ILOTA Communique December 2017 Communique - Page 9

October / November / December • Issue 4 • 2017
Maureen Mulhall, ILOTA Lobbyist
Professional Regulation
accounted for millions
of dollars in sweeps,
including:
• $612,700 from the
General Professions
Dedicated Fund
• $5,000,000 from
the Medical
Disciplinary Fund
• $1,500,000 from the CPA Administrative
and Disciplinary Fund
• $1,409,500 from the Professions Indirect
Cost Fund
The 2017 legislative year has come to an end
and the 2018 legislative year looms ahead. The
legislative year begins in January with a great
flurry of bill introductions and concludes in the
fall with the annual veto session. The driving
force in 2018 is obviously the General Election.
All 118 members of the Illinois House and 39 of
the 59 Senators are up for election. More than
two dozen incumbent legislators chose not to
run for reelection in their existing position, and
several more legislators have primary opponents.
Clearly, the face of the General Assembly is about
to change. Additionally, all of the constitutional
officers are up for reelection, most significantly
the Governor. It’s anyone’s guess at this stage
in the process as to who the next Governor of
Illinois will be. If you’re not already tired of
campaign commercials you will be by November
6, 2018.
The most significant issue of the spring 2017
legislative session was quite obviously the budget.
It took until July 6, but the General Assembly
was able to cobble tog ether a budget for the first
time in two years. Is it a perfect solution? Far
from it. Unfortunately, by some estimates the
budget is nearly $2 billion unbalanced. In light
of that the Governor has cut the budget by $156
million, including $89 million dollars in human
services funding. And the backlog of state health
insurance claims is over $5 billion. We aren’t out
of the woods yet with respect to the state budget.
We can only hope that the increase in the state
income tax will go towards paying overdue bills
and not new program spending.
The FY18 state budget provided for $1.2
billion in interfund borrowing. This borrowing
must be repaid within 24 months from the date
borrowed. While this borrowing will help in the
short term to help pay down the mountains of
debt the state currently maintains, at the end of
the day it must be repaid. The expectation is that
the increase in tax revenues will help pay off this
debt. Additionally, the FY18 budget also allowed
for $293 million in fund sweeps. As usual, funds
managed by the Department of Financial and
• $5,000,000 from the Nursing Dedicated
and Professional Fund
• $1,500,000 from the Dental Disciplinary
Fund
Illinois is faced with three challenges that
dramatically affect the state budget. First, Illinois
lags behind the nation and surrounding states in
terms of economic recovery. This is in part due
to challenge number two – Illinois is suffering
from a very slow rate of job growth. While
Illinois may see some jobs benefit to Foxconn
moving just over the border in Wisconsin, what
we really need is to land Amazon 2HQ, or the
Mazda or Toyota plants to help address our
higher than average unemployment. Finally,
Illinois has suffered an outflow of population.
We have lost four seats in Congress since 1992
due to this outflow. There are fewer people
available for the workforce, and because of this,
we have lost some our voice at the federal level.
The Spring 2018 legislative calendar will
be somewhat abbreviated due to the focus on
the March 20 primary during the first three
months of the year. Nonetheless, expect to see
approximately 4,000 bills introduced, budget
battles to continue, and the general acrimony in
the Capitol to persist.
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