â
Human Services
- $50 million in newly proposed appropriation for Home Illinois, bringing the total line item to $250 million. This increase brings a sharpened focus on reducing racial disparities.
- The Home Illinois program is aimed at making homelessness a brief, rare, and non-recurring experience for individuals and families.
- $182 million commitment from the state to continue to support asylum seekers arriving in Illinois and close the budget gap necessary to maintain shelter and wraparound services.
- Nearly $35 million to continue funding and implementing recommendations from the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative.
Grocery Initiative
- Proposes the elimination of the state grocery tax and includes $10 million to address food deserts in underserved communities across Illinois.