The Budget of the State of Illinois

 

I’ve spent several hours studying the Illinois State Comptroller’s website.  It has not been designed in a way that helps the public understand the big picture of where money goes.  I have taken figures from the FY 2020 allocations to create this budget picture of state budget allocations:

The Illinois Public Outlays in FY2020

I think this chart is based on outlays that include money that is not raised through Illinois revenue; that is, it represents state spending that comes from state sources and state spending that is allocations of federal dollars given to the state. So, other charts showing spending might only show spending of funds that are in general revenue funds or dedicated funds that accumulate from Illinois sources (like taxes on gasoline or marijuana, or fishing and hunting licenses, and so forth). 

Oddly enough, the Transportation budget was reported as being $32 billion, the largest item in the budget.  I think this was an exceptionally large amount, due to a capital improvement bill getting passed, so in normal years that would have been significantly less. Likewise, the capital development board had $9.6 billion appropriated to give out for construction projects and renovations. 

Healthcare and Family Services, which is mostly payments to doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, dentists, and so forth, made through health management organizations, using Medicaid funding (the state gets about half the money back from the Federal government in Medicaid spending), was the next largest item, and in years without a capital improvements act, it would be the largest item, at $26.6 billion.

K-12 Education was the third largest allocation from the state, at $13.55 billion.  There is also money raised at the local level through property taxes, so the state and local combined spending on education is much higher.

Illinois has not adequately funded pensions for state employees, but that is a priority now, and $9.6 billion was allocated for pensions.

Central Management had a budget of $7.88 billion.  Nothing on the Comptroller really explained that.  There needs to be more useful information for average citizens about some of the budget items.  I think the Comptroller ought to do a better job.

Human Services had a budget of $7.1 billion. Some of that is federal money that just passes through the state government, like Women and Infants and Children programs ($0.394 billion). One of the largest items in the Human Services budget is the $1.257 billion for Community Based Services for Persons with Developmental Disabilities and for Intermediate Care Facilities.  Mental health grants and program support were at $0.303 billion, but probably ought to be funded at over $1 billion.  Grants associated with Child Care Services were $0.402 billion. Those probably ought to be closer to $0.8 billion.

The Department of Revenue had appropriations of $6.44 billion, and much of that was in the form of tax refunds.  I think that would include the Illinois State Earned Income Tax Credit, but the Comptroller’s ledger didn't break that down.  

   Commerce and Economic Opportunity had $5.11 billion.  I hope much of that money goes to investments in low-income communities, or state investment in training people to start worker-owned cooperatives and other forms of democratic capitalism.

  Higher Education had allocations of $4.2 billion.  Not nearly enough.  It ought to be at least $6 billion, and probably much more even than that.

Environmental Protection had a budget of $3.23 billion.

Our state has not had a balanced budget in quite a while, and service on our debt cost the state $3.1 billion.

Children and Family Services (child protection services, foster care, adoptions, and that sort of thing) had appropriations of $1.35 billion.  Probably $1.5 billion is more like what we need.

Corrections had a budget of $1.6 billion, but that does not include the budgets for county and city jails, which probably had a similar cost, if not possibly more in aggregate, but that cost is paid by local sales and property taxes for the most part.  Still, the accusation that the “the state spends more on locking people up than educating them” is ridiculously false, as our state education budgets for K-12 and higher education are in excess of $17.7 billion before even factoring in local spending on schools and junior colleges.  Even if county and local jails cost twice-as-much as the state prison system, we would still only be spending $3.8 billion on locking people up. 

The Department on Aging only had appropriations of $1.3 billion.  That will need to go up as the state ages.

Elected Officers had a budget of $3.9 billion.  I do not understand what that represents.  I suppose it includes pensions as well as salaries for elected officers, but that is not just the governor and elected state officials (e.g., the Comptroller) plus all the members of the Illinois General Assembly, is it?  It must include their staff members as well, I suppose.  But, there is also a budget category for the legislature, and that is $0.5 billion ($500 million), which seems enough to pay for lots of legislative staff. 

The idea that we ought to de-fund the police to support mental health services and alternative approaches to non-violent and nuisance crimes may make sense at the level of local budgets in cities and counties, but at the level of the state government, Illinois puts up $69 million for the State Police.  While I think mental health services should be increased substantially, I do not think the money required to meet our needs could be found in a budget item that is only $69 million, when we need $1,500 million more for mental health and substance abuse prevention/treatment, in my opinion.

Anyway, that is an overview of the appropriations for the State of Illinois budget as it was last year (FY 2020 ended on June 30 of 2020, and we are now in FY 2021).  If these numbers are wrong, blame Susana A. Mendoza, our Comptroller. She may not think it is the duty of her office to explain the budget or give the public reports that show how the state spends its money so that common people can understand it (I have a doctorate and have studied public policy and economics, and even I was confused by the information on the website). Perhaps that is what the Treasurer or the Governor should do.  I often rely on people like the staff at the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability to explain the budget.  Rich Miller and Charlie Wheeler also help us understand.