Prairie State Wire

The House Executive Committee approved a floor amendment to a Senate bill that makes changes to Illinois' Fiscal Year 2021 budget.

House Floor Amendment 1 of Senate Bill 264 was introduced to the committee, with House Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) as the sponsor. 

"This bill will reflect the current budget amendment that is being discussed to provide funding not only for Fiscal Year 2021, but also a supplement for Fiscal Year 2020," Harris said on the floor during the meeting. "It also includes a listing of capital appropriations. I understand there may be a subsequent amendment to this to make some changes that are being requested in the Senate, just to be clear."

Harris said because Illinois is dealing with an unprecedented crisis, both human and financial, the situation is leaving the state with very difficult choices.

"As we present this budget, we’re trying to pick the best of a bunch of bad options to propose and, on top of that, we have the uncertainty right now of many of the items and facts we need to do a thorough budget-making we will not know now nor will we know before our new Fiscal Year begins," Harris said.

House Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon) asked what the estimated revenue for Fiscal Year 2021 would be. Harris responded that it would be $31.246 billion, adjusted to approximately $36.154 billion with other state sources and transfers.

Demmer asked Harris to clarify the transfers.

"That's something new here that wasn’t done in Fiscal Year 2020 or the proposed budget and that includes diverting school maintenance grants and (other) grants," Demmer said. "Can you describe diversions? And why they’re marked as revenues to the state?"

Harris said the amendment would only suspend new grants, so additional revenues would still be available.

Demmer asked if the amendment included revenues from the proposed graduated income tax amendment. 

Harris said it did not.

Harris said the state was also anticipating $4.5 billion from federal sources, but that Illinois can ask for up to $9 billion.

House Rep. Ryan Spain (R-Peoria) asked for clarification regarding a part of the bill that mentioned appropriating money from a coronavirus fund to the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO).

"I want to clarify your intentions in an area of the bill that stands out and is critically important to me," Spain said. "The amount of X dollars is appropriated from the Local Coronavirus Urgent Remediation Emergency Fund to DCEO. Can you clarify your intention for that?"

Harris said that would be enumerated in a forthcoming amendment.

"This is one of the items I am most concerned about is, as you know, a direct path for funding was made through congress for units of government with 500,000 or more population," Spain said. "That leaves downstate counties, like Peoria, wondering what the path will be for those counties."

Spain said this needs to be done properly, so that as many expenses related to the coronavirus as possible can be accommodated for the smaller units of government to help retain critical public safety jobs.

"In Peoria, the deep cuts to public safety employees will be very devastating to our community and can be partially mitigated through whatever our answer ends up being in this bill," Spain said.

The bill received eight "Yes" votes and five "No" votes, and will be favorably recommended to the House floor.